Bears Forced to Pay with Ultra-Short Turn Around Time. Where was the Player’s Union?

Prince Amukamara shares his thoughts on the Bears game against the Vikings this week being flexed from noon to Sunday night. Via Dan Weiderer at the Chicago Tribune:

“’Honestly, I was so excited, Amukamara said. ’Just like: ‘Oh, man! They’re starting to respect us a little bit. We get to play on Sunday night. This is going to be a big game.’

“But then the eighth-year cornerback started doing the math.

“OK, a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on Nov. 18? Then a Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit on Nov. 22 that will begin before noon Chicago time? Just like that, Amukamara’s initial enthusiasm twisted itself into a three-word wake-up call.

“’They screwed us,’ he said.”

They sure did.

Note that this is not just the normal turns around that yo used from Sunday to Thursday.  The Bears were already losing 7.5 hours of recovery time by playing at noon on Thursday instead of the normal 7:30 pm.  Now they’re losing 7.5 hours on the other end.  15 hours of recovery time lost for these these guys is more than half a day.  It’s not trivial.

We hear constantly about how player safety is the first priority for the league. But it all falls by the way side when some cigar smoking TV executive sits in a back room and says, “Let’s put on the Bears. It’ll play good in the sticks.”

Message to the TV execs. The only people watching at the end of that game will be you and whatever bimbo you’re with. The rest of the world works for a living.

But that’s not my major point. I expect greed from people like this. It’s the player’s union’s job to protect the workers from it.

They rumble about strikes and negotiations and they loudly defend criminals when the league tries to suspend them. But where are they when it comes to protesting moves like this where player’s are actually being put at more than the acceptable level of risk? Even if it didn’t change anything, you would think they’d at least say something. Instead all we hear are crickets.

And that’s where Amukamara and his team mates are really being screwed.