It doesn't take long for DeMaurice Smith to set the tone in his book, "Turf Wars," reviewing his time as the head of the National Football League Players Association.
Less than a chapter, actually.
You get the idea in the first paragraph of the prologue, when Smith describes the owners as "greedy billionaires who control the league, which makes them some of the lever pullers of our largest society."
A few paragraphs later, the descriptions continue. "These men do not see the general public as human. They are voters and customers and fans. NFL owners view their own teams' players not as people with families, aspirations, or pride. They are laborers and commodities, nothing more, an army of soldier ants who can and will be replaced by one of the thousands of cheaper options in college football or lower-tier leagues. Owners only pretend to care about a player's remarkable journey to college and the pros."
Those statements bring up a couple of obvious reactions right from the start. Smith covers the 31 owners (the Packers, with their millions of owners, get a pass) with one broad brush stroke there. It's a little difficult to believe that such feelings are so universal through every single owner - even if they are part of the same league.
Meanwhile, it's a little tough to read, with the anger level quite high. Personally, I think there's plenty of anger out there in our lives as it is. You can turn on a talk show or read a political news release and see that fact demonstrated repeatedly. But plenty of books have been written about the labor relations in sports, and there aren't many moments of good fellowship between sides.
I was hoping for a little different approach from Smith, who worked in the government's Justice Department as well as for several top law firms. He's a smart guy and a very worthy spokesman for his side of an argument.
Once Smith gets that venom out of the way, the book changes its tone slightly. The highlights of such publications is usually a description of the collective bargaining agreement between labor and management. Smith led the players through a 132-day lockout in 2011 by the owners, but seems to have outflanked the other side by buying strike insurance for the players. In other words, the labor side could afford to wait for the right deal. Once that little fact came out, an agreement was rather quickly reached.
For the next several chapters, Smith reviews some of the major collisions that took place during his time as a director. In hindsight, some of them seem as if they might have been a little easier to solve. An investigation into Tom Brady and his deflated footballs seems straight-forward enough, but handing out the proper punishment seemed to be a stubbornly elusive goal. You'd think it could have been kept out of the courts.
The Ray Rice case comes up in the detail as well. This one was tough for Smith, who clearly had no stomach for defending someone who hit his fiance in an elevator - and was caught on video tape doing it. But Rice still had rights, and Smith felt bound to defend him. It comes with the territory.
Then there's the case of Colin Kaepernick, who caused something of a national stir simply by sitting on the bench during the National Anthem. The quarterback is shown to be something of an odd personality, and the story went down some odd hallways. But the biggest of them was when the White House picked up on it, turning Kaepernick into a lightning rod. Later, the pandemic also caused some problems when players disagreed with procedures under difficult circumstances. Aaron Rodgers and Cole Beasley weren't too popular in the NFLPA's offices either.
Along the road that Smith followed for more than a decade, he made something of a discovery: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was showing signs of mellowing. Goodell always had been a loud advocate for his side of the story during his time on that job, but it sounds as if he realized that he and Smith had more in common than he thought. Smith eventually stepped down from his job before his nervous system and liver collapsed from abuse.
For those on my side of the tracks in Buffalo, there are only a few references to the Bills in here. Smith criticizes the late Ralph Wilson for not spending close to the cap in the late 2000s (78 percent, less than any team but Kansas City). Terry Pegula is barely touched, as he is portrayed as such a minor player in NFL circles than even Goodell doesn't talk to him often. Pegula does take a couple of shots for what is called a sweetheart stadium deal. To be fair, the Bills are responsible on the project for cost overruns, which are at hundreds of millions at this point and counting.
Happily, the book isn't all anger. Smith does take a chapter to talk about his family history, which actually is quite interesting and revealing. It's a nice timeout in the discussion.
"Turf Wars" might have a place in your football library if you have a strong interest in the subject of labor relations in pro sports. If that fits your reading interest, great. Just don't expect to see it read by many others on the beach this summer.
Three stars
Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon.com affiliate, I earn money from qualified purchases.)
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