Stay Granted: Lockout On Til June, Breakthrough Reported

[mraynrand]

Michael Hunt figures that he'll be retired by the time bad CBA's kill the league, but he won't want to miss out on the game day buffets for the journalists this fall.

I guess we know where Michael Hunt stands...

I learned that season ticket sales are up and that Michael Hunt looks like my daughter's beastly PE teacher who everyone thinks 'probably' is gay.

[Tarlam!]

He must have been one hell of an ugly baby for Mr. and Mrs Hunt to name him Micheal.

[Brandon494]

What an idiot!

Exactly how is he an idiot from that statement?

[swede]

Exactly how is he an idiot from that statement?

There are two aspects to the quoted statement that lead me to believe that MH processes information badly. The first is that he deliberately emotionalized and took sides in a legal issue in which the owners had done nothing except exercise a legal option they had to re-open the CBA before its full expiration. Calling it a squabble trivializes the issue, which is of course what he deliberately set out to do when he chose his words. Idiot though he may be, MH is a journalist and words are his medium.

The second is that he made these omniscient pronouncements with no special knowledge of the situation--certainly no more privileged knowledge than that possessed by the posters on this forum. With a judgement in their favor the owners may be on their way to grabbing a bigger piece of the pie. If they do, one must remember it is their pie. Were we able to know all we may even say that owners are taking a really big bite of the pie. Wow! But then again...it is their pie. It may be that the players will gain some advantage by winning in the courts and get a bigger piece of somebody else's pie. The bright side of that arrangement is that we just might play football in the fall. No matter how you slice it, it is very interesting that Hunt is so completely convinced that the players "deserve" victory just as the owner's "deserve" defeat.

So, in short, Hunt has dropped any pretense of journalistic objectivity--which is pretty much how journalists operate these days--in order to demonstrate his Tarzan-like omniscience: players good, owners bad.

[MJZiggy]

Just a thought, but I wonder if anyone's look to see how things were split historically, like when the league first started and before the money involved was so obnoxious.

[Lurker64]

The viewpoint of the media is pretty easy to ferret out: they want something to report about. While the players were suing to get a preliminary injunction to lift the lockout, they were on the side of the players since once the lockout is lifted there will be football and they will have something to report about. Once it's clear that the players will not get the preliminary injunction that they want, the media viewpoint will shift and they will be in favor of the players capitulating since once the players capitulate there will be a new CBA and then football will start and they will have something to report on.

The thing the media does not want to see is "the players lose in the 8th circuit, and they refuse to budge and pursue further legal wrangling in search of leverage in lieu of negotiation" since that's a recipe for missing most of (if not all of) the 2011 NFL season.

[Tarlam!]

At this stage of the "negotitiation", I threaten to cancel th season if I'm the owners. Only the Packers ould be hit badly and the owners could start a fund similar to that of the players.

[swede]

The viewpoint of the media is pretty easy to ferret out: they want something to report about. While the players were suing to get a preliminary injunction to lift the lockout, they were on the side of the players since once the lockout is lifted there will be football and they will have something to report about. Once it's clear that the players will not get the preliminary injunction that they want, the media viewpoint will shift and they will be in favor of the players capitulating since once the players capitulate there will be a new CBA and then football will start and they will have something to report on.

The thing the media does not want to see is "the players lose in the 8th circuit, and they refuse to budge and pursue further legal wrangling in search of leverage in lieu of negotiation" since that's a recipe for missing most of (if not all of) the 2011 NFL season.

Yeah...I think you may be right about the media as a whole deliberately ratcheting up pressure on the owners simply as a way to become another influential dynamic as the NFL hurtles toward the football/no football deadline--a deadline thought to be about August 15th. After the 15th of August the season would almost certainly need to be abbreviated and re-scheduled. After October 1st one would think the season would simply be cancelled.

The problem with the first deadline is that everyone will be hella unhappy all season long. It would almost be better to cash in the whole season and start fresh in '12 with a better attitude about how important it is for both parties not to screw up a good thing.

[MadScientist]

The problem with the first deadline is that everyone will be hella unhappy all season long. It would almost be better to cash in the whole season and start fresh in '12 with a better attitude about how important it is for both parties not to screw up a good thing.

Too late at that point. If they kill the season they will have screwed up the good thing for a long time. Casual fans will find something else to do. Ratings and revenue will be down for years, etc. Look at the hits MLB and the NHL took. The NFL is not so special it can loose a season and come back like nothing happened.

[swede]

Too late at that point. If they kill the season they will have screwed up the good thing for a long time. Casual fans will find something else to do. Ratings and revenue will be down for years, etc. Look at the hits MLB and the NHL took. The NFL is not so special it can loose a season and come back like nothing happened.

Your point about killing the season causing long-term damage is a good one. But if they can't bring an agreement in under the wire to avoid missing ANY games, and that deadline is about 70 days away, they bring about an entirely new clusterfudge of scheduling and compensating in an abbreviated season that would need its own negotiations and cause brand new begrudgements among fans and the rankle and file.

More and more it seems as if the only smart thing to do is to get this thing done.

DeMaurice may be too brilliant to be smart.

[MadScientist]

Your point about killing the season causing long-term damage is a good one. But if they can't bring an agreement in under the wire to avoid missing ANY games, and that deadline is about 70 days away, they bring about an entirely new clusterfudge of scheduling and compensating in an abbreviated season that would need its own negotiations and cause brand new begrudgements among fans and the rankle and file.

More and more it seems as if the only smart thing to do is to get this thing done.

DeMaurice may be too brilliant to be smart.

100% Agree that the only smart move is to get a deal done. Any loss of games is going to have ripple effects. Hell, even loosing pre-season games or part of training camp is going to hurt a place like Green Bay.

I'm not impressed by Smith's public face, but I don't know what is going on behind the closed doors, or what sort of screwball legal issues may be involved. PFT has been posting some more positive articles, particularly this quote:

Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal reports that the cancellation has indeed occurred, with the federal court explaining that “it is engaged in confidential settlement talks with the parties.”

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...been-canceled/

Maybe, just maybe, they will avoid killing the golden goose.

[easy cheesy]

Maybe, just maybe, they will avoid killing the golden goose.

Maybe... just maybe.. they could kill Al Davis and Jerry Jones....

[easy cheesy]

an economy of motions... one "swoop"... I hate those bastards... just sayin'... I'll go back to the Romper Room now...

[SkinBasket]

Maybe... just maybe.. they could kill Al Davis and Jerry Jones....

As long as you call it kinetic action, anything goes.

While I'm hopeful of something getting done, mostly because the stupid fat mouthed idiot players haven't let their labia faces fall open to the press about the meetings yet - which must mean someone is seriously serious, I'm a bit pessimistic that not all owners knew what was going on, or at least pretended not to know. Negotiating first, then selling the terms to the owners later, could cause just as many problems.

[MadScientist]

Maybe... just maybe.. they could kill Al Davis and Jerry Jones....

How do you kill Al Davis, isn't he undead already?