Replacement Refs [merged x2]

[Phishfan]

Pappy, do you understand what the NFL is doing? The NFL wants the refs to be full time employees at a 16% pay cut in salary (also meaning they must QUIT their other regular jobs) and they want to get rid of their pension. They are telling the refs you will make less money in your life, get no pension and you will like it.

This is not quite true. Fans are the one yelling about full time referees (just see this thread). The NFL is proposing 7 full time referree employees.

[Pappy13]

To be fair, during the NFLPA lockout, you sided with the owners then, too:

I did side with the owners there. Maybe this scale would help you understand my position.

On a scale from 1 to 10 of how "CUSHY" your job is with 1 being VERY CUSHY and 10 being not CUSHY at all:

NFL Owners - 7
NFL Refs - 4
NFL Players - 1

I probably need to define CUSHY as it's being used here. Cushy involves a lot of things, for example how many hours you work per week, how many weeks per year, how much you get paid, how physical of a job is it, how mentally taxing/stressfull is it, what perks do you get, what special skills are involved, ETC.

You can certainly argue with me on these ratings as they are simply my opinion and you might say that NFL players have an EXTREMELY physically tough job, but I would counter that most of the players were born with physical gifts that most people simply do not possess which makes them a bit of a "lucky duck" in my book. Certainly they have to cultivate those skills to their fullest, but without those skills in the first place, no amount of hard work is gonna let someone without those skills be able to do what they do. They also work hard for about half the year and have it pretty easy for the other half. They are also paid EXTRORDINARILY well, have TONS of perks and typically are pampered and catered too because of their unique skills.

My point was simply that they are billionaires; how they amassed their fortune is of no relevance.

It is of relevance to me. Most of the owners are shrewd businessmen that work long hours, take a lot of flack especially when they make mistakes, typically get little credit when they are right, are under quite a bit of stress since they stand to lose millions and really have no special skills to rely on. Not all of them fall under those guidelines, but many of them do. They mostly got where they are through a lot of very hard work and relying on nothing but their intelligence. I really would not want to be an owner. NFL Player or REF? Where do I sign up?

[Brian Fein]

So you don't think owners have a "cushy" job?  I'd love to hear that rationale...

[Pappy13]

So you don't think owners have a "cushy" job?  I'd love to hear that rationale...

Read that last paragraph.

[Brian Fein]

Yep, I read it but I don't know if I understand it.

Some owners just sign checks.  Maybe even have their secretary do that.  I don't see how praise/criticism weighs into "cushiness" of one's job, especially when discussing billions of dollars.  I don't claim to know the life of a billionaire football team owner, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have as much stress as, say, a neurosurgeon or a manager of a grocery chain, or even a construction worker.  They are surrounded with assistants and all they have to do is "be rich."

[Spider-Dan]

On a scale from 1 to 10 of how "CUSHY" your job is with 1 being VERY CUSHY and 10 being not CUSHY at all:

NFL Owners - 7
NFL Refs - 4
NFL Players - 1

I am literally left with my mouth agape at this statement.

How many owners have been paralyzed by spinal injuries suffered during their many hours of watching football games?  How many owners have had multiple concussions and can't remember what they did yesterday?  Do you think Dan Snyder struggles to perform simple tasks like getting out of bed after the pounding his body has taken since becoming an owner?

The average NFL career is less than 4 years long.  How long do you suppose the average time of ownership of an NFL team is?  Do you think the constant, repeated uncertainty of whether or not you will have a job this season is "cushy"?

The mind boggles.

[Pappy13]

Yep, I read it but I don't know if I understand it.

Some owners just sign checks.  Maybe even have their secretary do that.  I don't see how praise/criticism weighs into "cushiness" of one's job, especially when discussing billions of dollars.  I don't claim to know the life of a billionaire football team owner, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have as much stress as, say, a neurosurgeon or a manager of a grocery chain, or even a construction worker.  They are surrounded with assistants and all they have to do is "be rich."

Most of them didn't start out "rich". Some did or more accurately were born into it, but even those that did, they don't become owners simply by signing checks and "being rich".

For players, the injury risk is large I will admit, but I've seen my share of construction workers, factory workers etc who have lost arms and legs on the job and they also have very physical jobs with no where close to the same amount of compensatory pay or benefits.

I also recognize the fact that the average NFL career is less than 4 years long, but many of those players make enough money in those 4 years that it could literally last them the rest of their lives if they would simply live the lifestyle that those construction workers and factory workers live and perhaps get a financial planner and they are still young enough when they retire from their NFL careers and have had the opportunity to get a top notch college education whereby they could simply go get another cushy job and live quite comfortably for the rest of their lives. The fact that a relatively small number of them actually do that boggles my mind.

Most people I think would trade their career for an NFL players 4 year career in a heartbeat. I know I would and I like my job and I'm paid relatively well for what I do which is sit behind a desk and give my opinion on sports forums. Not a bad gig if you can get it, but that's because my value is all in my head not in my body. NFL players have been blessed with a gift that few people get and most of them don't realize that till after they stop playing and for the first time have to deal with the world the rest of us live in most of our adult lives. I don't see a whole lot of NFL players walk away from their career, most of them are forced out kicking and screaming. Sure some of them have regrets later about the physical toll their body took, but I still don't hear a lot of them talk about wishing they would have never played.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[Spider-Dan]

For players, the injury risk is large I will admit, but I've seen my share of construction workers, factory workers etc who have lost arms and legs on the job and they also have very physical jobs with no where close to the same amount of compensatory pay or benefits.

