NFL players dish on league’s biggest issues

Do you feel NFL owners respect or disrespect players? Of the 95 players who answered the question on the league’s most important issue, 39% said health and safety, including CTE, while 18% said compensation, including guaranteed contracts, and 18% said social issues, including protests during the national anthem.

Of the 78 players who expressed an opinion on NFL owners, 76% said owners do respect them and 24% said owners do not.

Other issues in addition to player safety, compensation and social issues mentioned by players as most important: 5% said TV ratings and growing the game while 3% said officiating and 3% said player discipline and fines.

One player who asked not to be identified said that the league says it is all about player safety but doesn’t act that way: “How can the league be about player safety when they have us playing on Sunday and then (again on) Thursday Night games? Do NFL owners respect or disrespect their players? Jaguars tight end Marcedes Lewis figures that some owners respect their players and some don’t.

The Jaguars’ Lee said he does not believe that owners respect players: “The NFL owners are more of a sense of, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ Another player who spoke anonymously did not take a position on whether owners respect players because he said he just doesn’t know: “If you had asked me this last year, I would have been, like, ‘Yeah, easily they respect the players.’ The player cited a closed-door meeting about players protesting racial inequality at which Texans owner Bob McNair said, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison.”