Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz, senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein and senior NFL reporter Frank Schwab discuss the reports of potential collusion between the league and players association in preventing fully guaranteed contracts from being offered to players. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
I didn't need a judge to tell me there was collusion.
I knew it when Lamar Jackson was sitting out there on a franchise tag saying, hey guys, I'm one of the 10 best quarterbacks ever and I'm in my prime.
Anybody want to talk to me?
And everybody's like, No, we're good with Desmond Bishop, we're fine.
The fact that the NFL is so dug in on this whole guaranteed contract situation is telling.
They're like, it's bad business for the NFL, but they never get penalized for their missteps and labor negotiations, because the union is always weak.
It's not the baseball union, it's not even the basketball union, which are very strong and the players know what's going on, and they're all aware of this.
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I think it's a bad look for everybody involved, and it is a big, big story, but it's not a big story if the NFL players aren't making it a big story.
Again, if this happened in the NBA, oh my goodness, you would see a completely different reaction.
I have a hard time believing that any fan should give a damn about any negotiations between owners and the NFL Players Association, they're weak.
Because the people that are in the actual union itself don't care.
And I will loudly scream, guys, I've been a member of SAG-AFTRA, which, by the way, represents 160,000 different people in entertainment.
I've been in talks, I've been in arguments over money, but nobody ever goes to a Journey concert and sits down and says, wow, does the drummer have healthcare?
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They don't give a damn.
And you just have to accept at some point that people don't care.
I think it's genuinely fine if people don't care about negotiations between the players and the owners because the players themselves don't stand on anything long enough to give a damn about it themselves.
If they don't care, why should we?
Fans will say, if the players do start fighting for this, stick to sports.
Focus on sports.
Why are you distracted from your craft?
The reason you dropped the ball in week 4 is because you're focused on this union stuff.
But then when they don't actually talk about it, it's like, oh well, you don't care about it.
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Well, I would argue that they're giving agents a reason to think they're not united.
You see what I'm saying?
But anyway, stick to sports.
Focus on your craft and keep your head in the game.
what, 3%, 6%, a very large percentage of their contract to care about this for them.
Lloyd Howell's approach so far has been be the anti-DSmith.
De Smith was the lawyer, he was the fighter.
When we negotiate, we're going to go all out.
We're going to call the NFL out for everything.
And Lloyd Howell, as a businessman, is like, well, I want a more collaborative approach, and that is what we talked about when I talked to him.
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But there's this idea of like, I don't believe that fighting is the best way to get things done, and I too would agree personally that fighting isn't necessarily the best way to get things done, but I do think you have to advocate for yourself and you especially have to advocate for your players because that's what they hired you to do, and that's what they're paying you over $3 million a year to do for them.
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