Some troubling comments attributed to Terry Pegula (and denied by Pegula) and Jerry Jones from SI Writer Jim Trotter’s Lawsuit against the NFL

[#freejame]

4 hours ago, Night Train said:

You guys like paysites, which some cannot read. The NY Times is my least favorite news source. 

I read the WSJ and NYT daily. With the exception of the Editorials and Opinion sections, their reporting has, on any given day, 80% overlap both in content of articles and areas of reporting. Multiple times a week I’m also incorrect about which paper I’m reading because of my ideas of what NYT and WSJ provide. Maybe stay away from the hot takes and interpret the news yourself? 

Edited September 15, 2023 by #freejame

[SwampD]

53 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Except that only considers one of the two problems the league had at the time:

1.  There were a lot of players who were hurting because of racial injustice.  They needed a face and a voice because Kaepernick had been blackballed by the league (and I'm still angry about that).

2.  There was a sitting president who was criticizing the league and turning eyeballs off of screens.

A Black spokesperson is an attempt to address both issues.  That gives the people who are hurting a face and a voice, and also allows the league to respond to the president.

Sorry, I'm having a hard time believing that a Black spokesperson would have been more powerful than a white owner coming out and saying that they supported the message that Kaepernick was trying to convey. Instead, they blackballed him. They sent the exact message they wanted.

[PASabreFan]

@RochesterExpat even the reporter didn't corroborate the quote? That's the problem with relying on the NFL's anonymous source. We're only hearing one side of what was investigated.

Hopefully the world of sports journalism is trying to track down the reporter.

@RochesterExpat

@RochesterExpat

Edited September 15, 2023 by PASabreFan

[Eleven]

9 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Sorry, I'm having a hard time believing that a Black spokesperson would have been more powerful than a white owner coming out and saying that they supported the message that Kaepernick was trying to convey. Instead, they blackballed him. They sent the exact message they wanted.

It's not whether it's more powerful.  It's whether it's more appropriate for the Black players to rely on whitey to get their messages across, and I think the answer to that question is NO.  They felt hurt because of racial prejudices and I think it would be natural for them to want someone who looks like them, who had their experiences, to be their face and voice.

The face and voice of the 1960s civil rights movement was King, not Johnson and not White people in power.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Eleven

[RochesterExpat]

Side note: I forwarded the complaint the other day to a close friend who specializes in employment law. Specifically in representing union employees in grievances against their unions or employers. So not quite the same situation, but relatively similar. He responded today.

His exact response:

"Why did you make me read that? That complaint is worse than some of the pro se filings I've seen."

I then asked him what he thought about the merits of the case and I got a whole long spiel about not being his specialty and he hasn't really looked into it, but that his opinion was "this might be a rare case where the suit doesn't settle and it goes to trial." From that I'm assuming he thinks the NFL has a strong case that Trotter's employment situation was not related to his race.

He also asked if there was an arbitration clause in the employment contract regarding a contract renewal which is interesting and not something I'd considered or seen anything about.

Again, this complaint was just filed. It's step one of many. I don't know the timeframe to respond, but I have to imagine the NFL has some awfully good attorneys who have spent a whole lot of billable hours whiteboarding a legal strategy and intend to use every second they have to their advantage.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to remind everyone: the truth isn't what wins in court. It's what you can convince the jury is the truth that wins. 

Just now, SwampD said:

Sorry, I'm having a hard time believing that a Black spokesperson would have been more powerful than a white owner coming out and saying that they supported the message that Kaepernick was trying to convey. Instead, they blackballed him. They sent the exact message they wanted.

I understand your point but I think it's arguing a different point to what @Eleven is making. Many owners did speak out and one can easily argue it wasn't enough that they didn't all speak out. The context of the quote we're discussing is about choosing a single spokesperson to speak on behalf of all the owners (as Pegula said, a person like Charlton Heston for the NRA). Terry Pegula wanted that spokesperson to be black. None of the owners were black. 

