The NFLPA led the Broncos players down the wrong path with boycott

The Broncos offseason program was supposed to start today. More than three months removed from their season-ending loss to the Raiders, the team was scheduled to begin anew on Monday morning at Dove Valley.

That’s when the quest to put the bad taste of a 5-11 season away was set to being. That’s when the goal of ending four-straight losing seasons was scheduled to start. That’s when the mission of ending a five-year run without a playoff appearance was slated to kick off.

But it won’t. The Broncos, along with roughly 20 other NFL teams, have decided to boycott the start of the offseason program. As a group, they aren’t reporting for voluntary OTAs today.

This stance became official last Tuesday, when Denver became the first team to make the announcement. It came via a statement from the NFLPA:

A statement on behalf of the Denver Broncos players: pic.twitter.com/b7ZQZ1Z7PY

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) April 13, 2021

A variation of this statement was sent out by each team that took a similar position. The wording was essentially the same.

On the surface, this seems like a reasonable stance. After all, we’ve all dealt with the risks associated with COVID-19 for more than a year. Mitigating them has become second nature. It’s what we all do nowadays. So the Broncos players wanting to do the same seems appropriate.

But a deeper dive suggests that the the players association isn’t being forthright. There’s more at play here than simply wanting to protect the players and their families from the virus.

While the Broncos actually referenced something related to COVID-19 in their statement, most of the other teams didn’t. They did, however, talk about how the level of play in 2020 was better than ever. Last Tuesday, the NFLPA went into full spin mode, talking about the fact that penalties were down, injuries were down, missed tackles were down and points were up last season, despite the fact that no team got to have any sort of offseason.

What was their point? OTAs, minicamps and other activities prior to the start of training camp are unnecessary.

The NFLPA suggests that hopping on some Zoom calls as a team, working out individually and reporting in late July is a perfectly acceptable game plan. They have the data to prove it.

Of course, that wasn’t exactly the case in Denver. In fact, quite the opposite was true. At least that’s what we were told.

As the Broncos were stumbling to another disastrous season, the apologists blamed the lack of an offseason for the team’s troubles. No one could be held accountable for the 5-11 debacle because they didn’t get a fair chance to prove themselves.

Vic Fangio’s defense giving up 30-plus points in eight games? Pat Shurmur’s offense being among the worst in the league. Tom McMahon’s special teams looking like a bad high school team? Drew Lock regressing in year two?

COVID. COVID. COVID. COVID.

The Broncos didn’t have an offseason. That’s why they struggled so much.

That makes their vote last week a little tough to take. Choosing to skip out on another offseason, when that was the No. 1 reason cited for last year’s struggles, is a tough pill for the fan base to swallow.

But if it’s truly for the safety of the players, it’ll just have to do. There’s really not much that can be said about it. There’s no way to argue the point.

Which is exactly why the NFLPA used COVID as the excuse. They thought it would protect them from criticism. It was supposed to offer a shield, discouraging anyone from questioning their stance.

But a deeper dive proves that this isn’t about COVID. It never was.

Granted, the Broncos mentioned positivity rates in their statement. But most of the other teams didn’t offer a single COVID-related stat when saying why they were boycotting due to a lack of COVID protocols. Instead, they pivoted to the numbers that suggest last season’s quality of play was at an all-time high.

Why? Because they want that to be the norm.

Last week, Brandon McManus joined the “Stokley and Zach” show to talk about the boycott. The Broncos player representative with the union offered his opinion on the situation.

The kicker was certainly honest and forthright, at least to the best of his ability. And it was honorable of him to answer questions in a public forum. But his answers didn’t all add up.

When asked what the players would like to see in terms of protocols, McManus didn’t have a definitive answer. Nor did he say why the union is okay with players currently being in team facilities for rehab.

He did suggest that the NFL hadn’t put any plan in place. McManus said that the NFLPA told him, and thereby their union members, that nothing had been proposed by the league.

That seemed hard to believe. After all, the NFL just got through an entire season without having to stop play. Yes, there were a couple of rescheduled games. And sure, the Broncos had to play one game without a quarterback. But for the most part, the 2020 season ran on schedule. It started and finished on time.

This was accomplished because the league spent millions of dollars to make it happen. They provided daily testing for everyone involved with the team. They reconfigured facilities to offer social distancing. They revamped travel, game days and nearly every other aspect of the league.

But they didn’t have a plan for the offseason? They just went to Barbados, put up their feet and chilled for two months after the Super Bowl?

It’s a ridiculous notion. There’s no way that a multi-billion dollar organization wasn’t prepared to keep printing money in 2021.

And come to find out, they were. As Brandon Stokley reported last Wednesday, a source within the league told him that several proposals had been submitted to the NFLPA. All had been ignored.

Why? Well, McManus also provided that answer.

During the on-air interview, the kicker mentioned more than one time that players would like to keep working out with their own trainers. They’d prefer to keep prepping for the season with their buddies, guys who play their position. They don’t want to come back to the team facility simply to lift and run. They can do that on their own.

That’s the real goal of the boycott. The NFLPA wants to change the collective bargaining agreement, one they agreed to less than 14 months ago, on the fly. They want to revamp the offseason.

When it’s time to be on the field, the players will be there. But when it comes to working out, they’d prefer not to show up.

So what’s a convenient way to get that done? Blame COVID.

And that’s where the problem lies. If the NFLPA wants to change their deal, that’s fine. Hash it out with the league. Offer a give-and-take to the owners. Come up with a compromise.

But don’t blame it on the pandemic. Don’t use something that has disrupted the lives of every American, killed hundreds of thousands and left millions unemployed as a negotiating tool.

NFL players have received top-notch medical care during a scary time. They received constant testing, something not available to everyone. And the Broncos are offering them access to the vaccine, without having to deal with the mind-numbing online process that makes buying World Series tickets in 2007 seem like a walk in the park.

They also all have jobs. And they didn’t miss a single paycheck.

As a result, there’s very little sympathy for their plight. They just look like a bunch of entitled millionaires who don’t want to show up for work, and are using a worldwide tragedy as a way to get away with it.

So here’s an idea, try being honest. Maybe something like this…

“While COVID-19 has been a terrible situation, there have been some worthwhile lessons that have emerged from the pandemic. One of them is the fact that the NFL can thrive even without a full offseason. As the numbers suggest, the quality of play in the league has never been better than it was in 2020. So the NFL players believe it would make sense to make some of the changes from a season ago permanent. This would include reducing the amount of time players have to spend at the facilities that helped prevent injuries, continuing with the modified enforcement of the rules that led to fewer penalties…”

That’s a hard position to argue with, given that it’s grounded in reality. It’s making something good out of something bad, which is always an easy sell.

What the players want isn’t wrong. How they’re going about it, however, is way off target.

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