An Injustice of Severe Magnitudes...

       After a 2 month layoff from the blog world, we are back... Now as you probably know, the NFL and its greedy, selfish, and villainous owners have locked the players out from the game. This is catastrophic, as the NFL is probably the greatest thing since sliced bread. What does this mean for the fans, players, and the game itself? Well, I have one simple answer to that... KEEP READING!

NFL Commissioner/Hypocrite of the Year Award recipient
Roger Goodell

        If you're unfamiliar with the story, which I hope you are not, here's how it is. Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner and main representative of the NFL and its owners, is now possibly known as the biggest hypocrite in sports(see Jose Canseco for dispute). Not only has Goodell enforced a no-tolerance policy on head-hunting, or hits to the head; but Goodell wants to mandate an 18 game schedule to increase annual revenue by approximately $1 billion. Now if you don't realize what's wrong with this right off the bat, you obviously don't know a thing about football. Goodell says he wants to prevent further injuries to the head, mainly concussions; however, wouldn't adding 2 games to the season schedule promote the chance of injury to players, especially to those who belong to teams not making the playoffs. It not only ruins the schedule system that is in place currently(which is perfectly fine), but will also shorten the duration of the average NFL career, standing at 3.3 seasons per player. The REAL reason behind Goodell's continued enforcement of a non-toleration for hits to the head is to prevent the acts of lawsuits by former players whom have sustained concussions throughout there career, and thus further sustained permanent brain injuries and have had their lives altered by head injuries. That is the reason why GOODELL wants to lock out the players.

         The main reason why the NFL owners want to lock out the players, and have successfully done so, is simply for more cash in their pockets at the expense of the players, the fans, and the great game of football itself. The financial juggernaut known as the National Football League accumulates apporximately $9 billion annually through ticket sales and commercialization, which is then split among the players and owners. Under the collective bargaining agreement that had been in place previous to yesterday(agreed to in 2006), the owners would take $1 billion right away, and would further divide the rest of the revenue. The original sum of money the players would earn collectively would come out to a total of $4.8 billion. However, the owners would now like to take $2 billion off the top and further divide the rest, which would then lower the pot of player money to $4.2 billion. Based on the revenue of the average NFL team, the salary cap of each team is approximately $128 million. That translates to a loss of almost 5 teams worth of salary, something the players definitely would NOT stand for. Even though there was no salary cap in place last year due to the possible expiration of the collective bargaining agreement, there must be one in place in order to prevent the possible act of a bigger, more profitable team such as the Green Bay Packers or Chicago Bears buying their way to a Super Bowl win, whereas a smaller team such as the Carolina Panthers may not be able to do so.

        The final problem between the owners and players association is the institution of a rookie wage scale. Now, if you actually have paid attention to football at all, you might be wondering, "hmmm, but don't both sides agree upon those terms?" Why yes, yes they do, saddened football fan, but the problem awaits both during and after the draft. Now both sides would like to prevent paying unnecessary sums of money to top 5 draft picks such as Rams QB Sam Bradford(6 years, $78 million, $50 million guaranteed), or Falcons QB Matt Ryan(6 years, $78 million, $34.75 million guaranteed) or to even prevent what happened with Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell(6 years, $68 million, $31.45 million guaranteed), one of the biggest NFL draft busts/failures of all-time. Well... what makes the draft so fun is that a lot of picks get moved around for players, or more picks. Now the problem with this is that with no collective bargaining agreement in place, no players can be signed or traded... WAIT A MINUTE! That also means that... YES! Draft picks cannot be signed either, which leaves them in a state of limbo after being drafted, which makes some wonder why a draft is even in place this April. This is a very serious situation, and due to previously trading of draft picks between teams for this draft, a "SuperDraft", consisting of players of this year's draft class and next year's as well, will definitely NOT happen. Now I don't know if the owners(by the way, most of them look as if they lived through World War I{see Raiders owner Al Davis}) realize what they are doing, but in a sense, they could be losing several future NFL stars who can't find a job this year, because they are ineligible to return to their respective colleges.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith

Although the NFL owners have now locked out the players at the moment, the NFL player's association, led by executive director DeMaurice Smith, has officially decertified their union, meaning the players can now seek an injunction in court and file a lawsuit so that not only the players get their paychecks, but football can further resume for a full season this year. These lawsuits will consist of a series of long and heated court battles. However, the players seem to have the edge considering federal judge David Doty is considered to be "pro-player's union". For now, the NFL may be in limbo and may seem to never re-establish, but have no fear, Tom Brady and Drew Brees are here, as they will be the main representatives of the NFL player's union in court. Let's only pray that there may be football this year.