NFL Offseason 2011 - The Longest Yard?

[SmoothieX]

Oh, yeah, it was Bledsoe's ribs. Well, whatever, we still got Brady starting for you.

The "we" was just a bit of hyperbole from a passionate Jets fan. I, sadly, was not there. You were, though! Watching your team get trounced. After every single writer, commentator, and fan said they would win.

That must have been fun.

Ah, well. What can you expect when your team is led by this guy?

The image, incidentally, is from a caption contest last year at the Jets Blog. The best caption, in my opinion, was "You call those jazz hands, Seven One?"

Get Gronk'd!

 

[Skywalker]

Alsdo, the reason Tom Brady starts for you? The Jets broke Drew Bledsoe's leg! You owe us a debt of gratitiude!

How's that been working out for you guys, by the way?

 

[SmoothieX]

FEET!!!

 

[1001001]

I was disappointed to see the Rams let Oshiomogho Atogwe go. He's now a Redskin.

He played well for us over the years, but ultimately the Rams decided 11.5 million was too much. I haven't heard a lot about safeties in the draft, but the Rams now have a pretty decent sized hole to fill.

 

[Timby]

A seven-day extension to the deadline of the CBA has been agreed upon by the league and union. Negotiations will continue until 5 p.m. on next Friday, with federal mediation expected to continue on Monday morning. As the CBA has technically been extended, this means that the 2010 season has been extended, so there is no free agency as of yet, and trades cannot be made. The NFLPA can still decertify if it chooses to do so.

 

[Neroon]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the NFLPA being decertified? I mean, on the surface it sounds like a negative for the players, but apparently this is something that they might actually initiate. Therefore it seems like it's a potential benefit to them.

 

[nevermore]

^ Decertification would allow the players to file a class-action lawsuit against the league under antitrust laws. Basically, the league is exempt from such laws on the condition that they deal with the union; if the union no longer exists, the league becomes subject to those laws. While that lawsuit is in process, the owners would not be allowed to lock the players out.

Decertification would be used either to block a lockout or to combat the unilateral imposition of work rules by the league. Put simply, if the NFLPA decertifies, the league would then be required to promulgate player acquisition and retention rules on an across-the-board basis. The union then would sue the league, arguing that the imposition of standard rules regarding player acquisition and retention among 32 different businesses constitutes a violation of antitrust laws.

link

 

[Timby]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the NFLPA being decertified? I mean, on the surface it sounds like a negative for the players, but apparently this is something that they might actually initiate. Therefore it seems like it's a potential benefit to them.

They are, which is why the union has already decided to decertify. It's the players' nuclear option. When that happens, the union for the players dissolves, becoming, ostensibly, a trade organization, and the NFL's antitrust exemption would go away (as long as they're negotiating with an elected union, they're given an antitrust exemption). Based upon antitrust law, if the NFL clubs, acting as 32 individual businesses, were to attempt to lock out the players, it would be a group boycott of the workers -- which is illegal. It would then open the NFL up to a class-action lawsuit by every individual player, and based on precedent, it would lose. However, the NFL will almost certainly challenge the decertification in court, pointing to the 1989 decertification and the fact that the NFLPA reformed immediately after a new CBA was signed.

As I posted earlier.

For those of you wondering why the NFL is considered to be 32 individual businesses, it stems from last year's ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the American Needle case that the NFL acts as 32 individual businesses, as opposed to one organization.

 

[SmoothieX]

Re: Nevermore

However, I was also reading that if the union decertifies, the owners could complain to the courts and National Labor Relations Board that this was done in bad faith and undermines the collective bargaining process.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/michael_mccann/03/03/labor/index.html?eref=sihp

 

[archeryguy1701]

^It's not likely to help the owners though. I'll try to dredge up the article, but if I remember correctly, most are expecting the courts to side with the players in that case because a precedence was set the last time the union decertified, and also the judge overseeing the case (Dotty?) has been very pro-players up until this point.

 

[Timby]

36-year-old Tiki Barber, who last played in the NFL in 2006, has filed paperwork to come out of retirement.

wat

 

[Starbreaker]

He lost his job at NBC last year. He's probably broke.

 

[SmoothieX]

^We have a winner.

