This CBA thing is going to get a whole lot uglier before it gets resolved...if it gets resolved. Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson added to the tension in a negotiating session that took place on the Saturday prior to the Super Bowl. According to player rep Jay Feely, Richardson insulted Peyton Manning in that day's meeting.
Here's what the designated "bad cop" for the owners said, as paraphrased by Feely:
Do I need to help you read a revenue chart, son? Do I need to help break that down for you because I don't know if you understand how to read that?
Insulting, but irrelevant since Richardson and the other owners refuse to open their books to the NFLPA anyway. And that wasn't his only comment for Manning, from Jason Cole:
What do you know about player safety?
After Manning brought up the subject of player safety in the discussions.
Insulting Peyton Manning probably isn't a good way to win the PR campaign. People like Peyton Manning, and for good reason since his quiet professionalism and dedication to his craft represents pretty much everything desirable in a sports hero. Not only that, Manning isn't a rep with the NFLPA. Cole points out the risk of alienating a player is has the respect of fans and his fellow players.
The most important nugget from Feely's comments wasn't Richardson's insult to Manning anyway. Feely offered a reminder of the tension created by revenue sharing among teams that underlies the end of the CBA, something that was touched upon yesterday in this piece from 3k.
Jerry Jones doesn't want to share with the Buffalo Bills anymore. You have this disconnect between the owners. They want to take back from the players. That's their answer right now. Their answer is, 'We have leverage. We're going to assert that leverage and fix our problem that we can't settle between ourselves.
Owners like Jones and Dan Snyder make big profits, the kind of profits teams like the Bills, or the St. Louis Rams, may never realize, but they get close with revenue sharing. Even if the owners do get a favorable deal, it makes you wonder what will happen when that's not enough, when Jones and his counterparts at the top of the ownership pile start to think about all that extra money they could be making if they didn't have to give teams like the Rams, or the Panthers, a slice of the pie...