kpholmes Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Brace yourselves.... Just when you thought the rancor between the NFL and players had peaked, along comes Adrian Peterson. In a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo! Sports, the star Minnesota Vikings running back compared the league's labor situation to slavery. "It's modern-day slavery, you know?" Peterson said. "People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too. With all the money ... the owners are trying to get a different percentage, and bring in more money." Peterson's remarks were later removed from the Yahoo! Sports post. The interviewer, Doug Farrar, said he believed that Peterson did not literally mean to compare the NFL's contentious labor dispute with the institution of slavery. "I want to give him the opportunity to provide context as opposed to just running with it," Farrar tweeted. At least one NFL player took issue with Peterson's analogy. Ryan Grant of the Packers tweeted that he "totally" disagreed with the comments, adding that there is "actually still slavery existing in our world.. Literal modern day slavery.. That was a very misinformed statement." "But I understand what point he was trying to make," Grant tweeted. "I just feel like he should have been advised a little differently." It's worth noting Peterson was interviewed just 15 minutes after the union filed papers to decertify so emotions were running high - and words were coming out unfiltered. In fact, when discussing the hot-button topic, the player seemed to realize he should push the self-edit button mid-sentence: "All some people see is, 'Oh, we're not going to be around football.' But how the players look at it ... the players are getting robbed. They are. The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 I wonder if Jesse Jackson will rush to his defense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpholmes Posted March 15, 2011 Author Share Posted March 15, 2011 Yes AP, slaves also made millions of dollars in guaranteed contracts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronco Billy Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Where do i sign up to be a slave? I could use that $2M signing bonus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorttynaz Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 (edited) Here's a novel idea, QUIT! You have that freedom unlike your ancestors who didn't. What a doushe! Lost a lot of respect for this clown today.. Edited March 15, 2011 by Shorttynaz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Wow, now there's two things that I'm sure the players want a do-over on so far this week. What an ass-hat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiebonker Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Wow!!!! I don't know what to say about that comment. But talk about those guys being from another world. Send them to Afghanistan for a few months. Love Football. I'm just going to watch CFL and College this year if there's no season. Dammm.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_am_the_swammi Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 I can reach for the analogy he was trying to make, but he failed miserably in delivering it. Though it does give new meaning to the phrase "I'm going to whip his butt into shape". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddahj Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Where do i sign up to be a slave? I could use that $2M signing bonus. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazinib1 Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Racists Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Hey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcmast Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) I now like 0 Vikings. Edited March 16, 2011 by kcmast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) Players should sue for reparations. Just the man oppressin again! lol - that's so stupid and this is all so bad it's camp. Kinda like the orig Batman show. The diff of course is with that show, they KNEW they were being camp. Edited March 16, 2011 by BeeR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainHook Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 This is one of the main reasons I am on the owners side in these negotiations. Players are so out of touch, and just plain stupid, I cannot be on their side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronco Billy Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Adrian Peterson, Slave, MIN 2011 contract: $10.72M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawks21 Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 New league so far-fetched? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackass Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 New league so far-fetched? yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsfan Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 from Meriam-Webster: Definition of SLAVERY 1. drudgery, toil 2. submission to a dominating influence 3. the state of a person who is a chattel of another Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Beatings Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I guess he needs to be emancipated from the NFL. Tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronco Billy Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 New league so far-fetched? Nope. Not at all. I'm certain the players could pool the vast capital they have obtained from the time they played in the NFL and create their own league with their own rules that they they would govern, administrate, market, and run themselves and that it would be wildly successful. How could anyone possibly think otherwise? I guess they just would rather be slaves... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McBoog Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 EXACTLY... the reason why more people are on the side of the owners than the players. What a tool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Furd Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Nope. Not at all. I'm certain the players could pool the vast capital they have obtained from the time they played in the NFL and create their own league with their own rules that they they would govern, administrate, market, and run themselves and that it would be wildly successful. How could anyone possibly think otherwise? Unlike the players, the owners are replaceable. There are hundreds of guys (well, at least 480 of them) with the money, wherewithawal and inclination to own an NFL team. That's why all those former players have partnered up and are standing in line to buy their own teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peepinmofo Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I for one am getting damn near the end of the rope with this crap. I have no problem walking away from watching NFL football again. College isnt bad to watch. I really enjoy NFL football, but with the whining and bitching both sides are doing, Im about over contributing to them making money. I know there are a lot more people out there that are thinking along the same lines too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronco Billy Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I for one am getting damn near the end of the rope with this crap. I have no problem walking away from watching NFL football again. College isnt bad to watch. I really enjoy NFL football, but with the whining and bitching both sides are doing, Im about over contributing to them making money. I know there are a lot more people out there that are thinking along the same lines too. Listeing to sports radio here, a guy was telling the story of his father having season tickets for 40 years for th Donkeys and refused to renew them this year because he was so sick of it. If the NFL is losing these kinds of guys, they'd better get their asses to a conference room and work this thing through, no matter how many 16 hour days they need to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Nope. Not at all. I'm certain the players could pool the vast capital they have obtained from the time they played in the NFL and create their own league with their own rules that they they would govern, administrate, market, and run themselves and that it would be wildly successful. How could anyone possibly think otherwise? I guess they just would rather be slaves... This comes up again and again, but there are a number of things that makes this whole idea far more realistic than people ever think. 1) It doesn't cost $800 million to $1 Billion to start a football team, it just costs that to buy an NFL franchise because of the historical returns. So, you don't actually need to find $30 Billion worth of investors to pull this off. The hard costs of actually pulling this off are likely significantly less. Really, the significant factors are stadiums (which could be leased) and securing TV dollars (which has only been tough for leagues other than the NFL because they've been putting out a product stocked with second-rate talent. 2) While I'm sure there are many owners who are very active in the operations, it seems like most of the "best" ones delegate the truly important day to day operations to hired executives. Why could the players not do this? I think everyone has this image of Adrian Peterson sitting behind a desk making the hard decisions that executives need to make. Sure, that image is a great way to remind yourself that you're correct in thinking this would never work. Unfortunately, it's not exactly accurate. Now, to be honest, I don't think it's worth it for either party. Because both sides would endure no shortage of hardship if they tried to pull this off. The owners would be screwed because they'd be scrambling to put together rosters with sub-par talent and we've all grown used to seeing a certain level of play. Hell, just remind yourself how horrible it is to watch teams like Carolina last year who were playing with out a decent QB. Now picture every single team with a QB that's actually not as good as what they had. The players, on the other hand, can't exactly snap their fingers and pull this off. It would certainly take some time. At least for a while, they'd be playing in older stadiums and the product would certainly be sub-par in it's own way. And regardless, one or the other would fail and it would just be a race. If the owners could convince enough college kids to come to them instead of the player's league, they'd have the talent pipeline restored and would have a quality product on the field in no time. The players, on the other hand, would need to prove their collective league viable enough to win over the good facilities and TV contracts before their talent advantage expired due to retiring players and/or get these same kids to join their league. Regardless, no party wins from this. Both leagues will certainly be less profitable than the current one and the fans would be stuck with two competing leagues, both of which were worse than what we have. Assuming neither side is truly experiencing any hardship right now, they'd both be well served to realize that, while either could theoretically do without the other, some version of the status quo serves both sides much better than either one trying to make it without the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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