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KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL NFLNOTEBOOK
Union wants its players to decertify
ASSOCIATED PRESS The NFL Players Associa-
tion is handing out voting cards to the players that could lead to decertification of the union. A person familiar with the
union’s plans told the Associ- ated Press on Saturday that players from all 32 teams will be asked to consider decertifi- cation, which could prevent the owners from locking out the players after the collective bargaining agreement expires inMarch. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity be- cause the union has not an- nounced its plans. Should the union decertify,
it could have the right to sue the league under antitrust laws if the players are locked out. It is sending out voting cards now because, logistical- ly, getting enough signatures after the season would be dif- ficult, if not impossible. The story was first reported
by the Sports Business Jour- nal, which cited a source as saying theNewOrleans Saints already voted to decertify. “This is purely a procedural
matterandis a non-story until March,” George Atallah, the NFLPA’s assistant executive director, told the Associated Press. A letter sent to NFLPA membership outlined to the players what voting for decer- tification would mean. De- Maurice Smith, the union’s executive director, frequently hassaidheexpects theowners to lock out the players. Smith will be meeting with each team over the next fewweeks. The letter also says if the
JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY IMAGES Indianapolis’s PeytonManning Minnesota’s Brett Favre
As NFL quarterbacks continue to put up huge numbers and their offenses continue to set record after record the league and its watchers are beginning to realize...
THE OFFENSIVE OUTPUT IS NO PASSING FANCY
BY MARK MASKE The full NFL schedule gets
underway Sunday with no end in sight to the unprecedented ex- ploits of quarterbacks who last year orchestrated perhaps the most prolific offensive season in league history. The league had record num-
bers of quarterbacks top 4,000 passing yards, 25 touchdown passes and a 100 passer rating last season. Offenses overpow- ered defenses for an average of 670.3 total yards per game, the largest single-season figure ever. Few expect those numbers to decline appreciably this season. “They can’t decline,” former
NFL player and front-office exec- utive Matt Millen said. “They won’t.” With no significant outcry
over rules that have created the most quarterback-friendly condi- tions the league has ever seen, giving offenses a clear-cut advan- tage over the defenses trying to slow them down, experts say the NFL’s fancy passing is no passing fancy. Television ratings are soar- ing, providing little or no incen- tive for the sport’s decision-mak- ers to make significant changes to an on-field product that con- sumers enjoy. “I think you’ll see big numbers
again,” former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck said. “I think it will continue. It’s just theway the game is played right now.” Before the 2004 season, the
NFL’s rule-making competition committee reemphasized to game officials that defensive players weren’t allowed to make contact with opposing receivers more than five yards down the field. Itwasn’t a rule change but a reminder to properly enforce an existing rule, and it came on the heels of a 2003 AFC title game in which the New England Patriots defense was accused of using improper clutching-and-grab- bing tactics to slow down the Indianapolis Colts offense. The results were immediate.
Dan Marino’s 1984 single-season record of 48 touchdown passes
for the Miami Dolphins had stood for two decades. It was broken twice in the next four seasons, with the Colts’ Peyton Manning throwing 49 touch- down passes in the 2004 season and the Patriots’ Tom Brady throwing 50 in the 2007 season. In recent seasons, the competi-
tion committee has enacted rules that restrict hits on quarterbacks and receivers considered to be in defenseless positions. The rules were put in place for safety reasons, but they have also re- stricted defensive players pursu- ing the quarterback and covering receivers, and offenses have flourished.
There was plenty of superb
quarterback play to be viewed last season. Ten quarterbacks (Houston’s Matt Schaub, Man- ning, Dallas’s Tony Romo, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, Brady,New Orleans’s Drew Brees, Pitts- burgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, San Diego’s Philip Rivers, Minneso- ta’s Brett Favre and theNewYork Giants’ Eli Manning) passed for more than 4,000 yards, three more than in any previous sea- son. A dozen quarterbacks (all of
the 4,000-yard passers plus Chi- cago’s Jay Cutler and Arizona’s Kurt Warner) threw 25 or more touchdown passes, topping the
Aaron Rodgers, Matt Schaub, Tony Romo, Philip Rivers — they’re good quarterbacks, but are they thatmuchmore talented than guys who played 10 years ago? I don’t know that it’s fair to say that.” Said Millen: “I would submit
to you that if we took the legends of past years and put them in today’s game, they would put up numbers just like Manning and Brady and all these guys are doing now.” Defensive schemes are more
sophisticated than ever.But,with a few exceptions, all that defen- sivemaneuvering isn’t working. “People start to bring all these
“I would submit to you that if we took the legends of past years and put them in today’s game, they would put up numbers just like [Peyton] Manning and [Tom] Brady and all these guys are doing now.”
—Matt Millen, former NFL player and front office executive “When I came into the league,
they told you never to let a receiver cross your face,” said Millen, a linebackerwho played a dozen seasons for the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins in the 1980s and early ’90s. “And that was by anymeans necessary. I clothes-lined guys. Now, I wouldn’t even be allowed on the field. They’d throw you out. . . . Guys are getting fined all over the place. That’s the football of today. It’s all geared toward the passing game. “Twenty years ago, I said we’re
going back to the future, and we’ve gone beyond that,” said Millen, now an analyst for ESPN and the NFL Network. “We’ve gone back to the old AFL, with the wide-open passing, and past that. People want to see action. They want to see scoring and they want to see competitive games. If there’s a great defensive game, all they say is, ‘What a yawn.’ People would rather see great offense than great defense.”
previous record by two. Five quarterbacks (Brees, Favre, Riv- ers, Rodgers and Roethlisberger) had passer ratings above 100, one more than the previousmark. Peyton Manning won his
fourth most valuable player award and faced Brees in the Super Bowl. Favre, at age 40, had what he calls the best season of his career by a wide margin. Games had an average of 436.9 passing yards, the second-most ever, and the 710 touchdown passes were the third-most in league history. It allmade for good television.
