[barrett]

I don't have to be pro-union to say the owners are wrong here. Goodell tried to negotiate with a gun just because he thought he could. I don't care how much leverage the owners have, all that leverage has not helped them one bit to avoid ruining the first 3 weeks of the season. And if anyone thinks that since ratings have not gone down, the owners don't care, then I ask why the owners immediately caved following Monday night?

The NFL could have had a partial victory over the refs months ago. Or they could have negotiated while games were being played. Instead they chose to go the lockout/scorched earth route for no apparent reason other than because they could.

The rhetoric from both sides (players and owners) and the willingness to turn every issue into a death struggle (refs, bounties, head trauma, etc...) is really starting to turn me off of the NFL. Not in a way that I'll voluntarily stop watching (I'm an addict and could never quit), but in a way that I almost wish they blow something so bad that there is nothing for me to watch. Like maybe the players 'win' a giant lawsuit and it bankrupts the NFL model and all the players who 'won' the lawsuit are out of a job and we're all watching the Arena League.