NFL will talk to Matthews, and Peppers regarding the Al-Jazeera report.....

Agreed.  Someone previously mentioned that Goodell may be flexing his muscle and establishing broad power for the purpose of giving the league a major bargaining chip in the negotiations for the next CBA.  I'm starting to believe that.  Why else would you do this?  Under Goodell, the NFL has already become one of the strictest leagues in professional sports when it comes to player discipline.  Exercising this type of power and inviting this type of litigation seems completely unnecessary.  And angering some of the NFL's largest fan bases  seems counter productive.   

You've got a strict drug policy in place.  Just follow it.  

michiganjoe posted:

Bil Michaels said today the league offered the union financial incentives to get that extremely broad authority for Goddell.

Financial incentives?  What the hell could've been that much of a payoff for all players to give up that control?  That's some stupid dumb right there.

Aaron Rodgers: It’s on us if Goodell is judge, jury and executioner

Posted by Josh Alper on August 17, 2016, 6:10 PM EDT

AP

Beyond saying the team supports the players, Packers General Manager Ted Thompson didn’t share any thoughts about the league’s threat to suspend linebackers Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers for conduct detrimental to the league if they don’t sit for interviews regarding PED accusations.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers went quite a bit further during a Wednesday appearance on “The Jim Rome Show.” Rodgers said he thinks it sets a “bad precedent” if the league gives credit to “any wild accusation” and that it looks bad for the league to press the issue once they’ve already cleared Peyton Manning after he was included in the same Al-Jazeera America report naming his teammates.

None of that is stopping the league from pursuing the matter, something that Rodgers says the players shoulder blame for because they agreed to a Collective Bargaining Agreement that gives NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell disciplinary powers that have been affirmed by two different appeals courts this year.

“If it is the case [that Goodell has too much power], we have nobody to blame but ourselves because we had the opportunity in the CBA to make some legitimate changes to that,” Rodgers said. “I think there’s probably too much pressure to come back to a deal when we had all the power on our side and that was something we should have had negotiated into the CBA, because this shouldn’t be someone who is judge, jury, and executioner.”

The current CBA runs through 2020 and the players will have their chance to make the discipline issue a major talking point during the next round of negotiations. Getting the changes they seek will likely take more resolve than Rodgers feels they showed in the last round of talks, however, and the prospect of missing paychecks is an uncomfortable one for a great many players.

Everyone of these guys can afford to miss paychecks except Neal. That being said hopefully more prominent players voice their opinion, maybe ****in goodell can suspend all of the players who speak up. Then we really would have a ****in circus.

So let's say the Packers refuse to talk to Goodell and they are suspended.  Week one they play the Jags, a game they should win if by no other means than just outscoring the Jags.  Week two rolls around, Sunday Night Football, debut of the new Vikings Stadium. An hour before game time the Packers announce they will refuse to take the field unless the suspensions are immediately lifted. What would Goodell do then, make the Packers forfeit and not have a game showcasing the new digs?  Lift the suspensions?  Punt? 

Not to go off topic ammo, but game one vs the Jags may be one of our few losses this year.

The heat by the 3rd quarter will be strength-sapping---unless you live in it.

Mark it down.

Listen to what Rodgers just had to say.  I'm sure that he isn't the only player who recognizes that this current dispute may very well be the direct result of the NFLPA's failure to negotiate a better CBA.  

It has not exactly been cool up here in Wisconsin BK.   Had a lot of high 80's low 90's the past few weeks with 70 degree + dew points.  The Pack will be ready.

Take it to the bank. 

I'd love to see every team take a snap and then a knee every play in week 1 and have every game end 0-0 week 1 and then say they are just following Rodgers directive to make the game safer. 

ammo posted:

It has not exactly been cool up here in Wisconsin BK.   Had a lot of high 80's low 90's the past few weeks with 70 degree + dew points.  The Pack will be ready.

Take it to the bank. 

Not picking a fight---I was home to M'waukee end of July and I'll admit---hot as Hell. The Southern humidity is un-like anything you get up there.

I remember the first time I stepped off a plane in the South (Savannah) in the summer of 1985----it literally took my breath away.

Hey, I hope I'm rong and it's cloudy and in the low 80's----my sweaty ass will be in the stands.

Of course, the players are tougher than you or I, BK.

I don't know about Wisconsin, but here in New York we had dew points in the upper 70s last weekend, with highs in the 90s, for a heat index approaching 110.

I jog 3 miles every Saturday and Sunday mid-day.

I've yet to see a Jaguar on one of my runs.

...I see Gators occasionally.

I like air conditioning.

heyward posted:

Any way you slice it, it's not a good look that 60% of the players are/were Packers.

Yes, I'm think about supporting the Jaguars with Cal_f.

I was in Orlando July 12. That heat isn't conducive to human life. It's an oppressive unrelenting kind of all encompassing warmth that over time breaks you down like slo motion water boarding. It creeps in your mind and tells you this is not ending. Ever. The temp got down to 87 at 3am with humidity that couldn't wait for sunrise. You feel the humidity mocking you at 3am. Like its talking to you. 

