The Race Gambit

NFL Hall-of Famer, Gene Upshaw, tragically passed away on August 20, 2008 of pancreatic cancer. He was a 15-year NFL veteran, 5-time All-Pro, 2-time Super Bowl Champion, and at the time of his death, the Executive Director of the NFL Players Association. So, on March 15, 2009, 7 months after Upshaw’s death, DeMaurice Smith, someone who had never played professional football, was elected to replace Upshaw as the Executive Director of the NFLPA, primarily as a result his close relationship with Eric Holder, then-US Attorney General under Barack Obama.

Since his election to that position, DeMaurice Smith has been a poor head of the NFLPA, not being strong enough at the negotiating table to properly or effectively represent the players interests when dealing with the owners. He negotiated the last two collective bargaining agreements, and it has been generally agreed that the players got the short end of the stick in both deals, with the players collectively losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of revenues, and now are being required to play an extra game while the owners continue to increase their bottom line. DeMaurice Smith has been a godsend for the NFL owners, and such a disaster to the players that two weeks ago, the players were on the verge of voting him out of office, and electing a new Executive Director.