NFL Players Association exec sees no play in 2011

If you saw the movie "Spinal Tap" (and if you are a reader here, I have to believe you did), then you might remember Christopher Guest's Nigel Tufnel character saying that while the loudest number on all regular amplifiers was "10", Spinal Tap's went to "11". Because, paraphrasing, it was one more.

I offer this walk down movie memory lane as a precursor to the comments of NFL Players association executive director, DeMaurice Smith, who said today that he viewed the possibility of football not being played in 2011 as a "14" on a scale of 1 to 10. So...let's see...that would be...four more!

Okaaaaaay. That's not good, is it? Especially since the world is also supposed to end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar. So better enjoy this next season, folks. 2011, no football...2012, no anything. Yikes! That means the Packers gotta win next season's Super Bowl! Oh man...

Anyway...

According an AP article on Yahoo Sports, Smith talked about how tough it would be to sell players on an average pay cut of "$340,000... to save the National Football League. Tough sell. Tough sell.” NFLPA president Kevin Mawae, played the other role in this bad cop - good cop melodrama. Mawae said, "I really and truly in my heart believe we’ll get a deal done. But there’s going to have to be some give and some take and not just taking from one side all the way.”

The league, naturally, looks at this somewhat differently and took exception to some of the numbers and arguments being tossed about by the players union. In fact, our beloved Packers even got dragged into the discussion as a talking point. Because the Packers are the only team whose annual financial statements are public, they are the only ones the union has seen. To help justify its position, the league pointed out that the Packers' profits declined by 40 percent.

Anyway, you can read more at the article link above.

Oh, and if you saw my earlier post today in which I referenced the "out of uniform" cell phone video and sweepstakes campaign the NFLPA has underway, this latest information just reinforces my earlier comment that it's a smart (but rather obvious) public relations effort by the union ahead of the negotiations to try to build fan support by showing that NFL players are just typical guys doing typical things. You know, except with more money than typical guys. Than typical guys will see in a lifetime. But other than that...yeah, sure...