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A narrative has emerged from the relaxation of the celebration rules, and it should cause the league’s players to keep one hand on their wallets.

As explained by Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com, the effort to change the “No Fun League” to the “Now, Fun League” comes from a desire by Commissioner Roger Goodell to mend fences with players.

“The Commissioner has made an effort to do it,” Giants co-owner John Mara told Breer. “Going around and meeting with them on the celebration rule, I think, is just one example. That’s important. We try to engage with them on the Competition Committee with the rules changes every year. We get good feedback and put a lot of that into effect.

“So I think that’s always important to do that, and I know Roger has made that a priority, and hopefully that’ll pay off for both sides in the end.”

“Pay off” is the key word, because it doesn’t take an excessive dose of cynicism to realize that the NFL realizes that the labor deal expires in less than four years. And so before Goodell and his partners can once again be the “bad cop” at the bargaining table, Goodell needs to spend some time playing the role of “good cop.” Especially since the fumes are still lingering from Goodell’s Judge Dredd approach to the bounty scandal and #DeflateGate — not to mention a fairly blatant instance of the NFL playing fast and loose with the accounting.

“The players’ perspective is important — we truly are partners in the business,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told Breer. “And that’s something certainly from an ownership standpoint that we’ve never lost sight of. I think the Commissioner’s initiative here in recent years to try and include them more in the decision-making process is a positive. That should serve us both well going forward.”

It will definitely serve the owners well if the players can be persuaded to believe that take-and-take has become give-and-take until the time comes to take and take and take some more. And that time comes in fewer than four years.