3rdgensooner
2/15/2011, 11:24 AM
“What Do You Know About Player Safety?” (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/02/what-do-you-know-about-player-safety.html)
Have the football owners lost the quarterbacks? The N.F.L. and the players association are engaged in negotiations over what a new collective-bargaining agreement might look like, the owners having walked away from the old one, which they thought was too generous to players. (The threat here is not a strike but a lockout—a bit like the employer going on strike.) At one negotiating session, Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers, is said to have insulted Peyton Manning, of the Colts, and Drew Brees, of the Saints. Jay Feely, a player representative (and kicker for the Cardinals), was on ESPN radio (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/id/33355/jay-feely-kicking-amid-labor-screaming), describing the meeting, which he said he’d been debriefed on but hadn’t attended:
Jerry Richardson … is their lead negotiator for the owners, and he’s going to criticize Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and their intelligence … and sit there and say dismissively of Peyton Manning, “Do I need to help you read a revenue chart, son? Do I need to help break that down for you, because I don’t know if you understand how to read that”—that doesn’t go anywhere in trying to help us to get a deal done.A report on Yahoo News (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AladS3Mjk_nHqq4nkvFi3MtDubYF?slug=jc-richardsonmanning021311) had more details, citing three sources (and getting a no comment from Richardson):
Apparently, Richardson was particularly sarcastic when Manning started to talk about players’ safety. At one point, Richardson evidently said, “What do you know about player safety?”What does Manning know about player safety? What do the owners, and what do we? Reading the reporting on the effects of concussions, by Ben McGrath (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/31/110131fa_fact_mcgrath) and Malcolm Gladwell (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell) in this magazine (and in the Times and elsewhere), there seems to be a lot that is both known and frightening. Far from being overpaid, one wonders if the players—particularly the vast majority of them, who make far less in a career than Manning might in a year—can be paid enough to make up for what the game does not only to their bodies, but to their brains. The especially jarring thing about Richardson’s comments is that, now or later, there may be retired players who do, indeed, have trouble reading a revenue chart—not because of their native intelligence, but because of their time in his employment.
Have the football owners lost the quarterbacks? The N.F.L. and the players association are engaged in negotiations over what a new collective-bargaining agreement might look like, the owners having walked away from the old one, which they thought was too generous to players. (The threat here is not a strike but a lockout—a bit like the employer going on strike.) At one negotiating session, Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers, is said to have insulted Peyton Manning, of the Colts, and Drew Brees, of the Saints. Jay Feely, a player representative (and kicker for the Cardinals), was on ESPN radio (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/id/33355/jay-feely-kicking-amid-labor-screaming), describing the meeting, which he said he’d been debriefed on but hadn’t attended:
Jerry Richardson … is their lead negotiator for the owners, and he’s going to criticize Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and their intelligence … and sit there and say dismissively of Peyton Manning, “Do I need to help you read a revenue chart, son? Do I need to help break that down for you, because I don’t know if you understand how to read that”—that doesn’t go anywhere in trying to help us to get a deal done.A report on Yahoo News (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AladS3Mjk_nHqq4nkvFi3MtDubYF?slug=jc-richardsonmanning021311) had more details, citing three sources (and getting a no comment from Richardson):
Apparently, Richardson was particularly sarcastic when Manning started to talk about players’ safety. At one point, Richardson evidently said, “What do you know about player safety?”What does Manning know about player safety? What do the owners, and what do we? Reading the reporting on the effects of concussions, by Ben McGrath (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/31/110131fa_fact_mcgrath) and Malcolm Gladwell (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell) in this magazine (and in the Times and elsewhere), there seems to be a lot that is both known and frightening. Far from being overpaid, one wonders if the players—particularly the vast majority of them, who make far less in a career than Manning might in a year—can be paid enough to make up for what the game does not only to their bodies, but to their brains. The especially jarring thing about Richardson’s comments is that, now or later, there may be retired players who do, indeed, have trouble reading a revenue chart—not because of their native intelligence, but because of their time in his employment.