The Post’s Steve Serby breaks down the NFL’s labor issues with the former Jets center who is the president of the NFL Players Association.
Q: Do you fear Doomsday is coming March 4?
A: I am convinced the owners are willing to take this to a lockout.
Q: Why are you convinced of that?
A: I just think the tone of negotiations is one that is not promising that a deal is in sight any time soon.
Q: Why was last Thursday’s negotiating session canceled?
A: You’d have to ask the owners that. I’m not at liberty to go into detail why it was canceled. . . . It wasn’t canceled by the players.
Q: Why would the owners risk killing the golden goose?
A: It’s greed. The Gordon Gekkos. There’s a difference between losing money and your business falling apart versus greed.
Q: The owners refuse to show you their books.
A: The NBA just turned over everything to the Players Association. It’s about money. It’s about padding pockets and making money.
Q: Have you told the owners that the union is willing to participate in a 24-7 lock-in to hammer out a deal?
A: Yes.
Q: Their response?
A: No response.
Q: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called for intensive, ’round-the-clock talks if necessary two days before the Super Bowl.
A: We said that same thing back in August.
Q: What would you tell the fans between now and March 4?
A: Keep your fingers crossed and hope we get a deal done. The fans are the ones that are gonna suffer. We understand that. We’ve been preparing our players for two years to get ready for this. If a player is not ready for this, it’s the player’s fault. The fight we gotta fight is educating the fans. If you want to be mad at anybody, be mad at the owners for putting us in this position. The players want to play. The players did not ask for this.
Q: As of now, you’re scheduled to be meeting each Tuesday and Wednesday with the owners from next week until March 4. But there doesn’t appear to be much trust between the sides.
A: You’re telling me you’re losing money but you won’t show me how much you’re losing. You’re telling me it costs too much but you’re not willing to show me the cost. . . . I was at the Super Bowl — I saw Daniel Snyder’s plane on the runway. He wasn’t flying first class on American Airlines. It’s a business deduction and you’re writing it off and you’re saying it’s a cost the players should incur because you choose to fly that way. I’m being facetious . . .
Q: Any concern about players caving in?
A: It doesn’t matter. You’re still locked out. It would be an injustice to our players to take a deal that’s worse now when the game is better than it’s ever been before. We’ve asked for absolutely nothing. We’ve only been asked to give back.
Q: How united are the players?
A: I think our players understand the issues. If you have guys like (Antonio) Cromartie who want to pop off because they don’t know what’s going on, they haven’t taken the initiative to understand the issues. I truly believe we’re more united than ever before.
Q: Turning to your career, tell us about your free agent visit with Bill Parcells (in 1998).
A: We go into his office, and they want to take my wife shopping. She wants to be in the meetings with me. It was a big office . . . every curtain was shut, all the curtains were drawn, all the blinds closed . . . there was a little desk lamp on his desk. It was in the middle of the morning and it was pitch black in the room; it might as well have been a little motif candle. . . . It looked like The Godfather sitting in the back of his office. He tells us, “I have a plan, this is what I need.”
The position of center was on top of his list of his needs that year. I said to him, “I don’t know you. All I know is what I’ve seen on TV, ranting and raving. I always told myself I’d never play for you and I’d never play in New York.” He brushed it off: “Don’t believe everything you see on TV.” I told him, “I know you know I know how to deep snap, I don’t plan on doing it. He said, “I’m not gonna pay you the kind of money I’m gonna pay you to be the deep snapper here.”
The first day of training camp, he says, “You gotta get your butt out there and snap for the punter and kicker.” I said, “You just told me three months ago I didn’t have to be there.”
Nobody ever wanted to run into him by yourself in the hallway. You just didn’t ever know what he was gonna say to you. Everybody walked on eggshells when he was there. One time I was walking upstairs: “Hey Coach, how are you doing?” He said: “Hey Mawae — you don’t effin’ worry about me. I’m gonna be OK. You worry about yourself!”
Q: Parcells’ best motivational ploy?
A: Parcells knew how to push the buttons of every guy on the team. I remember we beat Kansas City on a last-second field goal. I’m getting on the plane, and Parcells always sat in the first row of first class, so you had to go past him. Everybody tried to avert their eyes. “Hey Mawae, what the hell are you laughing about?” I said, “What are you talking about, Coach?” He said, “I didn’t bring you here to beat Kansas City, I brought you here to block [Ted] Washington,” who we played next week. He would call guys out in meeting rooms: “Mawae, if you don’t block Zach [Thomas], we’re not gonna win this game.”
[Defensive end] Dorian Boose came out in the newspaper and said he’d be like a crazed dog ready to come out. The next morning, there was a huge kennel sitting at his locker and a dog dish with Boose’s name on it.
It was better with [Parcells] when we lost a game than when we won. He’d be up on the hill not even talking to anybody . . . practice was so much easier when he was pouting for a whole week. When we won, his foot was down on the gas pedal full throttle, and he’d coach every position, too. You would have thought he was All-Pro at every position on the field.
