Carroll Angeles

Colts' Saturday was integral in preserving NFL Sundays
By Don Banks - Sports Illustrated
August 4, 2011
(three pages)
ANDERSON, Ind. -- August has arrived, the NFL's back in the business of playing football, and all's well
in the world again. Here in the Indianapolis Colts training camp, it's worth noting that Jeff Saturday might
have had as much to do with that happy development as anyone involved in the whole months-long CBA
ordeal.
I can't help but think no matter what the veteran Colts center accomplishes in this 2011 season, his 13th in
the NFL, Saturday likely has already done his best and most important work of the year. On this Thursday,
of all days, with the NFL's new collective bargaining agreement finally slated to be buttoned up and put to
bed for the next 10 years (praise be!), Saturday's pivotal role in ensuring football labor peace is a story
that's well-timed and needs telling.
Simply put, Saturday, the Colts' well-respected player rep, was consistently viewed as one of the foremost
voices of reason in the long and often contentious labor negotiations. While fiercely and passionately
representing the cause and concerns of the players, he also earned and held the respect of the owners and
league executives on the other side of the table, who often reached out to him to help steady things when
the talks reached one of its many various boiling points or impasses. He was that rare actor in this fight who
could speak to both sides and help calm the situation and bridge their differences, rather than divide and
inflame.
"During the whole process, [NFL commissioner] Roger [Goodell] told me several times, he said if it wasn't
for Jeff, sometimes I don't know where we'd be,'' Colts owner Jim Irsay said Wednesday night, following
his team's first padded practice of the preseason. "Roger had a great relationship with Jeff, and he really did
play a huge role in getting this thing done.''
League sources in the NFL office told me Thursday that Saturday was instrumental in finding common
ground between two sides that often couldn't agree on the most basic of realities. "The universal impression
of Jeff was that he was the glue who helped keep things together, and he really brought people together
throughout the course of the negotiations,'' one league source said. "Roger [Goodell] trusts him implicitly,
and while he was a very strong advocate for the players, his personality and nature is to help people come
together.''
As one of the two team player reps who stuck with the long and arduous negotiations from acrimonious
start to frantic finish -- Ravens cornerback Dominique Foxworth was the other -- Saturday gained
credibility and respect for his commitment level and his grasp of the nitty-gritty details of the complicated
deal. We've all seen so much TV footage in recent months of Saturday filing out of another labor
negotiation session that I almost didn't recognize him Wednesday when I saw him in a football setting once
again, sporting his familiar No. 63 jersey.
I had to ask him if he really knew what he was signing up for when he first agreed to take part in the
negotiations, an open-ended commitment that wound up stretching into weeks and months?
"Oh, absolutely not. No chance,'' Saturday said, with a laugh. "Fox [Foxworth] made fun of me all the time,
because I was sporting the same jacket time and time again. I was down in Florida with my wife and kids,
and I don't have any jackets or suits in Florida. So I got that jacket, a couple of button-up shirts and some
jeans, and that was my wardrobe the whole time. People made fun of me, but that's all I had. I wasn't going