Good luck finding a team. 36 year old RBs are not a hot commodity, and he burnt a few bridges along the way.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Well, if there's a strike...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Although he's out of practice, he's also not as beat up. I expect he'll sign up as a backup somewhere and might get some playing time if the starter goes down.

 

[Timby]

Apparently one of the league's big conditions in the negotiations is that the NFL wants out of Judge Doty's court and the NFLPA to agree to a new arbiter for future legal arguments.

This seems rather nonsensical to me. While Judge Doty could certainly be construed as being pro-player, given that he almost always rules in favor of the union, not a single one of his rulings has been overturned by the Eighth Circuit. Furthermore, he's 82 years old and has been on the federal bench for 24 years. Retirement for him is a very real, and potentially immediate, thing.

Anyway, according to Mike Silver of Yahoo!, the 18-game season is in, owners will get more money off the top (but not the $2 billion they seek), the rookie wage scale in, there will almost certainly be a much shorter time period until players achieve restricted and unrestricted free agency, and there will be more limitations on offseason workouts.

Revenue sharing and retirement health benefits appear to be the major sticking points right now. There are other issues (what happens to player contracts with an 18-game season, what happens to the TV deals, how the lower RFA/UFA years are implemented, etc.), but those are the big ones.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'd say retirement health benefits should be a major one. It's something that's been shown to be desperately needed. Revenue sharing is something that will always come up and I assume they'll find some way to split the difference, but health benefits are breaking new ground.

 

[SmoothieX]

Anyway, according to Mike Silver of Yahoo!, the 18-game season is in, owners will get more money off the top (but not the $2 billion they seek), the rookie wage scale in, there will almost certainly be a much shorter time period until players achieve restricted and unrestricted free agency, and there will be more limitations on offseason workouts.

This seems to be remarkably pro-owner. Is that for real?

I was also reading somewhere earlier, don't recall the source but one of the big reputable sports sites, that the NFLPA had hired a consultant to review more financial info the owners agreed to make available to determine its sufficiency. The issue of the owners opening the books seemed like a major sticking point to the owners, I'd be interested to see where that goes.

 

[Timby]

Anyway, according to Mike Silver of Yahoo!, the 18-game season is in, owners will get more money off the top (but not the $2 billion they seek), the rookie wage scale in, there will almost certainly be a much shorter time period until players achieve restricted and unrestricted free agency, and there will be more limitations on offseason workouts.

This seems to be remarkably pro-owner. Is that for real?

Given that the owners were holding the short end of the stick with the 2006 CBA extension, it makes sense that they would be getting a majority of the concessions.

I was also reading somewhere earlier, don't recall the source but one of the big reputable sports sites, that the NFLPA had hired a consultant to review more financial info the owners agreed to make available to determine its sufficiency. The issue of the owners opening the books seemed like a major sticking point to the owners, I'd be interested to see where that goes.

They retained an investment bank to review the statements, but the NFL is really gaming the system, here, as Chris Mortensen reports that the statements currently provided are only on profitability, but the NFLPA is still demanding full, audited disclosure. Their stand makes sense, as if the financial data was just on profits, it's fairly meaningless without context. Businesses take one-time hits to profits all the time, paying off loans or investments (among other things), so without more details it's of limited value. For instance, the Packers numbers being thrown around all the time include a one-time loan hit to accelerate the payoff of their stadium loan.

 

[Timby]

We're about an hour and forty-five minutes from union decertification, unless something major changes. There was optimism at the start of yesterday, but things sound like they've nearly broken down, especially with George Atallah of the NFLPA and Greg Aiello of NFL public relations trading barbs at each other on Twitter.

Adam Schefter has also contradicted Mike Silver's assertion that the 18-game schedule was in -- according to Schefter, it was never part of a serious offer, which makes me think, much like the union's stance on the rookie wage cap, it was just posturing, a bargaining chip to give away. Edit: Which makes sense. If there were a cap in the 2010 season, Sam Bradford's contract would have counted for a smaller percentage of the Rams' overall cap than Peyton Manning's rookie deal did for the Colts. (Peyton's was $48 million / 6 years, $11.6 million signing bonus against a '98 cap of $52.4 million.)

Edit 2: DeMaurice Smith has told team representatives to inform their teammates to prepare for decertification. The NFL, upon hearing this, has made an offer that "splits the difference" on money issues. Post-retirement health benefits are still a logjam.