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Debaclation Nation

Welcome to the new Debaclation Nation, a fancy title for this Web site's new poll center.

Each week, I'll post an interesting (or boring) Debaclation Nation poll so you can vote and argue over it. I'll keep the Debaclation Nation polls archived, so you can go back and keep arguing or see who was right.

So much for the new CBA being signed on Thursday. Who has been the bigger jerk in the past 24-48 hours, the players or the owners?

July 22

No CBA: Who has been the bigger jerk in the past 24-48 hours, the players or the owners?

We all thought football was saved. When the NFL owners finished up their 2-hour lunch and voted 31-0 (Al Davis abstaining, of course, because it was daytime so he couldn't go outside since he melts in the sun), we all thought the CBA was a done deal.

Well, at least the people on Twitter thought so. From what I read in my timeline, all of us football fans were happy - until, that is, the NFL players alerted the media that they would not be voting on the CBA on Thursday night, and according to George Wilson, perhaps not on Friday night either.

The NFL players haven't had enough time to look at the document. That's fair. However, players like New Orleans' Heath Evans, Jacksonville's Mike Sims-Walker and Buffalo's George Wilson expressed their frustration via Twitter and the actual media, citing that the NFL owners have deceived them by putting stuff into the CBA that was never agreed upon.

So, are the NFL owners sly douche bags who put pressure on the NFL players as a PR move? Perhaps. But something isn't right. Evans and Wilson complained about new stuff being in the CBA, yet they say they haven't even seen it. Evans admitted as much on NFL Network. Wilson, meanwhile, was asked repeatedly by Paul Burmeister why he couldn't, in his own words, take the new agreement to his teammates. Wilson ducked Burmeister's question each time. I watched the interview with my dad as we were eating dinner. The third time Wilson avoided the question, my dad bellowed, "F*** you, a**hole, you're not answering because you're a f***ing liar!"

Here's my take on all of this nonsense - the owners did in fact use Thursday's stunt as a PR move, but it wouldn't make sense for them to change the agreement of the CBA. I just believe that the NFL players feel disrespected that the owners did it this way, and they may unfortunately delay voting on this CBA out of pure stubbornness.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Some NFL players often don't take to kindly to being disrespected because they believe respect should be served to them on a silver platter. However, we can only hope that they see the bigger picture - that they make money playing football, and they're going to lose their fan base - and as a consequence, their money - each day they delay signing this CBA.

As I tweeted (@walterfootball), "NFL players want more money. NFL players want fewer practices. I'd be happy just to play football for a living. #wewantfootball."

TRcasTitans31 quickly replied to me, "Owners want more money and slipped unapproved things into the CBA, I'd be happy just to be a billionaire. Works both ways." Not quite. The owners own the teams. They can do whatever they want. It's their business. NFL players, meanwhile, don't have to play football. They're free to sell insurance, drive trucks or flip hamburgers. No one's forcing them to play football, despite what Adrian Peterson may think.

But the NFL players won't sell insurance, drive trucks or flip hambugers because they have a far better job than 99.9 percent of the people in America. But for some reason, they just don't seem to realize that.

That's my take. I think the NFL players are the bigger jerks, but don't let me sway you either way. Vote on whom you think is the bigger jerk, and discuss it in the comment board below the poll.

Debaclation Nation

No CBA: Who has been the bigger jerk this past 24-48 hours?

Version 2.03

Heath Evans 07-22-2011 06:52 am xxx.xxx.xxx3.15 (total posts: 3)

Owners! Owners! Owners! Obviously!

Roger Goodell 07-22-2011 06:51 am xxx.xxx.xxx3.15 (total posts: 3)

Players Players Players! Obviously!

nycsportzfan 07-22-2011 06:49 am xxx.xxx.xxx3.15 (total posts: 3)

I couldent agree more Walt.. How anyone can think the Owners are at fault is stupid..Well, i should say at fault more then players.. THe players have jobs, and there boss's are the Owners, the owners own the team, they are the boss's.. Am i clear yet? The owners only have the players because there taking a chance they can make them money, and as soon as they do, the players want more, the players always want more.. As u said, u can just tell its outta pure stubborness the players didn't vote yesterday on the new CBA.. I mean, give me a break, sign the freaking thing and make more money with less practice, so we as fans can now pay more money to see ridiculous penalties, more players crying for bigger contracts, balls dropped that are directly in a players hands, passes overthrown to wide open WR's, and so much more.. I mean, the players are fun to watch, but there far from a perfect product.. To be honest, if all the NFL players right now didn't exist, and the CFL players were the NFL players, we'd still love it just as much...lol

