NFL - NEWS & NOTES

I can see your point with the money on the bench thing. But then again, why would a GM draft a QB in the 1st round when your current QB (Warner) wasn't terribly aged 28-34 yrs of age or roundabouts.... so why draft a replacement unless you didn't feel that Warner was the long term answer at your team's most important position.... Yes for a couple of years he was considered in the Top 3 QB's in the league, with Favre and Brady/Manning being the others. Lets keep in mind that the league was in a transitional period where top QB's were scarce overall during this time. Brady/Manning were rookies or very young up and comers, and old QB's like Elway/Marino etc had just retired.

We must remember that while Bledsoe did get injured, Bill Belichick never intended on letting him back on the field that season even after he was healed, then traded him to the Cowboys where he continued to put in above average seasons.

 

Bledsoe had ONE decent season with Dallas (9-7 record, 23 TD - 17 INT) and he was benched in the 6th game of the following season.

 

I forgot he went to the Bills first where he had 3 seasons of above average QB play including an over 4000 yard season, the following year after moving on from the Pats.

 

Live look at coach Gruden -

 

Live look at Raiders practice -

 

Union wants players to prepare for a full-season work stoppage...

Good news really travels fast.

The item from the New York Times that painted a rosy picture regarding talks on a new collective bargaining agreement sparked a reaction from the NFL Players Association, aimed at keeping everyone from adopting a posture of acceptance that a new deal will be done — a posture that could result in weakness at the bargaining table.


Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Daily reports that, on Tuesday morning, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith sent an email to all agents containing advice they should give to their clients.

“With a possible work stoppage less than two years away, this is the opportune time to set up a structured and organized savings and budgeting plan with your clients,” Smith wrote to the agents, via Mullen. “I can’t stress enough the importance of having our player members in a sound financial situation should a work stoppage occur. We are advising players to plan for a work stoppage of at least a year in length. We are also encouraging all players to save 50% of their salary and bonuses and to save the entirety of their Performance Based Pay amounts they should earn over the next two regular seasons.”

That will be useful advice for the players who are employed by NFL teams in 2019 and 2020. A large percentage of the 2021 work force, however, remains in college, earning nothing that could be saved for later.

Which makes the fact that the NFL’s free farm system relies on free labor an incidental benefit to the league. New players and young players who haven’t made enough money to save enough money to get through a year without paychecks will be far less inclined to go along with a work stoppage.

Plenty of those players with little or no money and a tremendous desire to simply play football will become prime candidates to accept work as replacement players, if the players muster the will to launch a strike.

That said, Smith’s email hardly means that a potential work stoppage is likely. He needs to ensure that all agents and players remain vigilant regarding a potential work stoppage in order to ensure that the players don’t get steamrolled by owners who definitely will be vigilant regarding a potential work stoppage.

At a minimum, the need for vigilance may eventually compel the NFLPA to do something aimed at countering the perception that talks are going well. If it seems they’re going too well, it means that someone may be getting too good of a deal. - PFT
_______
______________

I cant help but get angry when I hear of billion dollar industries having work-stoppages or going on strike. I cant comprehend it.

 

Bart Starr sent Brett Favre letters after every game...



Much has been made about the relationship between current Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Packers quarterback Bart Starr. Starr also had a special relationship with former Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

Favre told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Tuesday that, after every game, he’d receive a letter from Starr.

“I think the thing that kind of tells you a lot about what type of guy he is, there wasn’t a game that I didn’t get a letter from him, whether it be complimenting me on how I played or the fact that we won, or ‘keep your chin up, it will get better,'” Favre said. “I mean, you think about the games that I played, that’s a lot of games. To get a personal note from Bart each and every time, I’m not gonna lie, it made me feel pretty special.”

In 2016, Starr’s wife, Cherry, said that the two men had a memorable moment when Favre’s jersey was retired.

