Archive: February, 2011
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
It isn't a big surprise that the NFL has been planning for a lockout for months and months. Everybody has reported on it. Most people expect it to happen, probably soon after the collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 pm on March 3.
Still, it really hits you when you see the strategy referred to in court documents. But it's all right there. The union is arguing before Federal judge David Doty in Minneapolis about whether or not the NFL should have been allowed to negotiate television contracts that require payment in 2011 even if there is a lockout. It is obvious what that kind of financial windfall would do for the owners, how it would insulate them from the pressure to pay the mortgage on stadiums and such as the players did without their salaries.
Doty -- who has overseen the NFL CBA since it was crafted two decades ago as a result of an antitrust lawsuit, and who is seen as biased in favor of the union by NFL owners -- put off a ruling on the issue on Thursday. (More on that below.) But he did order the unsealing of documents in the case, though they have been redacted (to remove a lot of financial information and such).
Video: Can Jimmy Rollins adapt his game? Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann answers the three big questions in Philly sports with CineSport's Noah Coslov.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Mike Florio disagrees. He says he really doesn't believe it's possible that the NFL and the NFLPA are sticking with their current round of federal mediation only because leaving it is politically impossible right now -- that the act of walking out would be used by the other side in what is beginning to be a discussion with the NLRB over an unfair labor practice charge filed by the owners.
Of course they can legally leave any time they want. The mediation is, indeed, voluntary -- just as it was in the 1981 baseball strike that I covered, and the 1982 football strike that I covered, and the 1987 football strike that I covered. It's right there in every story written about mediation -- that it is voluntary.
But the politics are different. The reality is different. And I really believe that there is no way either side can leave the table unilaterally right now, even if they aren't making any/much progress. There is no way, for instance, that the NFL -- which, in its NLRB filing, has just charged the union with all manner of dithering -- can walk out while the union is willing to hang in and talk. How could they then make their argument to the NLRB?
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Over at profootballtalk.com, Mike Florio has reported that Tuesday was a "big day" in the ongoing NFL labor talks, which are being aided and abetted by a federal mediator. The union has said any talk of progress is "speculation." I don't know what's true.
But this needs to be emphasized:
The act of sitting with the mediator for several consecutive days is not, in and of itself, a sign that good things are happening, or that progress is being made.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Video: What is the Sixers' grade at the All-Star break? Does Andy Reid need to win a Super Bowl to keep his job? Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann answers the three big questions in Philly sports.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Eagles president Joe Banner did the interview thing on Tuesday afternoon at NovaCare, his first since the end of the season. At one point, I asked him about the significant roster turnover of the last few seasons, and how they have still played at a high level through this transition but did not really contend for Super Bowls, and whether or not the transition was over and it was now really time to contend.
He winced in disagreement when I said they didn't contend for the championship. To me, two straight wildcard losses isn't contending -- and that trip to the NFC Championship Game in 2008, well, you have to acknowledge it was contending as you also acknowledge that it was a total, once-in-a-lifetime fluke.
Anyway, this is Banner's reply:
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Video: The Spectrum's end is near. Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann pays a visit to the arena's crumbling shell as the demolition of "America's Showplace" enters its final stages.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Video: Which coaching hire will prove most important for the Eagles? Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann attempts to answer that question with CineSport's Noah Coslov.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
ARLINGTON, Texas -- The thing keeps getting bigger, although it hardly seems possible. The Super Bowl is overwhelming as an experience: enormous, loud, annoying, American, garish, gross, seductive and mesmerizing.
It makes you wonder how it could be possible for the NFL’s owners and its players union to screw it up.
There was a time when all of these games seemed to be blowouts; Super Bore became a regular complaint. It seems like such a long time ago. Anybody who watched the Pittsburgh Steelers claw their way back last night against the Green Bay Packers, and then claw their way back again, could not mistake the desperate determination of both sides.
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
The date was April 18, 1998. That is was a long time ago goes without saying. But it is the first time I remember Juan Castillo speaking.
He had been on Ray Rhodes' staff for a couple of years in an entry-level position, learning the business of NFL coaching. Now he was the offensive line coach in what pretty much everyone knew was going to be Rhodes' final season as the Eagles' head coach. This particular day was draft day. It was the day the Eagles picked Tra Thomas.
As part of the media sales job, reporters were brought into one of the players' meeting rooms at the Vet, those old, cramped, damp places with the stained ceiling tiles and the ever-present hint of rodents watching your ever move. There, Castillo popped in a videotape of Thomas and commenced coaching.
