Collective Bargaining

For many people, February is a month of doldrums.  The holiday season has passed, the cold settles deep in our bones, and Spring seems like another idyllic promise - dangling uncomfortably out of reach.  For me, it all starts with the day after Superbowl Sunday.  The NFL season comes to a close, the numbness takes over, and unless you're Mel Kiper, the Draft is too far off to even consider.  For football fans, February and March are bitter pills to swallow, and their effects are barely buffered by the media's coverage of March Madness and Spring Training.  For us, the weeks between the Superbowl and the NFL Draft might as well be spent in hibernation, with no ESPN, no NFL Network, no sports talk radio.  Nothing generates the same spark. We become zombie-esque, non-committal sports fans, clinging to our days with a limited amount of static electricity.

The inevitable time of mourning comes every year, but in 2011, it hit a new low.  This year, the NFL Player's Association (NFLPA) and the League Owners gave us quite a scare.  While attempting to renegotiate the NFL's 10 year old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), they stumbled on a stalemate.  Neither side appeared to budge, and the media speculated that this year, not only was the Draft in danger, but without some sort of concessions on both sides, the 2011 NFL Season was in jeopardy.  The bitter pills we swallowed annually were chased with antacids and anti-anxiety medication.  For those of us who build our springs and summers around the NFL Draft, Free Agency, Training Camp and Fantasy Football prep, our center of gravity was pitted from our cores.  We were lost, confused, hollow.  What did all of this mean?

For the first time in NFL history, a full-fledged lockout was ordered.  Players couldn't enter practice facilities, coaches couldn't make contact, statements from the NFLPA and the League Owners were succinct and enigmatic.  Media reports were vague and uninformative, and all League activity had been frozen.  February and March took on a deeper shade of bleak.  March came in like a lion, but where was the lamb?  Enter April, and the freeze was still on.  Without dual ratification of a new CBA, the NFL season would never be born.

Those who know me understand that a blow of this kind would be devastating, and I might not ever fully recover.  A summer without Fantasy Drafts?  A Fall without the NFL Ticket? A Winter without playoffs and smack talk?  No Superbowl???  I get ogeda just thinking about a scenario this drastically unfathomable.  How can the owners and players be so far apart?  They have common goals - is there no common ground?  I mean, aren't we all men here?

And oddly enough, something dawned on me.  I'd reached a similar stalemate in my own life.  Me the Player, Life the Owner, never quite being able to reconcile.  Constantly moving in different directions, causing friction, until one day - I just stopped really living.  The CBA standoff made me realize my own life was at a standstill.  Who I was and who I wanted to be were so far apart that we too had no common ground.  We didn't recognize each other anymore.  It was like I'd been locked out of my own life, as if I'd been frozen in my tracks.  It was time for me to renegotiate.

In sports, the owners are the businessmen.  They invest their dollars, they dictate terms, they barter, they hire, they fire, they promote.  The owners come from all different backgrounds, have different ideologies and personalities, but they have one common goal - to WIN.  There's not an owner in the league that doesn't want to take home a Lombardi Trophy, and reap all the benefits that come along with it.

In life, the owners are similar.  Their investments are necessary for us to walk these paths.  We need terms, promoters.  We need something bigger than ourselves, to help us bring home those victories.  But the owners come from different backgrounds, with different ideologies and personalities.  In life, the owners don't always share a common goal.  Life's owners can help you win, or lead you astray, and in life - it's even more important for the players to step up, and protect themselves.  With the right collective bargaining agreement, we can be achievers.  With the wrong one, we can disappear.

So, who are the owners in my life today?  Family, Work, Geography, Confidence, Commitment, Fear, Anxiety, Love, Guilt, Regret, Loss, Change.  Probably many more.  They can all work for or against us, depending on our contract terms.  Depending on how we've negotiated.  I don't have an agent.  And I haven't even looked at my life this way in such a long time.  Like the NFLPA, I've been operating on auto-pilot for at least 10 years.  I've been up and down, lost and found, but never revisited my lease on life. I think it's time to take a new look.

So, with the new CBA ratified by the Owners and the Players, we can finally look forward to the season.  Players reported to camp, and I planned a trip to Lehigh.  One of my favorite days of the year is the day I make a road trip to watch the Birds practice.  It's the first day everything feels real - like the first day of school - a fresh start.  I get so excited, I can't wait for the preseason.  I can't wait for a new reason to feel engaged.  And maybe it's silly to feel that way about a game....but I do.  It's part of my world, part of what feeds me.  Right or wrong, I would be hollow without it.  I'm lacking in things to root for, and maybe the NFL helps me fill that void.  Maybe someday I'll replace it with something else, and maybe not, but if I do - it won't be in the next decade.

Happy Football Season, Y'all.

- L.