While the bulk of the conversation over labor strife in the NFL concerns the owners versus the player—as it rightly should—there is always an important third party that often finds itself in the line of fire, not explicitly on either side, though perhaps leaning more one way than the other.
I’m referring to the coaches, and as Albert Breer tells it, they got a bit tired of “getting steamrolled” at the bargaining table with the owners in recent years, especially as it concerns the passage of rule changes. He writes for Monday Morning Quarterback an example from 2010 in which the owners voted in rule changes for overtime while the coaches were on a scheduled golf outing.