Baltimore Beatdown participated in a conference call with other media and bloggers with two members of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), Kevin Mawae, NFLPA President/former player (Seahawks, Jets, Titans) and George Atallah, NFLPA Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs.
Obviously, the topic of the conference call was the Collective Bargaining Agreement and this call was specifically
to talk with members of the online media. I was able to ask a question to the two of them and Kevin Mawae responded directly to me.
Beatdown: "Are there any organized showings of public solidarity planned for the two Conference Championship Games this Sunday?"
Mawae: "I haven't heard of anything. If it does, it would be spontaneous and unknown to the union."
Mawae went on to say that any previous shows of solidarity throughout the regular season was player-driven, player-concocted, not union. If you have ever seen the players come past the sidelines just prior to the game in unison on both sides of the field and hold up their pointing finger to signal #1, that was what I was referring to.
Interesting was the final question from our friend Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post and Carroll County Times, who asked Mawae why he thought he was voted into the Pro Bowl, yet did not receive a call from any NFL to play this season. His response was that he felt that he knew once he was elected Union President that if there were labor strife, that he would be virtually ignored by the league, despite the fact he played center last season for a team (Tennessee Titans) that had a 2,000 yard rusher (Chris Johnson) and a QB (Vince Young) that had been sacked as few times as any in the NFL, and knew he could be one of the best centers in the league had he been given the opportunity.