The Lockout Fix: Morning Edition
Today for the Morning Fix, I’m locking you all out of your Kansas City Chiefs news. That’s right. No Kansas City Chiefs news for you. Instead, I am going to force you to read a bunch of articles about the lockout because until this whole thing gets worked out, we won’t have a ton of exciting Kansas City Chiefs news.
Here is hoping the courts ask swiftly and force the NFL to continue operations under last year’s rules. That is what is expected to happen (though not guaranteed) meaning we could have free agency sometime in the middle of April, just before the draft.
Until then, here is your Morning Fix Lockout Fix!
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“I’m sad for our fans,” Smith told reporters later. “I’m sad for our players . . . [but] I’m proud of the [players] who have devoted themselves to be leaders.” He said the league’s contention that the union was more interested in litigation than negotiation all along “flies in the face of reason, flies in the face of facts and is simply untrue.”
The threat of a work stoppage brought immediate reaction Friday from fans, bar owners and the gambling industry, among others, who said it would have a huge financial and emotional impact.
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“There was a commitment to litigate all along,” NFL negotiator Jeff Pash said of the players. “We were meeting with them after 4 o’clock this afternoon talking about the proposal we gave them this morning and we find out in the next hour that they’ve filed to decertify.”
“He has lied to you about what happened today,” said NFLPA outside legal counsel Jim Quinn. “The proposal they introduced today included elements that we rejected over the last two weeks. Again and again, the same rehashed proposals. In the proposal they presented today they wanted the players to give them a $5 billion gift.”
From www.bobgretz.com (share this quote)
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“This day is something we have been talking about for about two years now since the owners opted out of the 2006 CBA,” he said. “Even before they chose to opt out, the owners started to prepare themselves for this day as well. After we saw that they opted out, we had to prepare ourselves for the worst-case scenario and I think we’ve done that.”