“He looked up at Brett, and Brett looked down at him, he looked up and he said, ‘I love you, Brett,'” Cherry Starr said, via the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s website. “And Brett looked down with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I love you too, Bart.’ It was the sweetest moment.”

The Packers didn’t have a franchise-type quarterback between Starr and Favre, and the team’s results proved it. - PFT

 

NFL could push for 18-game schedule in labor talks...

The NFL could seek an 18-game regular season or an expanded playoff field in a new labor deal, Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports. In return, Maske says, many owners are willing to offer players concessions to the commissioner’s disciplinary authority and to the marijuana policy.

Maske quoted a high-ranking official with one NFL team saying “some owners . . . would like to expand the season” to 18 games but added it’s not clear “if there is much support from the players on that.”

Players have adamantly opposed an expanded schedule, and Giants co-owner John Mara reiterated the NFLPA’s strong stance on that issue as recently as September. Packers CEO Mark Murphy repeatedly has stated his concerns about the impact of more games on the health and safety of players.

The league, though, wants 18 games, especially with legalized gambling on the way, and it now has something to give up in order to create even more revenue.

The NFL and NFLPA announced last week a joint committee will study the use of marijuana by players as a pain-management tool.

The current collective bargaining agreement expires following the 2020 season, and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith recently sent an email to all agents warning them to prepare for a full-season work stoppage in 2021.

Both sides, though, appear hopeful that a better working relationship than in 2011 could lead to a labor deal before it comes to that.

“I do hope it’s sooner rather than later,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at last week’s owners’ meeting, via Maske. “I think there’s great value to all parties, and most importantly our fans, that we get this issue resolved and move forward. But there are important issues to be addressed, and we’re doing that.” - PFT

 

I’m sure I’m in the minority - and that I’m howling in the wind - but I vote “no” to an 18-game schedule. Sometimes less is more - 16 games is (more than) enough, and we really don’t need games on Thursday, Saturday (assuming some Saturday games with an 18-game schedule), Sunday and Monday.

 

Im not so sure its even a minority. Seems to me the people that matter in a longer season are the ones who stand to make more money. The union still stands against it and there are already enough injuries as it is.

I think 16 is just fine and adding 2 games doesn't amount to any gain... vey little, if any. The increase in games played, just lengthens the already long enough season, increases injury risk to key players.

The change id like in scheduling would be a shortened preseason by at least 1 game.

 

The only way I'd be okay with an 18 game schedule is by first reducing preseason to 2 and even then I don't like it because only 1/3 of your games would be played against division opponents.

Unless they change it to playing teams in your division 4 times each thus making it 2/3 of your schedule but then you're only playing 6 teams outside your division versus the 10 you play now.

Don't like.

 

The NFL has been pushing for this for years, and I think it's an inevitability. The Players' Union will get theirs - likely larger rosters, increased salary cap to push up contract prices across the board, and maybe some kind of change to guaranteed money (just thinking out loud on that last one). But with the money these teams make, I feel like they're going to get this done. They're too greedy not to push for more volume, even though I don't like it, either.

 

The compromise is to extend the season a week and give everybody two byes. Same amount of games, more opportunities to get those games on national TV, travel to play in international venues, play more games on Thursdays or Saturdays, etc. Owners make more money, players get more time off. Win win.

 

That sounds terrible to me. lose lose.

 

The balance of the schedule...how many games you play versus your own division versus the rest of the league...is what really bothers me the most.

 

How would they choose the two extra games for teams? Unless you increase the inter conference games it could become very unbalanced in the difficulty of schedule.

 

If you have 18 games and still play 6 against your own division the remaining twelve games could be played against 3 other divisions.

In that regard it would actually be a more balance schedule than we currently have.

But the imbalance comes from playing twice as many games against teams outside your division.

In that scenario you could play poorly against division opponents but still finish on top of the division theoretically and I don’t like that.

I miss the days that’s 8 out of 16 games was against your division rivals.

 

Those were 5 team divisions.