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Some labor talk, some Cro talk and some naming rights talk in this edition of “The Good Stuff,” . . .
On the labor front, the two sides still have a lot of work to do. These talks are very involved.
“There are a lot of moving parts to this,” said one league executive.
One of the reasons the Jets pulled out of the Cortland, was they felt that after a handshake agreement occurred, it would take two weeks for all the paper work to be finalized.
And then, after the paperwork is finalized, the NFL is going to have to hold a two or three day seminar, with team executives, to go over the nuances of the new deal.
So that could push things into August, and Cortland wouldn’t have been feasable.
But it looks like the two sides are attempting to cut down on that possible two week paperwork period, by having lawyers (not the main negotiators) work together quite a bit, even on days there are no meetings, so a lot of the legalese will be ready to go, once a deal is finalized . . .
Over the July 4th weekend, Antonio Cromartie was tweeting his frustration with not getting visitation rights to see some of his children. He had several tweets about this. He has nine kids with several different mothers.
You have to wonder how much of a distraction this is to the player. San Diego felt this way. Also, you have to wonder if Cro might price himself off the Jets, because Tom Condon ask for too much money, considering all of Cro’s financial obligations.
Cro’s agent change wasn’t necessarily good news for the Jets. Obviously, Antonio had to find a new agent because Gary Wichard passed away. But he could have stayed at the same firm with Jason Chinn.
But going with the hard-liner Condon, could make this contracts more difficult.
Condon drives a hard bargain.
Mike Tannenbaum and Wichard worked well together. Tannenbaum flew to California for Wichard’s funeral. That shows you how close they are. Wichard had Jason Taylor, and his relationship with Mr. T. helped get that deal done.
While this is a long-shot, some people wonder if the Jets might offer Nnamdi Asomugha the money they would consider for Cro.
Remember, Asomugha has said he would love to play for the Jets.
But there are probably teams (like cornerback hungry Houston) that can offer Nnamdi millions more a year than the Jets, so Asomugha to the Jets is a major longshot. But with Rex and Mike, you never know . . .
It almost seems like the Jets have upped the ante on these furloughs.
People we deal with in Florham Park are almost never there.
The PR department sends out a newspaper clips package every day, to reporters and others, via e-mail, of articles about the Jets. It didn’t happen this week. This is the first time we remember this ever happening.
There is something up here . . .
By the way, did you notice that that Met Life Stadium story kind of went away? A couple of weeks ago, it leaked out that Met Life was about to sign a deal for the naming rights to the New Meadowlands. It was reportedly a deal for between $17 and $18 million a year. The story went away. Why? The last thing the Jets, Giants and league office wanted, in the heat of CBA talks, was this kind of story, involving this kind of cash. It could be used against them by the NFLPA. Don’t expect this story to pop up again until a new CBA is signed . . .
In the photo above, free agent safety Eric Smith, is doing something kind “planking.” It’s a new craze, and he took it to another level by putting his dog on his back.
