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Here's the thing. Unions fight hard to secure rights. It takes something extraordinary for them to give up what they fought for. Sure it's easy to bash a union, etc, but we all do the same. If you make $75K this year and your boss now asked you to take a cut to $55K a year, you wouldn't just say OK. You would ask why. And even if the reason totally made sense, you still might not agree with it.
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Respectfully, DD, this is not what the owners did AFAIK. They wanted to take some money off the top and lower the percentage, but is has not been shown that the overall money to the player pool would shrink because the pie is growing every year. The salary cap has expanded every year since implemented and there every indication it would grow again in 2011. So, even though the percentages were being changed, were there any hard calculations that less
actual money would be allocated to the salary cap in 2011 if the owners requests were granted? If not, then all that playing with percentages is just meaningless PR. Also, if it was the case, the union could clearly spell out that (the following numbers are for illustration purposes only) and there was no salary cap in 2010) "if we take this deal, then the players had a salary cap of $110 million in 2009 and it would drop to $100 million in 2011". Since the players never put out any hard numbers like this, which if true would support your example and swung much of public opinion to their side, I conclude that no such contraction of the salary cap would take place. I think the opposite is true, that even with the union accepting the owner demands, the salary cap in 2011 would have increased over 2009, though the increase was probably smaller than in previous years. But nonetheless, it would still be an increase.And that seems to me to be the bottom line...in the owners proposal, would the salary cap in 2011 be greater than 2009, equal to 2009, or less than 2009? Only if it is less than 2009 does your example apply and give the players the higher moral ground. But if either of the first two apply, it seems to me the moral ground(at least on these minor quibbles) goes to the owners.
The league states they have just had their best financial year ever. And because of that, the owners need the players to give an extra Billion $ off the top to the owners. This was and is the owner's position. They feel it's their teams and they now hate the deal they signed even though they are getting rich off of it too.
The owners chose to blow up the existing deal where they saw the NFL overtake baseball and become the #1 sport. As fans, I agree we all like the salary cap, restricted free agents, NFL draft, parity among clubs, etc. Those are the things that make this sport awesome. So I get where a lot of people are against the players because this nuclear option to decertify likely changes the very aspects we all like. But what did the owners expect the results to be?
If you worked at a company and on your sweat and hard work, the company made the most money ever, would you expect to make 20% less the next year? That's what the owners expected the players to say yes to. The players did not ask for anything more. They were content with the deal where both sides made a lot of money. The owners wanted more money. They are the guilty party here in blowing up the league that we liked. I have suspected that some of the owners wanted this verdict all along though. Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder want to have teams better than the rest of the league. Parity be damned.
The owners pushed the button to end the current deal. They offered a horrible deal to the players in return. The players basically refused to listen until the owners showed why a new deal was even needed. Show us the expenses that need this carve out. The owners refused and finally sweetened their bad offer with no justification. Backs against the wall, the players quit negotiating and filed to blow up the league. If the owners really want to save football, then just agree to play out the last two years of the deal they nearly unanimously loved when they signed it and continue to work towards a real deal when the first one should have expired. Else take a chance in courts where the game we love is surely the loser.
I was attempting to make the same points, but your post summarizes the situation better than I did. The NFL has to find a way to balance the small and large market teams to keep the parts of the league that we love so much. This side fight with the NFLPA(or the former NFLPA now) is just one part of this battle.
, I'm on the side of the owners. I think the owners came back with a pretty good deal today and it may have not been perfect, but that's what negotiation is all about. I honestly think Demaurice Smith had no intention of negotiating a deal, just trying to bide time to gain support for the union. 
