Sporting Random Thoughts - 4/26

Is today the end of the NFL lockout? Supposedly a federal judge has ruled in favor of the NFL’s players effectively lifting the lockout and ordering the resumption of business as usual in the NFL. But does it do that? I wasn’t aware that a federal judge has the power to force a private company and its franchise holders to just resume business as usual thanks to a convincing argument by another party. I can’t imagine that the owners in the NFL like being told what their business is by some federal judge and besides the lockout it doesn’t seem likely that a judge can allow persons to enter private property, which is what has happened with many players showing up to various team facilities today. Strangely in the ruling is a section titled “The Public Interest Does Not Favor The 'Lockout'.” So what? The judge is being lauded for keeping the public in mind and however good that sounds it bears understanding that it isn’t the judge’s job to keep in mind the public interest, it is their job to apply the law to the complaint. And failing to do so only makes appeals more likely to succeed. I think that there are ways that the owners can push back and I think that they will if they continue to be provoked by a P.R. campaign masquerading as negotiations that are aided by yet another rogue judge. Day after day, the only argument given by NFLPA (the player’s union, which isn’t even a thing anymore after they de-certified once the lockout started) head DeMaurice Smith consists entirely of insults, making brash statements that the judge has ruled that the NFL’s lockout was illegal (not really) and that all the players want to do is play football and that the owners are petty and that’s just a sampling of comments from today. Why would the owners want to even deal with a publicity hungry trash talker like that? I don’t think anything’s over and fear that publishing such a lopsided ruling instead of allowing mediation work will only further endanger the NFL season. That judge earns an F for what will likely prove to be a time-costly distraction.

Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel is under fire after being caught, doing what exactly? Examination of the sports punditocracy one could easily think that what Tressel did was truly abhorrent. But was it? That depends on one’s understanding of right and wrong when it comes to college athletics. Tressel was made aware that some of his players had traded Ohio State memorabilia for material goods (which is an NCAA violation) and then he failed to disclose that information until just about the last minute. And from the perspective of the NCAA, the ruling body underlining the rules and structure of college football, Tressel broke a rule and will be punished for that. It is my opinion that whatever Tressel did, it just doesn’t seem to be that big a deal. He wasn’t right doing that but he didn’t hurt anyone. And many of the sportswriters currently attacking Tressel are first in line to question the arcane, albeit ridiculous to the layman rules of the NCAA, including the one that led to this issue. It serves no purpose to pretend that Tressel is some kind of criminal, worse than most even when the case hasn’t even been fully investigated. Tressel may lose his job and his likelihood as a result of poor decisions, conviction before the details are fully known is just cheering for a person’s life to be ruined as if for sport.