In his annual Super Bowl week address, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sad the league is “having incredibly productive dialogue” with the NFLPA regarding a new collective bargaining agreement.
The current deal expires at after the 2020 season. Striking a deal in the next month would likely raise the salary cap considerably.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress in the last seven or eight months since we began those discussions more formally,” he said.
One major issue: the potential addition of at least one regular-season game, which 49ers cornerback and NFLPA vice president Richard Sherman said is an affront to player safety.
“The league pretends that they’re interested in it, pretends that they care about, makes all these rules, fines all these players, but then still proposes players to play that extra game,” he said. “Not 17 — they’re really just saying 17 so they can get to 18. That’s two more opportunities for players to risk their bodies, to put their bodies on the line. That’s what’s so ridiculous about it. Nobody calls them out. Nobody calls out the hypocrisy.”
Among the other topics Goodell addressed:
• The league is re-examining the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching and general manager jobs, because of a dearth of new minority hires.
“It’s clear we need to change and do something different,” Goodell said. “There’s no reason to expect we’re going to have a different outcome next year without those kinds of changes and we’ve already begun engaging in those changes.”
• The NFL will play one game in Mexico in each of the next two years, with the teams to be announced in the next two months, Goodell said.
• He offered little update about the progress of the league’s investigation into the Patriots’ videotaping of the Bengals or its review of Antonio Brown, though he said the league was concerned for the former receiver’s well-being.