Classic Silver and Black 07-22-2011 05:48 am xxx.xxx.xxx2.66 (total posts: 1)

I disagree with Walt's way of thinking on this matter. He doesn't consider that the NFL is a de-facto monopoly in professional football. In almost any other professional sport, you have alternatives. In basketball or hockey, a player can go playing in Europe if he doesn't like the NBA or NHL agreements. He'll earn less money but without having to train as hard or to play as many games.
In baseball, he can go to Japan or some other Asian countries.

The NFL situation is really unbalanced because pro football is a monopoly not just in America, but worldwide. This gives the NFL owners a much bigger leverage compared to the players.

Alex 07-22-2011 03:46 am xxx.xxx.xxx12.5 (total posts: 1)

Over this whole mess, the owners were bigger jerks, but over the last 24 hours the players seem still intent on squeezing everything they can get out of the owners. We don't know the whole story, but from what I can see the players are at fault.

Adam C 07-22-2011 03:33 am xxx.xxx.xxx3.71 (total posts: 1)

Really they're both jerks. Remember at the beginning the players just wanted to renew the old CBA but the owners wanted a bigger piece of the 9 billion dollar pie. So after the first judge rules for the players the owners make their first proposal. Now it was expected that the players would reject it but they handled it in a juvenile manner to which the the owners responded just as childish. Then the second judgement rules in favor of the owners. This got the players negotiating again but they stalled mostly till the 3rd ruling. After that went in favor of the owners they finally got to some real negotiating but the owners are the ones who want to get it done the most right now because if they don't by Tuesday we lose a week of preseason games and they lose 250 million. The players make most of their money after the preseason so they're content to just stall and make the owners and us sweat it out. This is why the owners set Thursday as their voting deadline. They know the players are trying to bleed them for every little thing they can. Now I'm almost positive the players will vote and approve the new CBA by Tuesday because if they don't then things will go right back to the way they were in April and we may be looking at no season or at least a short one. The players can't afford that. Each player is only insured $200,000 to live on for the year from the NFLPA while the owners wisely set aside 4 billion in insurance. So basically the players are trying to bleed everything they can out of the owners before Tuesday. It's almost over.

BucsFan 07-22-2011 03:22 am xxx.xxx.xxx.222 (total posts: 1)

Players are the Jerks of the off-season for me.

duh 07-22-2011 03:18 am xxx.xxx.xxx.137 (total posts: 1)

i voted players because Walt did

Steve 07-22-2011 03:15 am xxx.xxx.xxx1.23 (total posts: 1)

Clearly, it is the players.

Walter 07-22-2011 02:28 am xxx.xxx.xxx4.88 (total posts: 6)

Well the lawyers are a given. They're always jerks haha. But DeMaurice represents the players.

ethwasia 07-22-2011 02:25 am xxx.xxx.xxx7.13 (total posts: 1)

Where's the option for DeMaurice Smith or the lawyers?

TeHDruiD 07-22-2011 02:08 am xxx.xxx.xxx1.10 (total posts: 1)

The players are the jerks imo.

Sure the Owners pulled off the ultimate PR move by forcing the players in a position where they either vote or get shunned by the fans.

It all falls on the players now, the owners have signed off, the players are who are holding this back now, so I make them the jerks prolonging this.

They say the owners added stuff, yet didn't see the document, so they got caught in that lie.

Mortensen says the players got the document, George Wilson says they didn't, then later says they did, so they got caught in another lie.

They need to just give up, they can't even keep their stories straight at this point

Kevin 07-22-2011 02:05 am xxx.xxx.xxx2.65 (total posts: 1)

Both sides have been equally jerkish, but the NFL Owners aren't holding up football anymore.

Walter 07-22-2011 01:58 am xxx.xxx.xxx4.88 (total posts: 6)

First comment... we're going to have comment boards like this all over the site soon. We're still working out the kinks, so this is not the finished product.

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