Shame on this Union
They have met, they made no progress and the problems continue to exist.
Real problems, image problems, problems for the NFL, the Players Association, the game.
Four hours of talks led to a breakdown, with neither side willing to give an inch, while the credibility chasm around the players grows wider and wider.
Perception outflanks reality when it comes to NFL discipline. The league wants to remake its procedures of how to handle players, their salaries, their roster spots, once they are arrested, charged, or indicted for a criminal act.
Up till recently, Commissioner Roger Goodell let the law takes its course before disciplining players, and then he himself, handling whatever appeal process took place. That luxury no longer exists, thanks to Ray Rice, Greg Hardy and some of the other ilk in the NFL.
Society wants action. An embarrassed league needs to take action. The Union is stone-walling the whole process, hiding behind the ‘due process shield’. You know the one about innocent till proven guilty, let me keep playing and collecting my paycheck.
So what if I whipped the son to the point of causing significant cuts and welts on four different body part. So what if I choked my girlfriend, even if she was pregnant. So what if I tossed another down stairs, into a wall and onto a bed like I was making a quarterback sack. So what if I blew (.17) on a DUI traffic stop.
The league is facing pressure points to deal with the minimal few bums in the league who keep getting into trouble. The union is trying to use league discipline as a bargaining chip, as if the NFL should give them something for the right to have a black and white set of rules and penalties.
Troy Vincent, former star DB, a union activist, has gone to the other side. He now runs Player discipline on Park Avenue for the commissioner. Vincent hit a TD bomb when he said the union has a right to bargain for free agency, salaries, bonuses, cap money, health issues, working conditions, but they have no right to try and negotiate right-vs-wrong.
It would be nice if the two sides joined hands and came up with a program that if you are charged with a crime, you are taken off the active roster, and your salary is frozen in an account. If convicted you get real NFL discipline and sanctions. If not, you go active again and get your back pay.
Anybody out there besides me that thinks it is a disgrace Adrian Peterson is getting 690,000 per week to sit at home in Texas and watch his Vikings on TV, till his case goes to trial? You bothered that Greg Hardy is collecting 7M in salaries over a 10-week span, waiting for his domestic abuse trial? And it goes on and on with other players, alleged rapists, drunk drivers, etc.
The only one penalized right now is the club, losing the player.
Unions are great to represent their clients against ownership. Unions are wrong trying to use discipline laws as a bargaining chip at the negotiations table.
DeMaurice Smith, the Union boss wants his players to play, or get paid, regardless of what they do on the field on in the streets. Put your union card away and stop shouting about your rights. The fans and the media to start shouting the union and its anarchist ideas are wrong.
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