The NFL annual meeting is set to conclude in the next hour, with most of the day consumed by the passage of new procedures for kickoffs. The league also passed a new rule that teams must have a green field, an apparent move to head off any sponsor that might want to pay a team to shade its field a corporate color.
NFL Alumni Exec Dir George Martin addressed the owners. Martin in the last few weeks became a bone of contention for the now decertified NFLPA, which accused the former player of being in the league’s camp on the retired players’ issue. NFL Alumni is funded in part by the NFL, though Martin has insisted he is an independent voice. NFL security was scheduled to make a presentation on fan conduct, and owners also discussed player safety issues, which fed into the decision to change the kickoff procedures.
The biggest issue of the meetings, of course, is the lockout of the players and decertification of the union. The league mainly discussed that yesterday when its brief was filed in the Minnesota court hearing the players’ antitrust lawsuit against the league. Giants President & CEO John Mara today re-emphasized that the last proposal the owners made to the players on March 11 was not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, as some players have insisted. "We would have appreciated some sort of counter-proposal," he said. Hours after the league’s proposal, the union decertified.
