Labor war can be averted, but players prepping for worst

Relax, NFL fans, the real games are imminent. Same thing next year. And the year after. Plus the following one.

Yet clouds are gathering on the distant labor horizon after DeMaurice Smith made headlines by declaring that a work stoppage may be coming... in 2021.

I hesitate to suggest that Smith, the fiery and capably tenacious executive director of the NFL Players Association, launched a verbal grenade when he told Sports Illustrated’s MMQB that a lockout or strike is almost “a virtual certainty” after the current collective bargaining agreement expires following the 2020 season. If that was a grenade, it didn’t detonate. Not yet.

Still, he is serious. The players are steamed about certain elements of the 10-year CBA they signed after the 2011 lockout. So Smith, re-elected and secure, is issuing tough talk you’d expect he’ll keep spewing as the union gears up for what’s probably another inevitable showdown with the league.

“Players are becoming more cognizant for what needs to be done, the power they have,” said Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, who is the Seahawks’ player rep and a member of the NFLPA’s executive committee.

Déjà vu? The stage is seemingly being constructed for a nasty battle. Although the salary cap has risen to $167 million per team this year from the $120.4 million mark in 2011, as league revenues increased to roughly $14 billion from the $9.3 billion five years earlier, issues will surely include how revenue is divided – the pendulum shifted back to owners during the last CBA negotiations, Smith’s first – and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s disciplinary power.

“The biggest thing is we’ve got to take a page out of the former players’ book,” Sherman added, “and realize the players who sacrificed for free agency didn’t benefit the way players are benefiting now.”

Good luck with that. Nothing tests player solidarity like the risk of losing cash for the cause.

Still, 2021 seems like light years away. That’s why Jerry Jones, the powerful Dallas Cowboys owner and freshly minted Hall of Famer, wants to come to the table long before the existing labor pact expires. Like now.

Jones, a member of the NFL’s management council – the committee of owners who represent the league on labor issues – said during a recent interview (before Smith’s comments surfaced) that he believes much can be done to avoid a work stoppage in 2021.

“There are some real meaningful things for the players that they can have, that they don’t need to wait four or five years to get,” said Jones. “And so that would mean there’s going to be incentive to come to the table.”

Jones acknowledged it can be difficult to negotiate without the urgency of a deadline. And I’ll acknowledge that it will take a whole lot of trust from players to deal with billionaire owners in order to avert all-out labor war. The 2011 pact wasn’t reached until players were locked out for months and facing the loss of game checks.

Of course, it cuts both ways. While the NFLPA can ponder a strike or decertification (in order to pursue antitrust legal options against the NFL), the league has re-enlisted the services of Bob Batterman, an attorney who specializes in labor issues and carries the nickname, “Lockout Bob.”

Asked if he was concerned about rumblings of another work stoppage, Jones said: “That doesn’t make sense to me. At all. I’m looking at it, not for us, but I’m looking at it if I’m players. If they want to get some changes, then obviously... you can have some remedies.”

But the players aren’t banking on an early extension and, in the meantime, there’s a generation of them who don’t have a clue about what may loom with the ramifications of labor strife.

“Right now, it’s educating the guys for what’s coming down the road,” said Los Angeles Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth.

Whitworth is a 12-year vet and former NFLPA rep during his years with the Cincinnati Bengals. He realizes how massive turnover is inherent in the league, where the average career span is around four years.

“How many guys were there then, are still here now?” Whitworth said, alluding to 2011. “The reality is not many.” Sherman, a rookie in 2011, knows. “The way we combat that is we reach out through colleges,” he said. “We start reaching out to those kids before they ever get to the league.”

It’s one matchup in which the players can never relax.