NFLPA player reps Chester Pitts of the Seattle Seahawks and Domonique Foxworth of the Baltimore Ravens both found forums this week to express their thoughts on the lockout. Both made some serious and sobering points about the status of the negotiations, but they have also both managed to maintain their humor through the whole ordeal.
Foxworth took over for Sports Illustrated’s Peter King this week and wrote the Monday Morning Quarterback piece while King was on vacation. Foxworth commented on the labor negotiation, where he has firsthand experience since he has attended several of the sessions as a player rep.
“I have been in the room during all of the most recent discussions and the news I can share is that players are focused and working hard to offer solutions to the issues we have identified,” Foxworth explained. He went on to say that he felt they must push “even harder to find a resolution.”
Foxworth also tried to temper the media’s tendency to look for optimism at every turn. “I don’t think about, nor do I want to characterize the mood as ‘optimistic” or suggest that ‘we’re close.’ All of that is relative. The fans want to see football and I want to play it. Right now, neither one can happen. As an NFL player on the field, I have a job. If I don’t get that job done consistently, I lose my job. I don’t ever hear a reporter saying that my coverage of a certain wide receiver was ‘close.’ That’s how I feel about this lockout. It’s still a lockout.”
Chester Pitts, also a player representative, found his forum at KBME in Houston with Matt Jackson and Adam Wexler. He provided a similar view on the status of the negotiations, “Whether you’re 1% done or 99% done it doesn’t matter because you are not done. How many times have you heard ‘don’t tell me about the pain, but show me the baby’?”
Pitts went on to comment on the owners strategy and the temperament of the players, “I know they did not expect the players to have the solidarity that we do have.”
He then went on to talk about the “silly attempts at some of the stories you heard. Remember the seventy player defection that was broken off… you remember that? I’m still looking for one of the seventy players.”
Both Pitts and Foxworth provided a hard reality check on the lockout status. As the song goes, it ain’t over ‘til its over. But both men have also maintained their humor through the whole situation.
Pitts and teammate Raheem Brock put together an online video prank call to commissioner Roger Goodell a month or so ago, which is visible here. To anyone who enjoyed their work, here are some of their outtakes from the production of the video are available here.
Foxworth closed out his column by presenting some of his “Deep Thoughts”, revealing his dry sense of humor. His closing thoughts included the following:
“Hey, fellas, you should be clothed in your Twitter profile pic. Nothing is more unsettling than reading ‘The US economy is in shambles. We can’t afford to raise the debt ceiling’ while looking at greased-up abs.”
“I think cell phones have ruined pushing people into pools.”
“Whenever someone says, ‘I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart,’ all I hear is, ‘I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart.’ “
