One of the surprising aspects of the NFL’s Thursday night press conference arose when the league mentioned that the owners approved a new supplemental revenue sharing plan. It was surprising because no one knew the NFL was considering a new supplemental revenue sharing plan.
Even more surprising was the concern expressed by NFLPA* executive director DeMaurice Smith in his e-mail to the player representatives regarding the owners’ supplemental revenue sharing plan.
“As you may have heard,” Smith wrote, “they apparently approved a supplemental revenue sharing proposal. Obviously, we have not been a part of those discussions.”
The NFLPA* hasn’t been part of those discussions regarding that issue because the NFLPA* showed no interest in that issue. All along, the elephant in the room was the league’s effort to fix revenue disparities by taking money back from the players. For reasons still unknown, the NFLPA* never pushed that issue.
So while there may be plenty of reasons to balk about the misguided power play that the owners have tried to pull, complaining about an issue about which the players previously didn’t care badly misses the mark.