Do NFL players need to take a stand?

Do NFL players need to take a stand?
September 26, 2012, 5:05 am
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At what point do you say enough is enough if you're an NFL player?

The time seems to have come for a handful of players who have publicly stated their unhappiness with the NFL replacement officials.

But will it go to the next level? Will players refuse to play? Will the NFLPA step in and do something.

It all sounds good, but retired Patriot Troy Brown says it's just not possible with the way things are constructed now.

"I don't think NFLPA can do anything with this new CBA they got," Brown said on Sports Tonight. "The commissioner has total control of suspending people without asking anybody else. I mean, they can't do anything about it. Their fine money goes wherever the commissioner says he wants it to go. They get fined for things like having their socks pulled down, shirts untucked They don't want the players looking a hot mess but the game's looking like a hot mess because it looks like bar fights all over these fields throughout the NFL."

The field may look like bar fights, but based on some calls we've seen, its the replacement officials who look like their watching the game after their 8th beer.

Boston Herald columnist Dan Shaughnessy knows how out of hand things have gotten, and even takes offense to the NFL trying to play the old "they got it right" card.

"The statement that came out today is pretty much an insult to our intelligence," Shaughnessy said. "Basically, nobody is buying that. We know what our eyes told us, what we saw."

Shaughnessy continued: "With the dollars that are being wages here, to have the product compromised over such a short amount of money is preposterous."