The context for those who don’t care about sports:
The NFL’s Covid policy has been absolute ass and not nearly enforced equally or fairly throughout the year. A Baltimore Ravens coach ignored Covid protocol and his Covid symptoms and practiced with the team. As a result, a catastrophic number of Ravens players have caught Covid, including almost the entire offense and their star players. The game was postponed after the initial Covid diagnoses (including a type 1 diabetic player who has a much higher chance of experiencing acute symptoms) from Thanksgiving, to be played Tuesday, December 1st. In the subsequent days since Thanksgiving, an even larger amount of players have now been diagnosed or deemed ineligible to play due to close contact with players/coaches who have tested positive.
In the beginning of the year the NFL released a statement saying there could be fines, suspensions, loss of draft picks, or even forfeits as the result of failure to comply with Covid protocol. As of now, the league has again postponed, and the game is to be played on Wednesday, December 2nd. Some players are outraged at being forced to take the field when practice facilities have been shut down for over a week, just to go intermingle with each other and a previously unexposed group of players from the other team. There have been rumors of a wildcat strike for player health and safety, and as of now it appears that enough players are in on this idea that the Ravens would not be able to field a full team.
The NFL has easily been the worst major sports league in the US in handling the pandemic. Which makes sense since it's probably the league that is most reflective of the American landscape.
The players union agreed to not do a bubble system like the NHL which had NO Covid issues at all despite being entirely indoors and in closer quarters with more games and more practices.
The NFL fucking sucks
All the players union gave a shit about was money. Every time this came up, they just kept talking about money and making sure players got paid.
They had ZERO plan for it. The NBA did a bubble system to finish out their season and NHL did it. Neither leagues had a single infection through the bubble.
The NFL had no plan at all. The commissioner and owners are so fucking greedy and don't give a shit at all about their players.
The NFLPA is in a tough situation because so many careers are so short that the voting parties want to secure the money while they can. It’s a very unfortunate circumstance because of the nature of the sport and as a result the union is not very strong
The NFLPA is at fault for this too though. They could've made demands for safety and a bubble. They were more worried about money. They just got that new CBA approved that adds a 17th regular season game and has royally fucked the playoff system up so bad now that only 1 team gets a bye and it adds playoff teams to increase the possibility of teams with losing records getting in. Most of the representatives of the NFLPA are fucking millionaires themselves. It's a union for millionaires. The NFLPA didn't support the CTE lawsuits either filed by former players who need help with their medical conditions.
I also want to say fuck the fans. NFL fans majority are the biggest bootlickers of any sport in the country. Not all of them are like this, but the majority are. I would know cause I used to run DVOA/advanced stats and all that nerdy stuff with a blog as a hobby of mine. These fans never blame the owners or the league. They just moan endlessly about the players and blame them. If you go on most NFL team forums and read what they are posting, the fans are more angry that they can't go to games and angry at players for getting infected, rather than being mad at the owners for not coming up with a plan. You'll see hundreds of posts about "I have to work in these conditions, so it's their own fault if they get infected!".
No doubt, I 100% agree the NFLPA is also at fault. I would honestly even say mostly at fault. The demand should have been bubble or no season.
They could've demanded a bubble, but nooooo, some millionaires who are already overpaid and get endorsements, need even more money! Money more important than safety!
Sadly the majority of players have a very short career and as a result want to secure as much money as possible during what little time they can earn it. I agree they’re overpayed, but the way the majority of the union votes makes sense (sadly) if you put yourself in their shoes
Could they have demanded a bubble? Seems incredibly difficult due to the number of players and staff. Certainly many more than other sports/leagues anyway.
Someone somewhere made the point that NFL tickets in particular are all expensive, even the nosebleeds. You can still get cheap tickets to MLB or NHL or NBA games but seeing football live isn’t something many can easily afford. Is there any truth to this? I’ve never been to a football game but I remember paying $20 for standing room tix at a baseball game.
Football itself is a reactionary culture from top to bottom. The fact that NFL players are forced to play 3-4 years of college ball, for free because they're "students" (whose course load is heavily managed by others so that it doesn't interfere with ball), being screamed at by wannabe field overseers who think that they're drill sargeants (youth football culture is fucking disgusting, especially before people started caring about concussions 5-10 years ago...), is really emblematic of a lot of the problems with football.
Can I throw out the "NFL players are working class" hot take because I think it's true.
That’s not a hot take. Being rich doesn’t mean you aren’t working class if you being rich is contingent on you working
They literally have owners. They get bought and sold from one owner to another without any regard to the player's say on the matter. If they're not proles, who is?
NFL players are some of the most exploited people in the United States. Yes they make a lot of money, but they have very short careers that take an immense physical toll on their bodies.
People who made it to the NFL are also the 1% of the 1%. Thousands more tried, but got nothing except long term brain damage and chronic pain, and maybe a shitty "education", from years of High School and College football to be allowed the opportunity to try to make that NFL money.