Q: You have no doubt he’s a Hall of Famer?
A: The guy is one of the best coaches that ever coached the game. If I had the opportunity to play for him all over again, I’d do it.
Q: Curtis Martin?
A: It was never about the fame for him. He played so long and so hard, he very rarely missed any games. He finished the 2004 season with two high ankle sprains and two sprained knees. Some guys get a first-degree sprain of the MCL and their season’s over with.
Q: The 1998 AFC Championship loss in Denver?
A: I don’t think it sunk in until later on when we watched Denver play Atlanta, knowing we crushed Atlanta earlier in the year. Very sad.
Q: The 1999 home opener when Vinny Testaverde (Achilles) went down?
A: That paralyzed the team for a bit of time. I think it paralyzed Parcells.
Q: Were you surprised when Parcells stepped down as coach after the ’99 season?
A: Yeah, everybody was. Nobody saw it coming. To this day, I don’t know why he decided to step down. It was the same year Mr. [Leon] Hess passed away. That played a part in it.
Q: How did you feel about Bill Belichick taking over?
A: I was OK with that. I think there was a great deal of respect as a team for Bill Belichick and what he brought to the table. Unfortunately, his tenure lasted all of 30 minutes.
Q: Did you watch his HC of the NYJ press conference?
A: I was in the building. I did not watch it. By the time I got upstairs, he already announced his resignation and was off the stage. Nobody saw it coming. Everybody just assumed Belichick was gonna be the next guy regardless. When he resigned, nobody knew what to do.
Q: Al Groh?
A: We were in Week 15 and we were in full pads on Thursday afternoon, and we were a veteran team. When your starting quarterback [Testaverde] is telling you that guys are beat down, at the end of the day, something’s gotta give. Either your performance is gonna give or you lose respect, and that’s what happened in both cases.
Q: Herm Edwards?
A: He didn’t like to fine players. Parcells would drop a fine in a heartbeat. As we got younger [as a team], some of the younger guys took advantage knowing they weren’t gonna get fined and there was no harsh punishment for breaking team rules, especially in 2005. I think some of the younger guys didn’t know how to be a professional and Herm didn’t crack the whip. I enjoyed every moment playing for him. He let the veteran guys be leaders. He relied on the veteran players to make the right call sometimes.
Q: Keyshawn Johnson?
A: I’ve never been drawn to that look-at-me attitude and don’t care to be around people like that. [But] I’d play with him for 10 years in a row if I had the opportunity to.
Q: How often do you think about your older (by 370 days) brother John?
A: I was cleaning out my filing cabinet [Thursday] and I came across some old pictures of him. I’m not as saddened today as in the past. You learn how to deal with it.
Q: What was the low point for you emotionally when you learned he was killed in a car accident?
A: It was May 5, 1996. My wife and I were living in Seattle going into my third year in the NFL. We got a phone call at 5:30 in the morning. All I heard was [younger brother Scott] screaming, “He died, he died, he died.” It didn’t sink in right at that moment. I called [offensive line coach] Howard Mudd up and told him I wasn’t gonna be at minicamp that weekend. Getting ready for the memorial service, it was devastating. I’ve grown a lot because of it.
Q: How so?
A: My brother’s death caused me to start thinking about more than just myself. I realized at the end of the day there had to be more to life than making money and being rich and famous. A couple of months later, my wife got pregnant. I started reading the Bible, and a year later, I got saved in Christian vernacular. I accepted Jesus as my Savior. My life’s never been the same since.
Q: You and John grew up as roommates at a military base and then at LSU.
A: My junior year I decided I wanted to live by myself. My senior year I got married.
Q: Were you two alike?
A: No, we were opposites. He was the headstrong, you-either-hated-him-or-you-didn’t kinda guy. We had our share of fights growing up. We had to be separated by teammates a couple of times, but at the end of the day, we were still brothers.
Q: He was a nose guard, you played offensive tackle and center.
A: It became pretty evident I was on a fast track as far as college football. He was a guy, if half our team had the effort he had, we would have been a heckuva lot better.
Q: Most heated fight with your brother?
A: One time we had a 5:30 in the morning workout. After the workout, I’m laying on the floor with my feet up on the locker when all of a sudden a 20-pound medicine ball hit me in the gut and my brother was standing over me. I picked it up and slung it across the locker room and hit him in the knee with it. I got up and he realized how ticked off I was and he ran out of the locker room down the hallway. Then he realized, “I’m running from my younger brother.” He charged me, and I kicked him in the chest. We locked horns by the shower and started wailing on each other. The shower emptied out I’m quite sure.
Q: Boyhood idol?
A: Roger Staubach. He was the quarterback of America’s Team. I played quarterback in those days and loved him. Then Danny White took over and became my second sports hero.
Q: Favorite movies?
A: “Gone With the Wind,” “Gladiator,” “The Patriot.”
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Mel Gibson.