Lockout Blues

One of my favorite films of the past decade is "Charlie Wilson's War." Everytime it is on cable, I get sucked in and can't stop watching it. The main premise of the film is how Congressman Charlie Wilson, played by Tom Hanks, was the main contributor to the United States covert and secret backing of Afghanistan in their attempt to thwart the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Wilson teams up with CIA man Gust Avrakatos, portrayed superbly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in this secret war against the Russians. The CIA and American Forces supplied, trained and bolstered the Afghan freedom warriors in an eventual victory over the Soviets. The film was so good that I immediately bought the novelized version. Of course books are always better then the movie, and this case was no different. Unfortunately for the United States, these same Afghan fighters that were trained and supported by us in the fight against the Russians, turned their backs on us and many of those fighters became terrorists and sworn enemies of the United States-including our old nemesis Osama Bin Laden. The quote that sticks out for me in the entire book is when Avrakatos talks about how the United States Government underrated and also bailed on the Afghans, which led to a hotbed of distrust and anger towards our country. As Avrakatos puts it, "We went ahead and fucked up the endgame."

That quote is something that I continue to hear in my head as this NFL lockout continues. Years from now Roger Goodell, John Mara, DeMaurice Smith or even Drew Brees could be making this same statement about the current lockout and its' affect on the NFL brand. It is so frustrating to think that as we approach Memorial Day, the lockout is still going on, and there seems to be no end in sight. The only thing that we can look forward to is the appeals hearing on June 3rd with the 8th Circuit Court. The court will make their decision on whether to lift the lockout or not-at this point all signs look to the NFL winning the appeal, and the lockout continuing. Unfortunately, the judges won't make their ruling until at least the end of June or early July (You gotta love those courts!).

That puts us back at square one. The lockout will still be in effect, and the ball will be in the players court. DeMaurice Smith has not backed off of his rhetoric, and it is very hard to see him leading the players back to the table to get a deal. The players count continue with the litigation route, but those cases won't be heard for many months or even next year. If the players want to play this season like they said they wanted to, then Smith has to move past his ego and get back to the table in July. If he doesn't do that, then the lockout will continue into the season and regular season games will be missed, postponed or cancelled all together. Until there is any substantial news on an agreement, I will be locking myself out of posting. Both sides have already robbed me of the fun of an NFL offseason, and I'm not going to post until there is some real news on this dispute. Until then, I will continue to enjoy the NHL Playoffs, NBA Finals, and whatever cheap reality show I can get my hands on.

Remember what Gust said, "We went ahead and fucked up the endgame." I'm hoping that this quote doesn't come back to haunt the NFL Owners, the Commissioner and more importantly the head of NFLPA, Mr. DeMaurice Smith. We are going to find out this summer if this rings true or not.