OPINION: NFL And Players Continue to Go Through The Motions

Coach Johnson used to yell at one of us at least once a day, “You are just going through the motions.” It meant we were blocking the sled and running plays without enthusiasm or emotion. We weren’t trying to improve or “getting better,” as Coach Broyles used to say.

The NFL and the Players are continuing to just go through the motions. The lawyers are just going from courtroom to courtroom, the spoke persons are spinning their respective sides of the story, and Judges rule and both sides holler appeal. It feels like watching two Giant Sumo wrestlers collide in the middle and then back off to run at each other again.

The 8th Circuit has stayed the lower court’s injunction, thus for the near future the player’s are locked out from practicing or getting paid. The players are in another court trying to get at the owner’s war chest of cash from the TV Networks, but regardless of the ruling the loser will appeal and attempt to reverse whatever decision the Court makes. Meanwhile, the time to lace up one’s pads is fast approaching with neither side appearing willing to give ground.

In the negotiations the stalemate appears to be solely about money. There is no underlying right or principle at risk, like free agency or pension or health care security. If it is, neither side has been able to articulate the issue. So what needs to happen?

When we couldn’t seem to muster up some enthusiasm on the field and continued to “go through the motions,” the coaches would decide to ramp up the intensity. Drills like “bull in the ring” or the “suicide drill” would be ordered up, and then forget “tip-toeing around,” practice would be held at “full speed,” until someone “drew blood.”

How can that happen in the polite atmosphere of “negotiation” and “mediation,” where suits and ties are substituted for “full pads?”

I suggest a “closed practice.” In football it is where there is no press and no spectators are allowed, and you go at it until “you hear glass.” In these negotiations, I suggest you close practice to the “suits,” those who have no “skin in the game,” — the lawyers, the agents, and the mediator. Several of the owners played enough football to understand what I mean by “going till you hear glass.” I know the players do. I suspect out of such a session, the parties would have the basis for an agreement, leaving it to the suits to pick up the pieces.