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Did the players opt for a Pearl Harbor scenario?

To continue the World War II scenarios (with metryman's permission)...something cscmember said on my previous post got me to thinking along these lines.

A lot of people are speculating about just why the players chose to reject further negotiations in favor of what's been called "the nuclear option" of taking it all to federal court. But I don't think that tag accurately characterizes what they're trying to accomplish...it's more of a "Pearl Harbor option."

A little history (very little) for those who might not be familiar with it. The Japanese in 1941 were not sitting pretty. They faced a tightening embargo of strategic materials from the United States, and they were caught in the tar baby of China with no prospect of winning and no face-saving plan for withdrawal. By the end of the year, their fleet had enough fuel for a single mission, and they were down to their last throw.

That throw was the Pearl Harbor operation: to destroy the US Pacific Fleet, and then rapidly invade and take over all of southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, New Guinea, and perhaps even Australia and India. Doing so would 1) provide them with the necessary materials, especially oil, that they needed for their military to function, and 2) provide them with defense in depth against an American counterstrike, forcing the United States (they hoped) to accept reality and negotiate an end to the conflict.

The whole point was, of course, not to conquer America, but simply to make an American victory seem too painful to be worth it. And the players today find themselves in the same situation: they want to win, but the owners have all the leverage, and time is running out. Time for one last, spectacular gamble.

I can't believe the players would actually want to destroy the league: most of them, as Michael Strahan pointed out recently, aren't really rich. They live paycheck-to-paycheck. (Yeah, the paychecks are big...but so are the debts, and their zero is the same as ours.) Plus, most of them have no real prospect, other than football, of ever rising beyond middle class, if that high. So what could have prompted them to take actions that could--in theory, at least--wreck the engine of their own prosperity?

I think maybe because they saw no other chance of winning. Note that I didn't say, "No other choice." Of course, they could always just back down, and so lose face; but they're no more likely to do that than the Japanese of 1941 (fellow victims of advanced testosterone poisoning). Nor can they afford to wait: the owners have embargoed their paychecks. They have only months to go before they can no longer function as a united front, and ignomiously bowing to the NFL's demands becomes the only option left.

Not only that, but court cases take time, and time is not on the players' side. I'm sure the owners would have been only too happy to negotiate extension after extension, shortening the time at the players' disposal before the paychecks stop and they begin to feel the heat.

No, the players had one shot: to bomb the hell out of the league in court, and do it without delay. But just like the Japanese, they need for virtually everything to go their way: they have to destroy the carriers, the battleships, the escorts, the aircraft, the maintenance facilities, and the fuel storage of the NFL. In the event, all the Japanese got was a few battleships. The result was indeed spectacular...and a total failure.

So for anyone upset that the players seemed precipitate in their decision to go to court, you probably have it backwards: they waited too long. There's not enough time left to force the NFL to bow to their demands, before their own members start to feel desperate and begin heading for the exits. The problem, for us fans, is this: there is a nuclear option--but it's in the hands of the courts. If the NFL is found to be an illegal monopoly, it could be the Hiroshima of professional sports.

This FanPost was written by a reader and member of Canal Street Chronicles. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CSC and its staff or editors.

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