FanPost

Was the lockout just hype?

  I am not one of the conspiracy theorist who believe pennies are made for the purposes of transmitting your finger prints to the CIA…. everyone knows it is the nickels to do that for the NSA, but wouldn’t it beat all that the NFL may come out of this horrid off season smelling like roses after all the crap they put the fans through.  There may have been a few, meaning three, that have swore off the NFL, but come the first preseason game I would bet my NSA nickel that more fans will be watching then would otherwise bother to see backups that will get cut.  The answer to why is simple, for the last few months many of us have been faced with the notion that this fall could be without the NFL
  What… no more yelling at the TV screen knowing that if we can reached that next voice killing octave that the football will magical move another few inches for the first down, blasphemy I say. Then again it seemed so close to possible, with every report of  much the two sides distained each other, or the tweets…oh the tweets… that so persistently described, in 140 characters or less, the opinions of unnamed sources from  “closed door” meetings on what a player, who may or may not have been in said meeting, thought of certain unnamed commish or how far apart the two side were.  Yes indeed it increasingly felt that with every newscast telling us that we have reached day 100,043 of the lockout without the chance of  Tweedle A and Tweedle D coming to terms  we would be left watching soccer… “shiver“ this fall.
   Well unless the NFL and NFLPA decided to they really want to royally “urinate” the fans off and get pissy… unriny over clause b subsection 23.2 paragraph four of the Hot Dog agreement (Only one per half for each quarterback) and decided to blow 9 billion dollars after all by forgoing the 2011 it was all for naught this worry of ours.  When the seasons starts the fans will all but forget the last few months, pay up the twenty bucks for a hotdog, going dutch for the water, and blissful forget real life for about four hours.   Nothing would have been lost by anyone save a couple thousand employees that were laid off for the sake of a few owners/teams appearing beleaguered in hopes of swaying a judge or Two to their side. 
  Starting to get more serious here, but there was a point I reached about day 1 of the lockout that I looked ahead and thought only a moron, or several, would chop of their nose’s to spite their face. It never made since that two well-to-do organizations would risk losing billions to gain  millions later. Yet I was forced to see that there might be people selfish enough that they would rather deny others a little, and lose more themselves in the process, just to get their way.  
 Now that a deal seems all but done, with the last major dominos falling just in the nick of time, I had to ask myself was there any doubt.  Was there any real doubt on either side that this would never get done? Would the owners never give an foot, or the players an inch, so as to spite the other side?   Here’s a conundrum was there ever “an other side.” There may very will have been a real threat to “extend the lockout” by the owners, or “hold there breaths” by the players, but in end the both gave way in order to keep the money flowing bountifully.
   I could very well be proved a fool in saying this before the papers have been drawn or the pens inked but it feels that NFL, and sporting news networks will have come out way head by the end of this.  By NFL I mean the players as well of course.  The NFL will see a rise in veiwership from fans grateful to just to have it around this season, not to mention a rush of formerly wary fans will gladly overspending to get their new merchandise for this season.  The sporting news networks and sites have filled their share coffers with the interest the NFL lockout has created for the sport during an otherwise mundane off season that rarely sees stories that keep the interest of the viewers or readers longer then the next “Top 10” list.  
  I know that the lack of news has been a complaint but yet for a lack of news there has been anything but. Every day and week we have willing listened to, and participated in, the hype the lockout has created.  Why?  Mostly for the simple fact that we the fans love the sport and they (Not the NSA) know it.  We have paid more attention this off season to the NFL then any other since the last lockout.  What has happened is that we the fans have made the NFL something that is “Too big to fail.” Too much money would have been blown to risk to drawing a line in sand and sticking by it, but plenty of money was made and will be made buy us just thinking it was possible.
  I ask was, or is, the lockout nothing but hype, something we the fans, the NFL, and the media have made just to pass the time between whistles?  Stop and think if you have indeed paid a little more attention this off-season, with all the unknowns swinging over us like a pendulum, to the NFL and your team?    Just think with a week and half or so when the ink has dried there will be nothing but none stop NFL coverage of craziest free agents buying spree in the Sports history.  Seeing if the Panthers will hold onto fan favorites or watch them go to become rivals will be most interesting to behold.  I can not wait to see the fervent  arguments of who will be our starting qb, or should we have let player A go instead of keeping player B. Then not long in the future like a birthday gift to us all we get see  a few dozen men act like children having fun playing the sport they love, and for some insane reason, I might actual enjoy it more. (I think it is the subliminal messages that are in Geico commercials…)



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