I wonder why, exactly, Bryant Gumble opined that incoming NFL Commish Goodell that should quickly find the "leash in his desk" for NFLPA union head Gene Upshaw.  The upshot of this comment I guess was Gumbel's opinion that somehow the NFL owners have the players union in a bag mostly because the NFLPA head is in the commissioner's back pocket?  Amid the furious rebuttals coming from the NFL - especially outgoing commissioner Tagliabue - is the simple question: what if Gumbel was, essentially, correct?

No one has doubted for a long time that the NFL's players union was the "weakest" of the 4 major team sports in the US.  Compared to baseball, that's true - it is far weaker.  However, baseball seems intent on aiming a .50 caliber Desert Eagle at its feet every few years, making everyone choose a partisan side.  Like politics, the "blue" union and the "red" owners have to basically agree to disagree, and since the player's union can call most of the shots (mostly because the owners can't seem to cobble together a strong enough front to back the union down) it is assumed that its the strongest.

But if you look over the past ten or fifteen years what has happened between football and baseball, you see a huge disparity.  You see one league that strives as hard as possible to maintain a mostly genial partnership between players and owners.  You see one league that willingly devotes a nice chunk of its annual budget directly to player salaries.  You see one league that reaps the benefits of smart merchandising, and even smarter media contracts.  And, you see one league have its best and brightest stars dragged in front of Congress and raked over the coals, all while perhaps the game's brightest star is currently wondering whether or not he'll face federal indictments for perjury and tax evasion!  This isn't to say that the football relationship is perfect, nor that the agreements and partnership forged in football will automatically work in baseball.  But, the players have agreed to work more closed with the owners - in effect giving away some rights - for the guarantee of more and more and more money each and every year.  53 players make a team, and this year's cap is slightly over $100 million per, and there are new league rules in effect that make teams basically pay - in cash - about that same amount to its players.  There are no deferred contracts in football - you get it up front, and take the salary cap hit.

So, does that mean that Gene Upshaw is in the owner's pocket?  I guess it does, if you're Bryant Gumbel.  To me, it means that the NFLPA might actually have the smarter of the two leaders.  He's a man that defends his charges as best as he can all while working to maintain a balance in a partnership.  That's no easy feat, especially considering the aims of the players and the aims of the owners do not always coincide.  He's a man that understands that forging a working relationship to the men that hold the checkbook, and demonstrating his client's worth at the same time, makes sure that the checkbook opens a little more widely each year, and his clients reap the rewards of that.

I think that if Bryant Gumbel wanted to grumble, he should have done so about baseball - how the game's imbalance of power hurts the overall sport, how the players are beyond arrogant and need reined in and how baseball continues to lose prominence in the face of football.  But since he chose to whine about football, I guess I only have one thing to say to Bryant Gumbel...

Shut up.