American Football

we reserve the right to assert that utilizing replacement officials jeopardizes the health and safety of our members and to take appropriate action to protect our members. In addition, our players request that the locked-out officials immediately be allowed to return to work for this weekends’ games to ensure the players’ health and safety is protected until you reach a new agreement with them.

the NFL Players Association remains concerned about the quality of the officiating, both as it relates to the integrity of the game and the health and safety of the players.

An NFLPA source tells PFT that the union noticed “a lot more pushing and shoving and the play,” and that in the assessment of the union the officials “almost lost control of a few games today.”

The union, we’re told, has asked the individual player representatives to provide a brief report regarding the performance of the replacements, including any obvious health and safety issues.

The NFLPA previously asked for comprehensive background information regarding the replacements. They’ve received some information, and the union is in the process of digesting it.

“To us,” the source said, “this is still about a basic and dangerous union-busting agenda. They are hurting the game and hurting the NFL brand, in our view.”

Details are still not clear, but Daopoulos says that the much-debated pension issue was resolved with the current defined-benefit plan remaining in place for five years before switching to a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan.

Also, it’s believed that the deal will cover five more years before this one, which means that we’ll potentially be doing this again in 2018.

UPDATE 10:56 p.m. ET:  Daopoulos has provided some more facts.  The officials will vote on the deal in Dallas on Friday, at which time it will become final.  They’ll then participate in a clinic, and head on Saturday to the game sites.  Also, the officials will receive a pay raise of four percent, with 12 guaranteed game checks this year and 19 in subsequent years (including preseason).  As to the checks they’ve missed this year, the officials will divvy up $2.5 million.

Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning liberal political columnist, wrote that he knows who is to blame for Washington Redskins superstar quarterback Robert Griffin III’s horrific knee injury. He has seen the culprit and it is us. Reaching for a cliché with more age than the jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Robinson writes, “If you are a football fan and are appalled by what happened Sunday and want to find someone to blame, look in the mirror.”

If Eugene Robinson would only turn his gaze away from all of us, he’d see that fault actually starts not in the stands but in the owner’s box with Redskins boss Dan Snyder. Snyder is a billionaire and despite years of terrible decisions, mediocre finishes and a franchise brand that’s racist as all hell, the Redskins are the third most valuable organization in the National Football League. Even though Snyder holds this reservoir of resources, the field on Sunday was in a condition that would shame a public high school.

Even worse, USA Today is reporting that Mike Shanahan has openly misrepresented what team orthopedist Dr. James Andrews said to him about RGIII’s knee. As they reported, “Andrews insisted he never cleared Griffin to return to a game in which Griffin initially injured his knee, even though coach Mike Shanahan again tried to lay the responsibility on him.” If this is true, then Mike Shanahan should never work in the NFL again. If it’s true, it’s also a horrific example of a person in authority abusing their power. Once again, this is something Eugene Robinson could have discussed. Instead, just as Shanahan passed the buck to RGIII, Robinson passed the buck onto us.

Yes, football is a game unsafe at any speed. Yes, it’s governed by a toxic macho ethos that makes injuries like we saw Sunday inevitable. But there are real flesh-and-blood people we can hold to account for what took place. There was a time when we could count on liberals with a public platform to be a part of this fight. That era is starting to look as outdated as calling a team the “Redskins” or as much past its prime as a certain 60-year-old coach. If there is going to be a real fight against power and privilege, not just in sports but in politics, it might be time to champion some new fighters.