Last season, the league’s TV rat- ings were up 15 percent over 2008. Clearly, one factor is that the
NFL has a crop of very good quarterbacks. But is the group historically good? “Guys like Peyton Manning,
TomBrady, Brett Favre, they’ll go down among the best ever,” Has- selbeck said. “Not to take any- thing away from anyone, but when you talk about Drew Brees,
crazy blitzes, and sometimes you might get to the quarterback,” Hasselbeck said. “But you end up opening huge holes in the sec- ondary for big plays.” Atlanta Falcons PresidentRich
McKay, co-chairman of the com- petition committee, makes the case that the current offensive statistics are not all that startling in the bigger picture. There were big offensive numbers in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s before the sport became more defense-ori- ented in the ’70s, he said. Last season’s record yards-per-game figure was only a yard or two more than totals from some sea- sons in the early ’80s, he said. “It’s not like we’re way above
historical levels,” he said. Scoring actually was down a
bit last season, to 42.9 total points per game, compared with 44.1 in 2008. Scoring has been relatively stable for decades, dropping from 41.8 points per game in the 1980s to 40.4 points per game in the ’90s before rising to 42.3 points per game between
the 2000 and 2009 seasons. The competition committee likes to keep that number above 40 points per game,McKay said. McKay said that panel annual-
ly monitors “the major [statisti- cal]markers like yards per game, points per game, competitive bal- ance” and does pay attention to the issue of whether defenses are being given a fair chance. But there’s been no major push, ei- ther fromwithin the league or by outsiders, for major changes to the current competitive balance between offenses and defenses, McKay said. “You do look at the balance,”
McKay said. “One of the first questions we ask the clubs every year in our survey is, ‘Are you satisfied with the competitive balance?’
. . . The defensive
coaches generally just say, ‘Don’t make it unfair.’ ” McKay said player-safety is-
sues are the committee’s top pri- ority and “we’re not going to change anything related to player safety,” suchas the restrictions on hits on quarterbacks and receiv- ers. The committee traditionally
has tweaked rules, McKay said, after defensive coaches devise new tactics and offensive num- bers plummet. McKay said he anticipates that defensive coach- es will come up with wrinkles at some point to put that process intomotion again. “Be assured: Theywill,”McKay
said. But for now, there’s no sign
that’s about to happen. “You don’t have to go back too
many years to see the New Eng- land Patriotsmugging guys at the line of scrimmage,” Hasselbeck said. “You might get some die- hard football fans who say they love watching a defensive battle. But for most people, there’s something a lot more exciting about watching [Cardinals wide receiver] Larry Fitzgerald run down the field and go up and get the ball without being boxed out like it’s a rebound in basketball, and having the quarterback get his throw there.”
maskem@washpost.com
RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGES NewEngland’s TomBrady JIM MCISAAC/GETTY IMAGES
union does not decertify be- foreMarch and the expiration of the CBA, it can’t sue the league for six months. Decertification also would
strip the union of collective bargaining rights on behalf of the players, and could affect marketing of the players through NFL Players, the marketing arm of the union. The NFL said it has no comment on the union’s ac- tion. l 49ERS: Vernon Davis is
now the highest-paid tight end in NFL history after sign- ing a five-year extension with SanFrancisco.Aperson famil- iar with the contract told the Associated Press that Davis will get $37 million overall, with $34 million guaranteed. The person spoke on condi- tion of anonymity because the contract details were not re- leased. The contract is worth $3
million more in guaranteed money than San Diego’s Anto- nio Gates received. Davis, a first-round pick
out ofMaryland who is enter- ing his fifth NFL season, led the 49ers with 78 catches last year for 965 yards and 13 touchdowns, which tied Gates’sNFLmarkfor the posi- tion. Davis made his first Pro Bowl in 2009 and tied for the league lead in touchdown catches with RandyMoss and Larry Fitzgerald. Overall, Davis has 181 re- ceptions for 2,097 yards and 22 touchdowns in his career. l JETS: Safety Brodney
Pool is questionable for the seasonopeneragainst the Bal- timore Ravens on Monday night with a sprained right ankle. Pool was injured in the third preseason game against Washingtonwhena player fell on the ankle during a fumble recovery. He was limited in practice Friday and Saturday after not practicing Thursday. He says the ankle “feelsalot
better,” but whether he plays is “up to the coaches.” Coach Rex Ryan says Pool has been a quick healer, but theteamalso doesn’t want to risk further injury. If Pool doesn’t play, Eric Smith will get the start opposite Jim Leonhard. l DOLPHINS: Inside line-
backer Channing Crowder has been ruled out for Sun- day’s opener at Buffalo be- cause of a lingering groin inju- ry. Crowder hasn’t practiced since Aug. 17 and didn’t ac- company the Dolphins on their flight Saturday. Tim Dobbins, acquired
from San Diego in an offsea- son trade, will start in place of Crowder. The Dolphins will have new starters at eight positions. Crowder has missed 10
games since 2007 because of injuries.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
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