The NFL labor battle

NFL

The NFL labor battle


Roger Goodell was in the midst of a leisurely training camp tour last monthNFL jersey when the NFL commissioner NFL jerseysbegan experiencing severe labor pains.

Goodell, as NFL apparelpart of his weeklong bus trip to seven NFL camps with Hall of Fame coach and broadcasting icon John Madden, initiated locker-room meetings withcheap nfl jerseys players at each stop, and the level of interrogation he faced became increasingly charged as players expressed anxiety and anger over anfl merchandise potential lockout next spring.

At one nfl merchandisepoint in the commissioner’s visit with the Cleveland Browns, linebacker Scott Fujita(notes), a member of the NFL Players Association’s steelers jerseysexecutive committee, asked: “What do the owners want? What’s it going saints jerseyto take to get a deal done?”

“I can’t answer that,” football jerseyGoodell replied.

“You’re the football jerseysNFL commissioner,” Fujita shot back. “You’re here as the mouthpiece for the owners, and you can’t even tell us what they want? The CBA [collective bargaining agreement] is up in March. Don’t you think you need nhl jerseyto start giving us some answers?”

By the end of his visit with the Browns, players were referring to the league’s chief executive as “Roger the Dodger.” It got worse for Goodell during the final visit of his tour, this stop coming at the Indianapolis Coltsnhl jerseys’ training camp. According to two sources familiar with the meeting, some Colts players admonished Goodell with swear words, to the point where nhl team jerseystar quarterback Peyton Manning(notes) was embarrassed by their behavior. Veteran center Jeff Saturday(notes), another executivehockey jersey committee member, cut the meeting short to keep the situation from escalating further.

Welcome to thenhl hockey jersey strange world of the 21st-century NFL, a wildly profitable business in uncertain economic times whose proprietors and employees can’t just get along. With the two sides seemingly headed for a rancorous and incongruous labor showdown next spring, America’s most prosperous jersey devilsand popular sporting enterprise could be walking a fine line between hard-fought progress and shameful self-immolation.penguins jersey

Two years agoblackhawks jersey, when the owners voted unanimously to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement following the 2010 season, it set the stage for a mlb jerseyconfrontation that could well result in the league’s first work stoppage since 1987. As the deadline for striking a new deal nears – mlb jerseysthings will likely come to a head on or around March 1 of next year – each camp is preparing for battle on numerous fronts. There has been baseball jerseylegal wrangling, political maneuvering, url=http://www.nhl-jersey-shop.com/mlb.html]baseball jerseys[/url]spin-doctoring and economic leveraging by both sides … and much of it has been mlb baseball jerseylost on a blissfully oblivious fan base.

Internal NFLPA studies have shown that only 33 to 40 percent of hardcore NFL fans have the impending labor drama on their radar screens. For everyone phillies jerseyelse, the prospect of football interrupted – and the potential havoc it could wreak upon everything from video games to fantasy drafts – may come as an unwelcome shock.

As we head into a season cardinals jerseythat could end with an abrupt dose of harsh reality, here’s a fan’s guide to the labor landscape based on exhaustive research and conversations with owners, NFLPA officials, players, agents and other league insiders.