By Jerry McDonald – NFL Writer
Bill Parcells often relays the story of the most important thing he learned from Al Davis.
“Nobody cares,” Parcells told Bay Area media. “Nobody cares about your injuries or your problems. All they want to know on Monday is if you won.”
It’s a lesson NFL owners and the NFLPA (or whatever it is) would do well to heed.
Most NFL teams, including the 49ers, have issued statements to their fans, a subtle way of getting their message out and defending their strategy of locking out the players.
The alleged gag order during mediated collective bargaining was a joke. DeMaurce Smith, Jeff Pash and Roger Goodell could hardly wait to get behind a microphone to disparage the other side, and there was no shortage of leakers for ambitious reporters such as Mike Silver and Jim Trotter.
There hasn’t been a peep out of Oakland. Davis, relegated to the background in part because he helped push forward the 2006 agreement which is the root cause of all the disagreement about how best to divide $9 billion, has had nothing to say.
Both sides would do well to follow his lead, because in this case, Davis is right.
Nobody cares.
Oh, the fans care deeply about football and want it every Sunday.
But they don’t care about how the money is divided or which side gets the upper hand. The amount of time and effort the non-union as well as ownership has devoted to spin is a monumental waste of time that could be put to better use settling differences.
Rarely do we talk about other peoples money. As a Fan of Football, I am only concerned as to whether these negotiatons would stop the games during regular season. Otherwise I hope the players get their fair share as they are the ones that make the game prosperous, not investors.