The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2020 season, and following its 10-year run, there looks to be a fight between the league and the NFLPA.
This has been rumored for many months, and executive director DeMaurice Smith still cannot see any way around a work stoppage being required prior to the 2021 campaign.
“No. We prepare for war,” Smith said (via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com) when asked if any hopes for a smooth CBA agreement exist. “So if we’re able to get a collective bargaining agreement done, that’s great. But all of these men went through a unilateral declared war on players in 2010 and 2011. I think it’s important for [NFL commissioner Roger Goodell] and I to have a wonderful open discussion, but he represents the owners, and we represent the players.”
Smith does not see any circumstances under which he would agree to extend the current CBA, but the recently reelected union boss didn’t close the door on early negotiations after the 2018 season (Twitter links via NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero and the Washington Post’s Mark Maske).
“This collective bargaining agreement was painfully negotiated at a time when the league secured a $4 billion war chest to basically put us out of business,” Smith said. “There are a lot of great things about the collective bargaining agreement, but whether it’s the great things or the thing that we don’t like, collective bargaining agreements are grinding, exhausting elements that come out of two parties that want fundamentally different things.
“So, I could never imagine a world where you would simply put a page on the back of it that says, ‘This document is now extended until 2035.”
Player discipline will be a central issue to the next agreement, per executive committee member Zak DeOssie, as will the resistance of the long-rumored 18-game season. NFLPA president Eric Winston remains opposed, a stance the players have long held.
Smith said he’s engaged in discussions with Goodell about injuries sustained on Thursday-night games. Possible fixes suggested in those talks were possibly scheduling bye weeks in front of teams’ Thursday assignments and implementing unspecified mandatory rest periods for players. Placing byes in front of Thursday games may conflict with the league’s London agenda. Many teams given the England games prefer their bye to come after that trip, so navigating around that could be difficult.
This sounds like exactly what the nfl needs.
Perhaps this idiot should find a new cliche “we prepare for war” Really? Anybody at the negotiating table in danger of not making it home to their loved ones that night? It’s bad enough when players use that analogy, but at least they are actually beating each other up. Not to mention, the league(specifically the players) aren’t exactly in good graces with our service men and women as it is with all this taking a knee garbage. It’s a bad choice of words for some clown hack that is clearly looking at this as opportunity to be in the limelight. Besides, I don’t think Godell and the machine that is the NFL is gonna be intimidating by these bush league antics, threatening a strike before they’ve even really dug into negotiations. Just not a good look on several levels.
Completely agree. Analogies of millionaires vs billionaires who get to go home to their families at the end of the day, shouldn’t compare negotiations to war. We shouldn’t lessen how terrible real war is.
My thoughts exactly. I have no sympathy for billionaire owners, but I sure don’t have any for an idiot who thinks using a war analogy in this situation is called for.
With you on that Bryzzo!! These fools dont know what war is all about other than on TV…
There is nothing preventing the NFL from adding additional bye weeks. There should probably be one every month. The NFL will still have multiple games on TV every week, so that means extra revenue. If it truly cared about player safety, it would have already done this. The players are already sacrificing by playing on Thursdays. If rosters are not going to be expanded, then players need more rest. The most frustrating thing about football is that injuries can make or break a season as much as anything else.
(by the way, the Mexico City games make sense, London does not)
The decline in ratings this year and now this goof spouting off about millionaires not going to work isn’t going to do anything but further hurt the game. Maybe they can all go play for McMahon.
NFL players are getting screwed royally by the worst CBA in sports. It’s about time the NFLPA starts advocating it’s members.
Totally agree. The fact that NFL players have such a short career average has given the owners leverage by making a real holdout tough. While as a fan I love Thursday games and would love a longer season(by spreading out byes, not by adding games) I still hope the players win this standoff. These players risk more than any other union of athletes in the country and they deserve more.
And McMahon will put out the same awful product he did 15 years ago, if you want to watch it good riddance.
I know that the owners and players both realize that if there is a work stoppage that the existence of the NFL is at risk. People are already fed up and tuning out in droves. But go ahead and just go on strike or lock the players out…the people will wait