NFL vs. NFLPA
Tensions are running high between the NFL and the NFLPA. What’s new?
The sides traded disparaging statements over the Ezekiel Elliott appeal. DeMaurice Smith, the union’s executive director, says that a strike or lockout in 2021 is virtually certain. Smith also told HBO that Goodell lied in 2014 by saying the union would have input into the revised personal-conduct policy.
Some are interpreting all of this to mean that the upcoming labour negotiations between the league and union will be particularly combative. It doesn’t mean that. These negotiations might be contentious. The last set of negotiations certainly were. And there could be a work stoppage, just as there was the last time around when the players were locked out.
But that will happen if the issues, and the differences between the two sides over them, dictate that. Not because of what each side said about the other in 2017.
The league and union are not on worse terms than they were in 2011. They are not on worse terms than they were when they were clashing in the Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson and Tom Brady cases.
The two sides have different interests to represent. That will clash.
Each side will do what is in its own best interests in the next round of labour negotiations. There are complicated issues, from the finances of the sport to the system of player discipline to the length and structure of the season to the drug policy.
If there are mutually agreeable solutions to those issues to be found, there will be labour peace. If there aren’t, there won’t be labour peace.
But it’s far too early to know. And whatever is said at this point in the process will mean little by the time all of it plays out.