Smith, Goodell Statements: 'We're Working Hard'
The NFL meetings from Thursday wrapped up this afternoon and, somewhat surprisingly, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith appeared together, shook hands, and talked to the press about what went down.
Well, not specifically what went down or anything, but both leaders issued similar-sounding statements about the various negotiations that have occured over the past few days.
"You obviously know we met over the last couple of days," Goodell said following the not-so-secret meetings. "We are under court order as far as what we can discuss so our comments will be brief. But obviously we're all working hard. The players and owners were here over the last two days.
"De and I were here for the entire meetings also. And it's complicated and it's complex, but we're working hard and we understand the fans' frustration. But I think both of us feel strongly that we're going to continue to work hard at it."
The key parts there, of course, are "working hard" and "fans' frustration," so it's no surprise that Smith echoed a similar sentiment.
"Someone asked me whether I was optimistic. I think we're both optimistic when we have the right people in the room. We know we're talking about the right issues and that we're working hard to get it done," Smith said. "It is extremely complicated, it requires a lot of hard work by a lot of people, but we're committed to getting something done and we're going to keep working at it.
"Just to wrap up, we're working hard, we understand the fans' frustration, I know our players' frustration. We're going to keep working hard and try to make sure we get a deal done."
Oddly, fans' frustration is probably reasonably low right now, despite the lockout finally hitting it's 100th (!) day.
After all, while there may not be many other sports on television to distract from the lack of football, there's a sense among many people that the two sides are close to acheiving what seemed impossible just a few short weeks ago: striking a deal and getting the season rolling by the middle of July.
While that's obviously not the ideal scenario (that would involve no lockout and a "normal" league year, natch), it's still a far better outcome than what seemed possible a month ago.
That's progress, and progress always helps to ease frustration a little bit.