We drifted slightly from the original intent which was the owners wanted the league to have a spokesperson. I agree with you the owners should have spoke up in unison and appointing a spokesperson could have (should have?) been done in conjunction with that motion. All Eleven is stating is that the direct comment about a spokesperson isn't really that problematic and is quite sensible (choosing to go with someone who is Black, that is).

2 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

@RochesterExpat even the reporter didn't corroborate the quote? That's the problem with relying on the NFL's anonymous source. We're only hearing one side of what was investigated.

Hopefully the world of sports journalism is trying to track down the reporter.

Per the source at the Buffalo News, the reporter was a participant at the dinner. Everyone at the dinner was interviewed. I assume that means the reporter was interviewed, but it's an assumption and not one I've seen explicitly stated as fact yet. It won't be until the suit moves to discovery and then I suspect we'll have our answer(s).

[Eleven]

3 minutes ago, RochesterExpat said:

I understand your point but I think it's arguing a different point to what @Eleven is making. Many owners did speak out and one can easily argue it wasn't enough that they didn't all speak out. The context of the quote we're discussing is about choosing a single spokesperson to speak on behalf of all the owners (as Pegula said, a person like Charlton Heston for the NRA). Terry Pegula wanted that spokesperson to be black. None of the owners were black. 

We drifted slightly from the original intent which was the owners wanted the league to have a spokesperson. I agree with you the owners should have spoke up in unison and appointing a spokesperson could have (should have?) been done in conjunction with that motion. All Eleven is stating is that the direct comment about a spokesperson isn't really that problematic and is quite sensible (choosing to go with someone who is Black, that is).

Thank you very much for saying what I wanted to say but just didn't have the words/time for.  You nailed it.

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, #freejame said:

I read the WSJ and NYT daily. With the exception of the Editorials and Opinion sections, their reporting has, on any given have 80% overlap both in content of articles and areas of reporting. Multiple times a week I’m also incorrect about which paper I’m reading because of my ideas of what NYT and WSJ provide. Maybe stay away from the hot takes and interpret the news yourself? 

WSJ is the best imo. 

[#freejame]

Just now, Pimlach said:

WSJ is the best imo. 

I try to have both depending on what the deals are, but all things considered I would prefer NYT now because I’ve gotten hooked on crosswords. I find myself disagreeing with Op/Eds from both papers with more frequency than ten years ago, but to me they are both very professional services. 

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

Thank you very much for saying what I wanted to say but just didn't have the words/time for.  You nailed it.

They had their guy, then ran him out of the league.

And they needed both.

[K-9]

6 hours ago, SwampD said:

Yeah, the more I think about that quote, the more blockheaded it becomes, as if civil rights are only an African American issue. If anything, when you think about who was stirring that sh!tpot at the time, the spokespeople should have been the owners themselves.

An AA spokesperson would fall on deaf ears for those who were making this an issue.

I suspect Terry and his NFL ilk are huge fans of tokenism and I find it to be a huge insult to our collective intelligence.

[PASabreFan]

The more I think about it, that statement full of double talk is the smoking gun. He said it and he knew there was no way he could flatly deny it.

[Zamboni]

Aaaaand a few days later… I still say…

 

I’ll choose to believe it’s a bunch of untrue crap. Until it’s not.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Dudes, please keep the politics out of the racism thread.  Thanks.

(insert winkie thingie here)

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, Zamboni said:

Aaaaand a few days later… I still say…

 

I’ll choose to believe it’s a bunch of untrue crap. Until it’s not.

Is this based on anything? It doesn't seem to be but I'll still ask how you came to the conclusion that an NFL employee lied about an owner in a Zoom meeting with 40 other people. And FWIW didn't get sued.

[shrader]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Is this based on anything? It doesn't seem to be but I'll still ask how you came to the conclusion that an NFL employee lied about an owner in a Zoom meeting with 40 other people. And FWIW didn't get sued.

See that's the thing, we don't know exactly what that other guy said.  Maybe Trotter misunderstood it or tweaked the context a bit.  And is there anyone else on the call who can reprimand that person?  Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought there were comments earlier saying that the call was not recorded.  If so, at that point, you're reduced to a he said she said and nothing is ever going to go anywhere in court.