Colts C and NFLPA Exec Committee member Jeff Saturday appeared on NFL Network this week and participated in a multi-part Q&A with NFL Net's Rich Eisen to discuss the failed mediations sessions in DC earlier this month. The following are excerpts from that discussion (NFL Network, 3/28 and 3/29).
Eisen: Let’s get to the breakdown in negotiations. ... Why did the players hit the decertification button when they did?
Saturday: It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I was in the room for the 15 days we negotiated. I’ve been a part of many negotiations that were before that in the two years that led up to it. It was a very difficult decision, but I think from each of us sitting in that room, we realized we were in a time-sensitive issue. ... From the hiring of Bob Batterman, all the way from the way they had structured everything, we always felt like their intention was to lock us out. And so as we got down to that point, the week before on the Thursday that we shut it down to the following Friday, nothing really changed. There was nothing that really grew, minus some small details.
Eisen: Why not another three days, why not another four days, why not another week?
Saturday: If you can’t get a deal done in two years, what’s another three days going to mean? And that’s why I’m telling you when you got down to the brass tacks of the deal, nothing had changed from the two years ago to where we were that afternoon. And when you looked at the numbers and you looked at all of the things that we’re going to have to happen for there to be an agreed upon contract, there wasn’t enough in there that I could go back to the men in my locker room and say, "Hey listen, I support this, I’m behind it, or we’re even close."
Eisen: Let’s get into the state of distrust as well and where it came from. What do you think the owners were delaying?
Saturday: We didn’t have very much owner-to-player discussion. In the entire 15 days or however many days, there was probably a few hours of actual owner-to-player exchanges and so we felt like from the owners’ standpoint, they were just continuing to push us out so as the date gets further out it gets closer to the season. ... We never felt like they deterred from their plan of locking us out from when they started.
Eisen: The night before what wound up being decertification ... you had a brewski with the Commissioner of the National Football League. How did that come about?
Saturday: I called Roger (Goodell) and just said, "Hey man, I’m heading back to my hotel and I’d just like to talk to you. I know we’ve got one more day and I just kind of want to lay out what I feel like is really important to the players." ... We had a very good, heart-to-heart conversation. I expressed to him the importance of some of the facts of what the players wanted and why. I wanted him to feel it from the players and understand that nobody’s leading us to any different area. This is player-led and I felt very strongly about the men that ... I walk with and wanted to know what was coming from our heart.
Eisen: When you left there, did you feel this had a shot the next day?
Saturday: The entire time I was there I was encouraged that something was going to happen. When we made the extension the week before, first it was a 24-hour extension, then it moved on. But I felt like at that point, something significant was going to happen. And obviously to my disappointment ... just nothing really materialized later on in the week. So I was disappointed and I felt like we had the parts to get something done.
Eisen: You were the guy who announced that you were decertifying, right?
Saturday: We had talked about it and conferred in our room and had good conversation about it. I was the guy that drew the short straw, I’d guess you’d say. I had to look across, and the truth is as we looked at the deal, we all knew that it was a unanimous "no." And so I just went in…
Eisen: Not just a unanimous "no," it was a unanimous "no" and we’re done talking.
Saturday: Absolutely.
Eisen: There was no one in the room who said maybe we should keep talking?
Saturday: Not one.
NICE JOB OF SHOWING THE OTHER SIDE: YAHOO SPORTS' Doug Farrar wrote, "Kudos to Eisen for avoiding the temptation to frame the questions; he was at his best as an interviewer, going for the real story as opposed to the slanted soundbite." Farrar: "The standard expectation of the NFL Network's lockout coverage is that a media entity owned by the NFL owners will be a mouthpiece for the league and nothing more. ... There have been times when I wondered if the players and the NFLPA were getting equal time on the network through the mediation negotiations, and whether the league's message would be the network's filter on a no-matter-what basis. And that's why Rich Eisen's interview with ... Saturday was so important" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 3/29).