They are definitely workers. Working class? Who knows. No one agrees what the american pseudoclasses mean anymore anyway. Some landlord with a 80K pickup is more working class to most people than a teacher or low-level office worker.
Good thing that all the NFL owners are Republicans so Obama is less likely to step in on their behalf and thwart this potential strike. The Silicon Valley/Private Equity libs who own NBA teams were owed favors by Barry.
I highly doubt Most owners have even touched a football or basketball or whatever beyond photo ops.
My fav football (soccer) team is run by American ghouls (who also own Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL) and sporting decisions and transfers are down to a fucking accountant/investment banker, and an incompetent board. The owners show up every once in a while, but you just know they don't know shit about the sport or what's going on. It's run like a business that ignores sporting ambitions the team and fans want, reducing the team to mediocrity and repeated fuck-ups so that more sponsors are obtained and more money is saved and given to the owners. Bullshit they work hard, they're leeching from these teams.
It's not just the owners, it's the fans and the culture of the sport. Football is a true symbol of neoliberal exploitation vs. the more old-school, worker conscious model of other sports.
There's a reason why the MLB and NHL - both of which have few black players - almost immediately threatened to join the NBA in a sympathy strike over BLM and the NFL didn't, even though the NFL is majority black players.
I wouldn't say that's accurate re: the protest. Those leagues were playing games when the Jacob Blake murder happened; the NFL was not. And it was actually the Detroit Lions - not the Milwaukee Bucks - that was the first team to act by refusing to hold practice in response to Kenosha.
Cancelling practice is not the same as cancelling games across the league
As a diehard Steelers fan: fucking do it. The NFL has been treating their workers like garbage. The Broncos had all 3 of their qbs sick with COVID and the NFL said go ahead. Fuck this garbage league.
But also Go Steelers.
Transplant Stillers fan is the guy who watches the the game at the bar and keeps ordering ice water.
Nah that’s the cowboys fan who has never been to Texas in their life
What if it was Corvid 19 and its just a virus ravens can get.
...I'll show myself out.
I don't know why NFL players didn't do this to begin with. The only thing the players union was concerned about was money.
The NFL spent the entire summer and off season acting like this virus was just going to magically go away. They had ZERO plan for it. They did NOTHING whatsoever. It's so bad for some teams, yesterday the Broncos could not even start a quarterback cause all 4 of them on their roster were infected. They had to sign a wide receiver from a practice squad who played QB back in school, who was thrown right into a game to take punishment. That's just one example of their incompetence.
The NFL's reaction is to just blame the players, teams, coaches and management. Dan Orlovsky was on ESPN today yelling "SHAME ON YOU!" to the Broncos QBs who are all infected. It's their own fault for not wearing masks, they keep saying. No sports media are talking about how the NFL and their owners had all this time to figure something out and had no plan whatsoever. Instead, they blame the victims. Meanwhile the players union from day 1 was only concerned about money. The NFL has been fining teams for mask violations but that's just a drop in the bucket that billionaires can pay millions of dollars.
I hope this strike works. It should've happened before the season started.
NFLPA is weak. So weak.
That being said, the average NFL career is very brief, meaning the average voting member wants to secure a payout from what limited time they have in the league. It’s understandable but also why the PA is one of the weaker sports unions
I understand that and I support that, but the NFLPA deserves their blame for this. And if we're being real, the most vocal ones over the union are millionaires and usually are just pissed off they aren't getting more money. There is rarely ever talk about increasing the average game salary of $35,000 a game.
100% deserve criticism for this. There honestly shouldn’t have been a season at all if there was no bubble
It’s a very violent sport with a high turnover rate because of both injuries and young, talented people being drafted into the league every year.
Why is it so violent, why is the turnover rate so high? Other sports manage to not cripple their athletes and spit them out at age 26
Because the physical contact is so violent. It’s hard to give it enough emphasis
Ice Hockey players shove each other against boards constantly and its notorious for fights, teeth being knocked out, etc. Why do NHL players play it into their 30s routinely and NFL players don't?
It's Labor power. The NFL is a more or less a feudal system. Other sports aren't, they're conscious workers, and safe, secure conditions are a part of that. NFL players are manipulated into seeing themselves as gladiators and warriors, coaches are portrayed as sargeants and generals, all more or less sacrificing themselves for the enjoyment and honor of hooting morons in the stands.
College sports in general have this issue with slave/army mentality (and youth sports are insanely fucked up, every high school coach thinks that they are a combination hard-ass replacement dad and a drill sargeant), but players in not-football sports don't have to be NCAA slaves for 3-4 years before going pro. They can be actual professionals, either in a minor league or overseas.
Because American football is a game for college fancy lads that TV execs found a way to monetize on the backs of poor, desperate black men. Every other major sport has more working class roots and became popular in an era when violent labor struggle was normal.
You refer to the prophecy of the ones who will bring balance to the Sports. You believe it's this…team?
