Roger Goodell attended Redskins training camp yesterday; visiting the owners, and meeting with players to discuss issues pertaining to the collective bargaining agreement, and the looming potential lockout. A meeting that may not have gone as well as the players would have hoped.
According to Jason Reid of the Washington Post, the players didn't get all the answers they were hoping for, including Deangelo Hall.
"He's walking around kissing babies, you know, shaking hands, and he just wants to say that the owners are over here, the players are over here and I'm in the middle, I'm for the game," top cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. "But to ask him a question about anything, he couldn't answer.
"He couldn't answer this, go check with this, go ask these people, I don't really know. It was a waste of time. We sat there and shot questions at him for 45 minutes, and pushed meetings back and had to be here longer for nothing. A total waste of time."
Perhaps the most stately Redskin, London Fletcher, offers a similar perspective.
"We just wanted more answers to the questions that we had and he really didn't have 'em," said inside linebacker London Fletcher, the Redskins' player representative. "Obviously, some of 'em he didn't even feel like he could answer 'em as part of the negotiations, so to speak. Guys want to hear straight from him as far as what's true and what's not true. Let's not read about it in the media. Let's not have the information come from a second source and things like that.
As London points out, Goodell was somewhat constrained by the negotiations, and couldn't answer all of the questions the players had; even ones that he knew the answers to. But it is understandable why the Redskins players would be frustrated with the lack of openness from the commissioner. Nobody is asking him to give away secrets to the CBA negotiations, but if you know you can't talk about them, why even offer to take questions from the players?