During his latest appearance on PFT Live, our corporate brother Tom Curran pointed out that guys like Tom Brady will be walking a delicate tightrope during a lockout.
Brady has emerged as a strong voice in the NFLPA, vowing to attach his name to any antitrust lawsuit filed against the NFL. But Brady has been for nearly a decade the strongest voice of his team. So if the owners implement a work stoppage, how will Brady reconcile his duty to his fellow players with his burning desire to win once football resumes?
Our guess is that Brady will try to have it all, even though organizing player workouts and practices plays into the owners’ hands, allowing them to believe that, if a lockout lasts for the entire offseason, players will be ready to go in September.
Eagles quarterback Mike Vick has yet to climb aboard the union bandwagon. But when it comes to getting his teammates ready for the 2011 season during a lockout, Vick was candid about his plans.
“Wherever we agree to be collectively. It may be Florida, it may be Hawaii. We’ll get our work in,” Vick said Friday at the Maxwell Club gathering in Atlantic City, via the Associated Press. “Being on the same page, timing, which is very important. I think everybody has to be on one accord, all thinking the same. Practice and film study are important, but just familiarizing ourselves with each other, that’s going to be big for us.”
And 32 really rich guys are now smiling.
The notion that “everybody has to be on one accord, all thinking the same” applies with even greater force to the members of the NFLPA. Organizing workouts and practices at a time when the teams won’t let players work out and practice hurts the union’s interests, and it’ll be interesting to see whether and to what extent Vick faces friction and resistance from teammates.
That said, Vick’s interests point directly to doing things that will ingratiate himself to team management and prove that he can work hard even without supervision. Though he accepted the franchise tender offer and will make more than $16 million in 2011, Vick wants a big-money long-term deal. Returning to Philly as the leader of a post-lockout lineup that’s ready to win games will go a long way toward getting that long-term deal done.
We definitely hope the labor situation gets resolved in the next week. If it doesn’t, however, things will be getting very interesting, in many different ways.
