Now that the NFL’s version of Spygate has been put on the table, one has to wonder why the double standard continues to exist. Or should I say double-double standard?
The league has elected to turn its head at one of the most corrupt acts we have seen in sports in some time. Not to say these things don’t exist in other sports, but here the culprits were caught red-handed and yet got only a slap on the wrist by the league and a “this matter is now closed” statement.
Yet the league is all about disciplining these out of control players. Yeah, that is more important here. After all, the image of the league is at stake.
Here is the image of this league: out of control at the top.
The New England Patriots filming other teams’ signals – when they like all teams had been recently warned about such actions – is unacceptable. So is how the Patriots handled it, as well as how the league tried to look the other way as long as they could until Senator Arlen Specter decided that he was not satisfied with the answers he had been given.
Granted, while I would prefer Sen. Specter and his colleagues show more attention in getting my gas back to $2 per gallon and providing affordable health care, I have come to appreciate his tenacity. Now that he has rattled the cage, the league cannot wait to have some games be played so the issue can be moved to the back pages. A little cooperation with their TV partners, and it will be “Spy-Who”?
Meanwhile, the players who call themselves members of this league have continued to miss the point and eventually the boat. There is talk that the owners may lock the players out in 2011 if they do not renegotiate the current collective bargaining agreement.
In short, no deal means no draft, no salary cap, no season, no nothing. I say yes to all of it. It is perhaps the only way the players can save themselves from themselves.
Too many years have gone by where the owners win, win and win. The players should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the leadership to set them right in front of the oncoming bus – in a league that has shoddy benefits along with no real job security, with the shortest athlete shelf life of any team sport.
Not because the players keep getting better, but because owners just refuse to continue to pay a guy more each year. They just cut him and move on. No severance package, no nothing. They will be quick to tell the player he should have saved his money.
So here they are, under the age of 30 and out of the only job they ever had. Too hurt to work but not hurt enough to receive disability. How can a league and its union allow this to happen?
Easy. It’s not the person they care about, it is the player. The player who can fill the roster spot because there is always someone else who will come along.
Once these players realize they have been duped by their leadership and the league, it’s too late. Too late, because no one listens to a guy who is on his way out. The star players never worry because they think it would never happen to them. Think again.
That’s the business, and everyone is cool with it. Whether you are cheating on the other teams or cheating your own players, that’s just business.