NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell: We’re Sorry to Have Put Fans Through That

Now that the NFL and the locked out referees have settled and are about to sign a new labor agreement, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has made his first public remarks on the subject. This morning during a conference call about the new, eight-year deal with the referees, Goodell talked about the effect having replacement refs had.

Obviously when you go through something like this, it's painful for everybody. Most importantly, it's painful for fans. We're sorry to have to put fans through that. Sometimes you have to go through something like that in the short term for the right agreement for the long term.

Nice sentiment, but we all know that it never had to come to this in the first place. It was back in early May that the NFL started making plans to use replacements. 

So why wasn't something done in the four months before Russell Wilson threw a game winning interception? That Monday Night Football finish will be talked about forever as one of the biggest travesties in NFL history. All of this could have been avoided. The NFL is slated to make $10 Billion dollars in revenue this season. The money difference in the referee argument was around $3 million. That's it.

The league wanted the refs to have 401k plans that they pay into instead of league paid pensions because that's how companies across America are doing it. The NFL is nothing like any other company in America. And they keep saying how the refs are part-time guys who work 17-20 days a year. Bullcrap.

They watch tape of games, travel, study and prepare on the other days, while also having full time jobs. The refs deserved apologies more than us fans. I hope they got it.