Ah, the broadsides that inevitably come with labor negotiations. Per the AP, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is planning to take a crack at reducing the rookie contracts many think are ridiculous — considering they are much more than what veterans will earn. The commissioner called deals such as the ones Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan and Miami Dolphins O-lineman Jake Long signed “ridiculous.”
It will be particularly difficult for Lord Rog to be able to extract a change in the rookie salary scale out of NFLPA head Gene Upshaw because the union can and will demand some serious concessions in any change to the draftees’ first contracts.
We all remember last year’s failed strategy with the NFL NETWORK. When Roger Goodell had a game with an unbeaten Patriots squad and the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants playing in Week 17 on the Network, he had to have the worst of both worlds and allow CBS and NBC to simulcast the game under threat from Senators Arlen Specter and John Kerry.
The fans got a classic game on broadcast television (which wound up being a Super Bowl preview), but it wasn’t the business coup that Goodell & Co. had imagined (and did not come off well following Packers-Cowboys a few weeks earlier) since most of the games on the schedule (like Colts-Falcons) were forgettable and fans were carping about the good ones being on a channel very few could get.
Now, the L.A. TIMES relays news from the WALL STREET JOURNAL that the league is talking to ESPN about broadcasting that package of games that its own network was claiming all for itself.
The WASHINGTON POST reports that Goodell sent a little note to the league’s competition committee on Thursday, outlining how the NFL can “preserve the competitive integrity of the game” and “maintain public confidence” - and stay out of congressional hearings. Read more…
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) wasn’t only raising a stink about the NFL’s handling of the Patriots’ taping scandal. Recently, commissioner Roger Goodell and the league had sought to crack down on churches that were showing the Super Bowl on their big screens.
Things have gone from great to bad to worse to, “Hey, what’s that coming down onto my head? I know it’s not raining,” for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a span of about two weeks. He’s been taken through the wringer on Spygate. And now this: Accusations that he reneged on promises to help Tommy Urbanski, who was paralyzed in the Pacman Jones Las Vegas melee, pay medical bills.
Today’s NEW YORK DAILY NEWS has an interview with Urbanski’s wife, Kathy, in which she paints a fairly unflattering picture of the whole situation.