Florida is a rogue planet between June and November. Avoid it! 

It actually turns comfy about October 10th.

And John Facenda wants to record your rant Chili....

Fedya posted:

Of course, the players are tougher than you or I, BK.

I don't know about Wisconsin, but here in New York we had dew points in the upper 70s last weekend, with highs in the 90s, for a heat index approaching 110.

When I went to Lambeau last week it was 90+ degrees and dew point well over 70. I live in the DC suburbs, known for brutal summers and this summer has been worse than most. The Lambeau weather was as sapping as anything I've felt here in Virginia.

You dum dums think the world is getting warmer, huh?

Based on what?

Faith.

I've been in Arkansas for work a good portion of June and July and let me tell you it ain't Wisconsin even in the worst of times. Upper 90s with 75 dewpoint for several weeks?   Brutal.

Get up early in the morning to go running - the cool part of the day- and it's still like 80 with a 75 dewpoint lol. 

I was back in WI last weekend and it was 84 and I actually was wearing jeans and felt just fine.  

Wranglers?

The Ref fka Blair Kiel posted:

And John Facenda wants to record your rant Chili....

Ref. This ones for you. 

The Ref fka Blair Kiel posted:

You dum dums think the world is getting warmer, huh?

Based on what?

No kidding. My neighborhood bash went very well this winter.

I've spent time in New Orleans and Lafayette in June and it's pretty much the worst heat I've ever experienced..........and I lived in Tucson, AZ for 5 years.  I swear to God it got hotter when the sun went down Louisiana.  More likely, it was my expectation that it would cool down maybe more than a few degrees but nope!  It might have dropped a degree so in my head, it felt like it got hotter.  No idea how people live in that climate.  

Went to Florida a few years ago to see Grandpa and Grandma at their cottage at the geriatric produce exchange.  Saw tee-times were over 100 bucks to golf in the morning, but 20 bucks to golf at noon.

You need lots of beer to golf at noon in Florida, might have been cheaper to pay the $100

It has to be hard for the players to want to take a stand on behalf of the NFLPA because they're the dip****s who negotiated this horrible contract in the first place.

That said, when you are in trouble, rule number one is don't talk to the ****ing police.  Nothing good can come from it.  

Goalline posted

No kidding. My neighborhood bash went very well this winter.

At least you didn't have to worry about cooking the hot dogs or pork steaks. 

The Ref fka Blair Kiel posted:

It actually turns comfy about October 10th.

Maybe for you.  I'm pushing November.  There is temp/weather shift around Daytona I noticed but Florida in the summer is living in the Devil's asshole after 3 rounds of chili.

The Ref fka Blair Kiel posted:

Hey, I hope I'm rong and it's cloudy and in the low 80's----my sweaty ass will be in the stands.

Are you gonna take the Free Range Asshole with you ? He's looking for opportunities to wear his new Davante Adams jersey

Actually, aren't most of the players who approved the CBA no longer in the league?

Florio shoots AR down like a goose flying thru a hunters gauntlet.

http://profootballtalk.nbcspor...11-cba-negotiations/

Personally, I have never read the cba ............

2011 so there was plenty of current players around. Plus it was Amended in 2014 to add blood testing for HGH and set forth the penalties, etc. for that, so they could have changed it then too.

Obviously not privy to the discussions, but based on what they put forth, it looks like they wanted to root out cheaters without all the potential legal defenses and rigmarole, you know, like requiring actual hard evidence and other Due Process bullcrap like that.

Actually I just don't think anyone anticipated something like this coming up.

Ghost of Lambeau posted:

Goalline posted

No kidding. My neighborhood bash went very well this winter.

At least you didn't have to worry about cooking the hot dogs or pork steaks. 

Won't have to worry about that till the Vikings win the Super Bowl.

Ghost of Lambeau posted:

Florio shoots AR down like a goose flying thru a hunters gauntlet.

http://profootballtalk.nbcspor...11-cba-negotiations/

Personally, I have never read the cba ............

You mean, smacks AR down like AR stiff arming a cancer patient?

Ghost of Lambeau posted:

Florio shoots AR down like a goose flying thru a hunters gauntlet.

http://profootballtalk.nbcspor...11-cba-negotiations/

Personally, I have never read the cba ............

I can't believe I took the time to read anything by that flaming dumbass Florio, but he says Rodgers is wrong, then proceeds to explain Rodgers was right. The language was already in the CBA prior to 2011, the players didn't try to negotiate a change, period. The owners may have fought and not given it up, but the players didn't even seem to mention it, let alone use it in negotiations. If it were a big deal to them, they should have fought it. 

Yeah, my days of not taking Florio seriously are certainly coming to a middle. 

a comment at PFT nailed it tho:
truthprofessorsays: Aug 18, 2016 12:10 PM

Amazing disclosure today by Sitton on Wilde and Tauscher's show. Jeff Saturday had began a movement to have the Packers players boycott the Saints game the week after the Fail Mary, if the real refs hadn't returned. Hmmm!

Something like that may happen again if these players are suspended for a now re-canted story & ZERO evidence.