I had the pleasure the other day of attending a talk given at the New York Law School by NFL Players Association Executive Director of External Affairs George Atallah, who was joined by Jets fullback and player rep Tony Richardson to discuss the recent developments regarding the NFL lockout.
I enjoyed the talk, though there really wasn’t very much of a substantive nature to say while they wait for everything to sort itself out after Judge Nelson’s bizarre ruling. It’s interesting to see the underlying weirdness of the two sides still being very far from each other, and yet having to go through the motions at NFL facilities to satisfy a judge’s ruling that has a pretty decent chance of being overturned.
I thought Atallah and Richardson seemed bemused by the idea that public opinion is probably mostly in their favor. After all, the players didn’t ask for anything more than what they already had, and then Roger Goodell had that weird op-ed piece with all the fear tactics. They also seemed amused that they could potentially mess with the Draft, though there’s obviously no way they’d do that and screw with their positive standing in the court of public opinion.
A couple of videos after the jump:
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On the players’ stance on an 18-game season:
On whether HBO’s Hard Knocks affects players’ negotiations:
On the NFL’s rookie wage scale, and the possibility of shortening the period before players can be free agents:
On players’ expectations for the duration of the negotiations:
