It’s not exactly a secret that the NFL and the NFL Players Association don’t see eye-to-eye very often these days.
From the way the league handled Deflategate to the numerous domestic violence incidents it’s dealt with recently, you’d be hard-pressed to find many fans who are happy with commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL. And New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees confirmed that players feel the same way.
“I certainly don’t feel like things should be as contentious as they are,” Brees said on CBS Sports Radio’s “Tiki and Tierney” recently. “Having been on the NFLPA Executive Committee for eight years and being a part of those negotiations back in 2011, I feel like I’ve got some interesting perspective, and then obviously going through the Bountygate debacle here and then seeing how that carried over to the way things were conducted with Deflategate and then the Ray Rice issue, it’s unfortunate because I feel like the league has lost so much trust from players and just the public in the way that they’ve handled these investigations, the lack of transparency.
“They’re certainly in a position where nobody believes anything that comes out of the league office right now as it pertains to really much of anything. You always feel like there’s an agenda at play and nobody’s ever telling you the truth. So, I think that’s the real issue here, the lack of trust.”
Brees’ comments aren’t entirely surprising, but they certainly don’t bode well for the NFL come 2021. The NFL and NFLPA already are battling over the next Collective Bargaining Agreement after the current one expires at the end of the 2020 season, and at least one player is telling his team to start saving for a lockout.
Thumbnail photo via Derick E. Hingle/USA TODAY Sports Images
