I had this nice recap all typed up about how the Pittsburgh Power’s inagural game went (hint: they lost). I was gonna make fun of Ron Jaworski, give some outsiders’ insight about the Power, but that’s hardly going to be the big news on the blogs. Here’s the quick recap:
- Arena football is fun to watch.
- The Soul’s receiver, Donovan Morgan, is a showboat. You’re playing arena football, don’t act like you’re a talented athlete.
- Paul Edinger made a sweet field goal to tie it with no time left.
- Bernard Morris was pretty streaky, but he showed some fire and leadership late in the game.
- Ron Jaworski sucks, Philadelphia sucks.
See, without a CBA in place, it seems that all NFL facilities are off-limits to players. So, Troy Polamalu couldn’t rehab his injured Achilles tendon at the Steelers’ training facility (even though he spends his offseason in southern California, that’s besides the point). Minicamps won’t happen. Training camp can’t start. There is no scheduled season this fall.
Of course, this is all pending a settlement in court. There will still probably be football in 2011, but now it has to go through court before it does.
If you want to see the owners’ side of it, NFL Network has been airing gratuitous viewpoints from the owners’ representatives, which are little more than name-calling and whining that the players planned to go to court all along because they could get more in a court ruling than in direct negotiations (oh wow, are you serious? I can’t believe they’d try to get more than the owners want to give!). Right now the owners are just mad that they have to take this to federal court, where they will be required to disclose their financial records.
Records which, presumably, show how Jerry Jones can afford a multi-billion dollar stadium with a double-sided 70-yard HDTV, and yet the owners aren’t making quite enough money. I’m really pro-player here, and while some idiot would love to chime in, “Hey, what about the fact that minimum wage is only half a million dollars for every player! They don’t have it so rough!” well, you’re kind of wrong. The players that come to mind when you think of football players making money are Tom Brady or Albert Haynesworth; guys that are making a ton of money. But for every multimillion dollar contract in the NFL, there are eight guys on special teams trying to make enough to live on. What do you think Tyler Grisham makes? Or did you ever wonder what happened to Arnold Harrison? Not everyone is rolling in cash in the NFL.
Plus, I refuse to align myself with a group that includes Jerry Jones.
In any case, we now begin the often long and arduous legal process. Until there’s a decision in the courtroom, there’s no more NFL football.
I’ll leave you with good news though. The NFL draft actually doesn’t have any player participation, including the draftees. The NFL Draft is the owners getting together and deciding amongst themselves who gets the rights to what players coming out of college. So while the legal squabbles rage on, clubs will still choose players that they’ll try to sign once a new CBA gets worked out.
So until the end of April, we’ve at least got some stuff to talk about.
