Twelve days ago I wrote an article on BaltimoreSportsReport.com entitled Why I’m Rooting For An NFL Lockout. It seems like so long ago now. The article was published during the NFLPA and owner’s negotiations and just after their first extension of those meetings. This article caught attention from some readers and a few in the twitterverse as a brash or extreme point of view, but now five days into that lockout I stand by my opinions and am cheering on the idiocies that it continues to develop.
If you didn’t read my piece, or need a refresher, I will sum it up for you. Essentially, I was rooting for and continue to pull for a prolonged lockout, or even a full season without football (GASP), because I feel that the NFL has gotten too big for its britches. My argument focuses more on the drug that the NFL has created for its fans more than the money issues involved in the lockout. The players and owners have become so arrogant that they can have a court hearing over how to split billions of dollars and expect fans to sit back and root for them to resolve it. I’m not rooting for it, I’ve had enough.
Over the course of the lockout I have attempted to turn my back on football. But as any sports fan knows that is impossible if you consume any sort of sports media. Hell, SportsCenter is running a lockout clock.
In under a week I have found it even easier to continue to root for a season without football. Yesterday, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson compared the player’s relationship with their owners to “modern-day slavery.” Peterson just made it a little bit easier for me to live without him taking the field for 16 (or 18) games. If making an average of $770,000 a year is slavery, then sign me up! Comments like this from stars like Adrian Peterson continue to make the NFL less appealing to even their biggest die hard fans.
Peterson by the way has a base salary of $10.72 million in 2011.
The labor dispute continues to be a dirty battle and the NFLPA’s ridiculous idea to keep college prospects from attending the NFL draft is another example. If the prospects don’t show up, does that mean I still have to listen to Roger Goodell’s awkward introductions? Do I still have to watch Mel Kiper get progressively irritated as his draft projections fall apart? Hopefully not.
In all seriousness, this petty slap to the league proves once again why the NFL needs to be taken down a few notches. The player’s association would sacrifice an unforgettable experience for incoming rookies in hopes of scoring a few more bucks.
As the Millionaire versus Billionaire battle drags on, there will be more and more reasons to turn your back on football. Avoid the drug the NFL has created, there are much better, safer alternatives.
I agree with you 100%. I believe that your point of view is the only way the NFL (owners and players) will come down a peg. The fans provide the money so what are they fussing about. My friend and I are trying to start something on facebook to boycott the first game or two this season. We as fans should file an injunction and stop watching the games on tv, stop going to the games, and stop buying NFL stuff. The owners are writing letters to the fans like they are the injured party. The players are crying like they are the injured party. While the fans and other people who are personally affected by this lockout/decertification gets the short end of the stick.
When this is resolved it will be business as usual.
Bank on that.
Gas is $3.72 a gallon. County and State employees are at risk of having their pensions forever changed, and not for the better. Unemployment is still near record levels. The federal government has a budget in place to carry us through for three more weeks and these numb nuts are quibbling over $9 billion worth of scraps. Great timing guys. Mark is right about 99.9% of the fans, but not in my case. I hope they shut down the season. Go Navy!
It may not be the labor dispute that does it, but eventually the NFL will fall.