MF: Michael Silver of Yahoo! had a summary of the events that occurred last week, primarily from the players’ perspective, and his take was that at some point this business issue became personal for the players. They felt disrespected in several different regards, whether it was the Jerry Richardson’s alleged actions at the meeting the day before Super Bowl XLV, the “lockout insurance” case and the revelations that the NFL was feathering its nest at a time when the NFL should have been maximizing shared revenue. Do you agree with that take that even though there may not be hate and vitriol, that it’s crossed over from being business to personal for some of the players that are on the front lines of this?
JF: All emotions aside we went to the negotiations last week, and I was up there, with the intent of negotiating a deal and getting a deal done. And whatever the NFL wants to say contrary to that, I know because I was in those meetings every day, how hard the players worked to come up with models and ideas that would best address the problems the NFL said they had, while trying to still represent the players and get a deal done that both sides could live with, you know. And I do think Michael Silver did a good job of explain what went on, the frustration that existed with the players. And I don’t know whether it was a legal strategy that the owners had to not really negotiate with us throughout the week and then at the end of the day come back with an offer that hopefully we would take because we were so frustrated all along.
I think that’s what their thinking was this week to come back on Friday, right before the deadline, with an offer that moved a little bit towards where we were, but the process was so convoluted along the way and there was so much frustration along the way, by that time the players were at the point where we said, “Well, we’re going to utilize our legal opportunities and our legal options as well.” Because had the NFL come to us at the beginning of the week with that offer and said here’s where we’re going to start, I’d understand, because first of all, we came to them with the offer first. Their offer was a counter to our offer, although they didn’t say that, they just promoted it as if that was the offer they came to us with...
