A good negotiator never leaves a bargaining chip unused. And like most attorney’s DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL Player’s Union, is a good negotiator.
If you’ve glanced up from your mock drafts for even a moment, you might have noticed that the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks players have voted to not attend voluntary NFL “Organized Team Activities” that are due to begin soon on Smith’s recommendation. The “dispute” is over what the players say are concerns about safety protocols during the ever present plague of COVID-19. Most, if not all of the rest of the NFL players are expected to follow suit.
On the surface, their case seems to be sound. COVID infections, while decreasing (especially among older folks who are getting their vaccinations) haven’t gone away, and the virus remains a serious and prevalent danger. Some players have gotten infected at team facilities. Even if all the players get vaccinated – and why on earth would they not already have done so by this point? – there remains the slim chance that they could come in contact with someone who is positive, catch the virus themselves and pass it on to loved ones, even while they show no symptoms themselves.
This scenario is extremely unlikely, and you’d also think that each player’s family members above the age of 16 would have gotten at least their first shot by now. And we know that while children can catch the virus, in general it does not have that same damaging impact it has on older people. ‘
The country – the world – is going to vaccinate its way out of this pandemic, plain and simple. NFL players and their families should all be getting their shots. The world is a safer place today than it was a year ago because many of the smartest people on the planet worked at warp speed to produce this vaccine and millions of us have already gotten it.
The bottom line here is that if NFL players really wanted to be at OTA’s, they could all get their shots and thereby justify being there.
It appears that they’d simply rather not be there. As in…ever.
This is not to say that players aren’t committed to working out during the off season, staying in shape and improving. It’s just that a large percentage of them seem to think they can do a better job of conditioning on their own, or with their private trainers.
OTA’s? Who needs ‘em?
As for Smith and the NFLPA, the chance to exercise this option is merely another negotiating ploy to try to get more of the off season stuff reduced or even eliminated altogether. Smith and company are advocating for a second consecutive “virtual” off season. That term is a head scratcher to most of us.
And while most of us who watch what happens during collective bargaining talks focus on the money part, the last time around the players seemed at least equally concerned with limiting what they were required to do during the offseason as they were about how the revenues were split up. The new agreement passed last spring (just days after all sports were shut down by the pandemic) did so by a scant 60 votes (out of approximately 2,500 players) so there was no consensus among the players that they got what they wanted out of the deal.
And remember, the owners just exercised the option they won in 2020 bargaining to add a 17th game to the schedule against the wishes of most of the players. The league added the extra game option before anyone knew that the 2020 season would be so impacted by the pandemic. Normally, another game check for the players would sound like a good thing. But then the salary cap was reduced after last year’s revenues took a big COVID hit. Now, the financial benefit to the players is questionable at best.
So there is some level of discontent among the rank and file. Even though the current CBA doesn’t expire until 2030, the next wave of negotiations is already starting.
Major League Baseball is going through something similar, with the next offseason marking the end of baseball’s current CBA. That union and the owners are playing a constant game of cat and mouse too, over simple things like the use of the designated hitter. Both sides want the DH in both the American and National Leagues, and it could have been that way for this season if the players had been willing — but the players union wasn’t about to give up a bargaining chip for next winter without getting something back in return. The owners weren’t willing to make any concessions just yet, so we get to watch pitchers’ bat in NL stadiums for one final go ‘round.
The term “boycott” has been tossed around in describing the decision to stay home by the Broncos and Seahawks. But what’s really happening is the player’s union using every bargaining chip available to try to squeeze all they can out of the current agreement, while already gearing up for a battle that’s nine years away.
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