So if I understand you correctly:

- physically demanding jobs with high risk of injury (e.g. coal miner) are not cushy
- unless you make lots of money (e.g. NFL player), then they become really cushy (so cushy, in fact, that you literally cannot imagine a job more so, as per your rating)

HOWEVER

- a job that carries virtually zero risk of injury and makes far more money than any of the above (e.g. NFL owner) is somehow not cushy at all

Please do explain.

[Pappy13]

Please do explain.

I already have. You are free to disagree with me and I expect that most of you probably do, but the fact remains that I admire most NFL owners for what they have been able to accomplish in their life, not just as an NFL owner, but what they did prior to becoming an owner as well. I don't think anyone just becomes an NFL owner, it happens over a lifetime of work and achievement. It's the end result of that hard work.

On the other hand I do not admire a relatively large number of NFL players. On the whole there are a large number of spoiled, entitled, juvenile, physically gifted at playing a game players. Not all of them mind you, there are some that "get it" and some of them I quite admire as well, but the percentage is much lower than NFL Owners.

I do cut players a little slack because part of this is the fault of society as a whole putting these players on a pedestal for much of their early years and thinking of them as superior to others simply because of their physical abilities. In some ways they are superior, but unfortunately what gets lost is that there is a distinct difference between being a superior athlete and being a superior person. Largely I think it's tougher to be a superior person and maybe even moreso if you are a superior athlete, but so many of these athletes fall so far short of being superior people, I simply cannot cut them enough slack to make up the difference.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[Spider-Dan]

I already have. You are free to disagree with me and I expect that most of you probably do, but the fact remains that I admire most NFL owners for what they have been able to accomplish in their life, not just as an NFL owner, but what they did prior to becoming an owner as well. I don't think anyone just becomes an NFL owner, it happens over a lifetime of work and achievement.

...or, you just inherit it from your family.  Just ask:

Bill Bidwell
Mike Brown
Mark Davis
Clark Hunt
Jim Irsay
Rita Benson LeBlanc
John Mara & Steve Tisch
Virginia Halas McCaskey
Dan Rooney
Jed York

The only "hard work" they did was being born to the right set of parents.

I have respect for the owners like Bud Adams, Ralph Wilson, and the late Al Davis, Art Rooney Sr., Lamar Hunt, George Halas, Paul Brown, Curly Lambeau, etc.  These owners built the league and deserve a lot of credit.  But if you're trying to tell me that ownership of the 49ers is the result of Jed York's lifetime of work and achievement... sorry, that's garbage.

And a third of the owners in the league became so by simply inheriting a team from a hard-working relative (or hard-working distant relative, in some cases).

[Brian Fein]

What you did before you were an NFL owner doesn't affect the cushy index of being an NFL owner.  Sure, Wayne Huizenga worked his ass off to build an empire, but do you really believe that his "job" or "owning the Miami Dolphins" was very difficult?

[Pappy13]

What you did before you were an NFL owner doesn't affect the cushy index of being an NFL owner.  Sure, Wayne Huizenga worked his ass off to build an empire, but do you really believe that his "job" or "owning the Miami Dolphins" was very difficult?

As a matter of fact, I DO think that Wayne Huizenga probably worked his ass off while owning the Miami Dolphins mainly because I don't believe that people change their spots all that easily especially when it could cost them millions. Anyone that I have known that works their ass off in one job, will not then simply "sign the checks" in another. It's not in their nature to do that. Now, I don't have any proof that's the case, it's just simply been my observation of people in general, so there it is.

Having said that my respect for Wayne is not based solely on him as an owner, just like my respect for a player is not based solely on them as a player. I have a lot of respect for players that go above and beyond when it comes to giving back to the community etc. I thought Jason Taylor was a hell of a human being in addition to being a hell of a football player and he got a lot of my respect. Likewise being an ass on Twitter for example will lose a lot of my respect and there are plenty of those players. So when it comes to deciding whom I should support in a labor dispute I take all of that into consideration. Fair or unfair, that's how it is and in general I don't see the NFL owners as a bunch of money grubbing, stupid, lazy, got their money from their Mom, Dad, etc people. I'm sure there are a couple of those, but in general, most of them have had at least a bit of success outside of the NFL or on their own.

[Pappy13]

...or, you just inherit it from your family.  Just ask:

Bill Bidwell
Mike Brown
Mark Davis
Clark Hunt
Jim Irsay
Rita Benson LeBlanc
John Mara & Steve Tisch
Virginia Halas McCaskey
Dan Rooney
Jed York

I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about any of these people, but just googling their names shows that some of them have had a least a modicum of success outside of the NFL or apart from their parents. Mara was a long time attorney for instance and Steve Tisch has done some pretty good work in the film industry and this is from Dan Rooney's wikipedia page "He has been involved with the Steelers since 1960, originally working as director of personnel. While Rooney has generally avoided the spotlight, he has been a very active owner behind the scenes. Rooney helped lead the negotiations of the collective bargaining agreement of 1982, and is largely credited both by owners and players of having ended a strike that lasted half of the season. He is also one of the main architects of the salary cap, which was implemented in 1993." That doesn't strike me as someone that merely signs the checks.

[MikeO]

Most of them didn't start out "rich". Some did or more accurately were born into it, but even those that did, they don't become owners simply by signing checks and "being rich".

Many owners got rich the old fashioned way, they inherited it!

Not all, but many. Stephen Ross for instance made his money on his own, but he had a very rich uncle (Max Fisher) who let's just say made his path in life a little easier than most.

[Fins4ever]

Here is an update. I still have not read any articles that are specific to the details of the holdup, but it has to be about $$$$. One thing for sure, the replacements are going to be around for awhile. I saw the G-Men and Panthers last night and I thought they did a good job, from what I saw. 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/09/21/nfl-officials-lockout/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a3&eref=sihp