We're still trying to make sense of what happened on Thursday night to cause the NFL players to decline to vote on a collective bargaining agreement the owners passed unanimously in hopes of ending the NFL lockout. I don't think we'll ever truly get the full story, but luckily, we have some people who can help.
One such person is Vonnie Holiday, the Redskins' player representative. You may remember him expressing his frustration on Twitter on Thursday night. A couple days later, Holiday was much more subdued in an interview with Greg A. Bedard of the Boston Globe.
"We felt like we had the meat and potatoes of the deal in place and ready to go,'' Holliday said. "And we were kind of caught off guard [with the owners' vote] because there were some issues outstanding with the owners, some things we needed cleared up that we still were negotiating and bargaining for, and that's how we left it.
"So going back to our players, we were like, ‘OK guys, in about seven to 10 days, we'll be back in camp and we'll have football.' Well, that didn't happen. We turned on the television and Roger was saying that they have ratified a deal. And we were caught off guard by that.''
The whole story is worth your time.