Who do you side with in the NFL labor talks?

• Swamp Fox

  For me, it's a no-win choice. The question seems to be, who is being the greediest? I would have to say that the owners are being incredibly greedy, and if collective bargaining is tampered with eventually, I expect that you can cancel perhaps not just the season but the sport itself. I realize it's only in the public services sector right now, but it won't be nearly enough for those carrying the corn knives and advocating that we cut everything that allows people to rationally discuss their conditions of employment.
• thavoice

  INteresting little snippit in the PPG about the negotiations. It comes from an owner though...albeit one of the most trusted and looked-up to in sports.
  
  
  It is not so much that Art Rooney II and other National Football League owners expected representatives of the NFL Players Association to merely accept the proposals made to them during their negotiating sessions.
  
  According to Rooney, they even expected the players union to challenge the offer and come back with a different proposal. But they didn't expect what ultimately happened: For the players to not even take the time to study the offer and walk away from the negotiating table.
  
  That, of course, led the players to decertify as a union and trigger the situation that exists today: A lockout by the owners that is the first work stoppage in 24 years for the NFL, America's most successful sports league.
  
  "To me, that sort of was the tipoff that they weren't really interested in getting serious," Rooney, the Steelers president, said Sunday in an interview with the Post-Gazette. "What we offered them, there's no reason why they wouldn't take it and look at it. They could have said 'That's not enough, we need more.' That wouldn't have been surprising. But, to not even take it, I'm not sure what purpose that served.
  
  "That was probably another indication they weren't that interested [in negotiating]. It made us think this was their plan all along."
  
  
  
  Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11073/1131883-66.stm#ixzz1GatujNNA
• Sage

  

  I always roll with the side with less cash: in this place, the players.
  
  NFL owners say they have enough cash to lose the entire season---AND YET THEY NEED MORE?
  
  PLZ.
  
  Players all day. It's their blood, sweat, and tears, which make this all possible.
• thavoice

  So this is what we have.....Owners state that the union wanted this all along to go to court and anti trust stuff because they put an offer on the table and they didnt even acknowledge or comment or send a counteroffer.
  
  Union says that owenrs wanted lockout all along because......the owners have enough money to do without a season.
  
  Um.....all along everyone knew this was a possibility. So why is it wrong that the owners were prudent and saved up some $$$ for this possibility? I remember last year that the union stated that players should start saving too in case of a work stoppage.
  
  The proposal that was released looks pretty good....at least good enough that the union should counter offer. Mr Rooney stated that if they were interested in making a deal without the courts they would have looked at the deal, counteroffered and started this process going good.
• O-Trap

  

  From a legal standpoint, I side with the owners.
  
  I also think they're the ones being stupid about this, and they should STFU.
• Art Modell

  

  I'm on the owners side. The players are slowly coming out and making asses out of theirselves comparing it to slavery, calling the owners liers etc. Shut the league down for a year or two and let the players put their free college education to work for them. They are to stupid to realize the owners have them over a barrel. The first paycheck they miss,they'll be crawling back for a worse deal they could've had a week ago.
• Raw Dawgin' it

  

  Art Modell;713152 wrote:I'm on the owners side. The players are slowly coming out and making asses out of theirselves comparing it to slavery, calling the owners liers etc. Shut the league down for a year or two and let the players put their free college education to work for them. They are to stupid to realize the owners have them over a barrel. The first paycheck they miss,they'll be crawling back for a worse deal they could've had a week ago.

  
  Just think of how many women roethlisberger will rape without football.
• O-Trap

  

  Art Modell;713152 wrote:They are to stupid ...

  Irony.
• like_that

  

  O-Trap;713163 wrote:Irony.

  
  
  lol yup.
  

  Art Modell;713152 wrote:I'm on the owners side. The players are slowly coming out and making asses out of theirselves comparing it to slavery, calling the owners liers etc. Shut the league down for a year or two and let the players put their free college education to work for them. They are to stupid to realize the owners have them over a barrel. The first paycheck they miss,they'll be crawling back for a worse deal they could've had a week ago.

• Raw Dawgin' it

  

  HAHA Stick to the basement Modell