ESPN Insider: ‘Shut up and vote’
Jul 22, 2011, 3:16 PM | Updated: 5:10 pm
The NFL owners have agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, but the lockout is still in effect.
While everyone is hopeful the players will recertify as a union and agree to the deal, it is not quite that simple.
“It’s a messy situation,” ESPN’s NFL writer John Clayton said on Sports 620 KTAR’s Doug and Wolf. “Trust is still not there on either side.”
The owners agreed to the deal on Thursday and the players were supposed to agree to it shortly after, until they read over the owner approved CBA and noticed a few stumbling blocks.
“They were prepared to vote it in last night, but all of a sudden the curveballs that they saw was ‘we didn’t agree on this, we can’t vote on it,'” Clayton said.
This may be the most progress made in months, but the lockout is still in effect and time is of the essence as one game has already been cancelled.
The annual Hall of Fame game has been cancelled and Clayton estimates that if the lockout continues past Wednesday or Thursday, the first week of preseason games will be missed.
Although the players want to approve a deal and get back to work, things get complicated when over a thousand players are involved as they all have different opinions.
While getting large groups of people to agree upon one thing is a difficult task, Clayton makes it simple by offering one simple suggestion to the players.
“This is the best deal, shut up and vote.”
