INDIANAPOLIS — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the league’s top labor negotiator used the past week’s annual scouting combine to update owners on the collective bargaining negotiations.
In an e-mail to The Associated Press, league spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed Saturday that Goodell and Jeff Pash met Friday with the owners labor committee at the Colts’ team complex.
Colts owner Jim Irsay, Aiello said, did not participate because he was out of town.
“There was a meeting yesterday at the Colts’ offices of the ownership’s labor committee for another update from the negotiating team,” Aiello wrote.
The players’ union and league owners are trying to work out a new collective bargaining agreement before the old one expires at the end of Thursday. Talks resume Tuesday.
Among the main topics in negotiations: creation of a rookie wage scale; the owners’ push to expand the regular season from 16 games to 18 while reducing the preseason by two games; and benefits for retired players.
Memorial for Bears star Duerson.
Otis Wilson remembered the long days on the golf course with Dave Duerson at a service held Saturday in Chicago.
It wasn’t necessarily that they were spraying shots all over the place. It was that his old teammate always had something on his mind, particularly his children.
“Dave was just so proud of you guys,” Wilson said during his eulogy, looking right at Duerson’s three sons and daughter.
A four-time Pro Bowl pick who played on the Bears’ Super Bowl-winning team with Wilson, and later for the New York Giants, Duerson committed suicide at his home in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., last week. He was 50. His youngest son, Brock, gave one of several eulogies, along with Wilson and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Footnotes.
Ricky Bell, an NFL defensive back who went on to play in the CFL and won a Grey Cup with Calgary in 2001, has died. He was 36.
He died Feb. 17 in Columbia, S.C., although no cause has been given.
• Rams scout Luke Driscoll has been accused of public intoxication and public indecency after urinating on an Indianapolis building.
