Both sides deserve blame, but one side deserves more.

It may just be me, but in the days since the NFL and the NFLPA pulled what many writers have dubbed a ‘Thelma and Louise’ and ran their proverbial car off the side of a cliff, opinion seems to have swung against the players. The players union is a now defunct association that still functions suspiciously like a union. And the owners meanwhile are putting a full-on media blitz, releasing statements club by club that are visibly coordinated. Seriously, read the letters from the various teams and tell me a college professor wouldn’t catch one for plagiarism of the other.

Both sides, are at this point, big parts of the problem. Be it pride, greed or just miscommunication, things have been botched on both sides and they both deserve credit for letting it get to this point. But make absolutely no mistake about it, the only reason any of this is even an issue is entirely the fault of the owners. The CBA was not set to expire this year initially, it was set to expire two years down the road. The owners, despite the unparalleled growth and profitability of the NFL under the old CBA opted out of that agreement. They are the side that failed to live up to their end of a bargain that they negotiated and agreed to, that much is not disputed.

You can hide behind the contractual semantics all you want, and that’s fine there’s no morality or ethics in business. But to a man, the owners didn’t hold up their end of the deal. They opted out, then forced the players to renegotiate a deal that was profiting both sides. Everything from there is up to debate, but before consensus swings too sharply in the direction of the owners, it’s worth mentioning that they’re the group that reneged on their end of the deal and caused this whole situation at this juncture, to begin with.

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