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Pittsburgh Safety Ryan Clark Questions Owner's Motivation For A Deal

Can we get former New York Giants and current Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark back into a New York football uniform? Please? Giants or New York Jets will do, and I really don't care if you think the guy stinks as a player. I just like reading and hearing what the guy has to say. Get rid of Antonio Cromartie or Antrel Rolle and bring in Clark. He makes more sense when he opens his mouth.

Clark was recently on a Pittsburgh radio show discussing the impending lockout and the Super Bowl, and I found his comments insightful and enjoyable. Sports Radio Interviews has the full transcript. We have some excerpts:

Discussing whether or not the 2011 NFL season would start on time, Clark bluntly questioned the owner's motivation.

I’ve said this many times during the Super Bowl week — if they told me…and I love football so it may be different…but if they told me you know what Ryan, whatever your salary is we’re going to give it to you even if you don’t come to work. What’s your incentive to come to work? And essentially that’s what the owners have done. When you make deals with networks that say we’re going to pay you even if you don’t play. So what’s my incentive to play when if I’m not playing, I cut my biggest overhead out which is my players, and I’m still going to make my money. So you tell me if there’s any rush for them to feel like they have to have football. But I think the NFL does a good job of posturing. Any time they make an offer — which have been totally ridiculous offers, I’m a player rep I get to hear about these offers on conference calls and different things like that — it would be like, you know what, y’all come to work, I’m going to pay you a dollar.

There is much more from Clark. Whether you agree or disagree with his position on the labor dispute, I think you have to admit that Clark is a well-spoken, entertaining interview.