When we visited with Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez at the Super Bowl, he said he definitely would be back for another season in 2011.
But if there’s no season in 2011, Gonzalez now says he would likely walk away from the game.
“Would I sit out a whole season and come back -- probably not, honestly,” Gonzalez told Clifton Brown of Sporting News. “At this point, at my age, I don’t know if that would be smart of me to do something like that. But I’m enjoying the offseason, working out and preparing like I always do.”
That said, Gonzalez thinks it won’t get to that point.
“I think it might cut into camp,” Gonzalez said. “Into the season, I doubt it. Who knows though? Hopefully we can get these issues resolved. The arguments from the owners’ perspective are a little outrageous to me. It’s the No. 1 game in the world . I think there are so many ways you could structure a deal. Maybe there are too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Maybe we should get one or two representatives from each side to hammer it out. But between the owners and the players, that’s a lot of different opinions and that’s why the process is going so slow. That’s why I don’t think it’s going to be resolved anytime soon. But I just don’t see an entire season being taken away. That would be sad. Not just for the players and the owners, but the fans.”
It’s already sad. The question is how sad it will be, and how much (more) damage will be done to the game that plenty of folks involved in this fight don’t love nearly as much as they love their money.
