For Eagles fans who were hoping that the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement would be negotiated and in place well ahead of the upcoming draft in April, you’re probably going to get what you wanted. The Eagles will in all likelihood get the chance to put backup quarterback Kevin Kolb on the market to fetch the best package of draft picks.
U.S. District Court Judge David Doty ruled that the NFL owners had violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Players Association by negotiating contracts with the major television networks which required $4 billion dollars worth of payments to the NFL ownership regardless of whether there’s a work stoppage or not.
“The record shows that the NFL undertook contract re-negotiations to advance its own interests and harm the interests of the players,” Doty wrote in his important ruling. He thought the owners were preparing to shut down the league for two years if necessary.
George Atallah, NFLPA assistant executive director for external affairs, said, “This ruling means there is irrefutable evidence that owners had a premeditated plan to lock out players and fans for more than two years.”
Former Eagles great Brian Dawkins told Albert Greer of the NFL Network that this ruling was, “Huge”.
I agree with him. This ruling will have overwhelming ramifications going forward and it will likely change the attitudes of the owners to make them much more conciliatory. Hopefully the NFLPA will see this ruling as an opportunity to get a deal done rather than to hold the owners’ feet to the fire. Both sides should be pushed towards compromise.
NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and his staff were reported to be celebrating the ruling in a Washington D.C. restaurant.
NFL fans who were praying that a long work stoppage would be avoided had their prayers answered because this ruling delivers a major setback to the long lockout plans of the NFL owners, who wanted to weaken the NFL players union. Doty’s decision leaves a number of the owners in the same position as many NFL players, lacking the financial strength to withstand a long work stoppage.
You may be reaching a bit here, Gary. Perhaps some wishful thinking. This is simply a ruling by one Federal judge. The NFL will absolutely appeal this decision, potentially all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to. In the meantime, the entire issue will essentially remain in limbo, thus providing neither side with any additional ammunition to use towards a reconciliation.
I agree with Ian,
This Decision will likely embolden the Owners and the NFL Office even further
separate the 2 Sides. I expect nothing to happen until Summer..
The start of the 2011 will be in serious Jeopardy and there will be no player movement (as far as Free-Agency goes) there will be the dog & pony show that is the NFL Draft, which is a mediocre draft class in my opinion outside the DL/OL. Teams who identify their and draft to those needs the best will be
in the best shape moving forward.. No quick fixes on a CBA or improving any teams roster..
Ian
I disagree. Some owners need that contract money now and a protracted court battle still does them great harm. Time is no longer an ally of the owners.
Finally, some semblance of a level playing field (pun intended).
NWO!!!!!!!!……. Greed Greed Greed!!!!! NFL not for long!!!!!!!! I like how these owners portray themselves as GOOD GUYS “ROGER GOODELL”!!!! The NFL is like an overpaid Military!!!!!! Put your soldiers on the line for brain trauma to make your pockets fatter!!!!
Thanks for the ranting, incoherent spew jroc … you really added to the discussion there.
drummer – I don’t think the owners need that money as badly as you think. They will essentially have zero operating expenses for their teams if they’re not playing games, so at worst they’ll be in a revenue neutral situation. I think the TV money is a nice-to-have, but not a deal breaker for them.
Remember most of these guys don’t make their money on football. Their football teams are just their playthings.
playthings? These greedy men don’t view it that way, billions at stake
IanIJM…….. I can post what ever the Hell I want to post!!!!!…….. Truth is truth……. Now take that to mambi pambi land……. These owners are just greedy and everyone knows it…… People post things not even about the topic of a story so what makes you the owner on who blogs what!!!!! I can talk about a trade or a draft pick on this strory all i want to……. It’s a sports website…… now spew that!!! Atleast i got your attention!!!! LOL!!
Haha jroc, spew on this cat Ian is lucky the old ways are gone, when you would have gone “dizzy” on him
Ian
Try telling that to Jerry Jones and others who must pay for stadiums, etc. BTW, there are other expenses as well. Coaches, office workers, trainers, etc. still get paid. Think about it.
Jroc
These “Johnny-Come-Latelies” have a lot to learn. If they keep posting, they will learn or fade away like many others.
Jake
So you wanna be startin’ somethin’! It’s okay by me.
Funny how some people wish the worst for the players. I wonder why that is. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Judge Doty couldn’t be bought? Guess he’s a fan.
How about that drummer why is there hate for the players who give everything they have on Sundays? Petty jealousy and ignorance no doubt. The owners as I have said before and will continue to say cant expect the players to work more for less thats stupid no matter where you work. Anybody on this board would be up in arms if their job did this to them.
YouNeedJesus,
There were lots of people that got laid off when the economy got hit hard, and then there were a lot more that had to take pay cuts to keep their jobs, while taking on more work from the people they laid off. The NFL was the only company that didn’t suffer, but maybe they really did. See, they have a contract, so they had to wait til the contract ran out before they could make cuts/lower pay.
Now, I don’t think that this is the reason why the NFL is trying to do this, but just trying to give you an example of how people had to take pay cuts or whatever because their company wasn’t doing well. That is what brings me to this point. I do think some owners might not be doing so well.
The problem is, all NFL teams are essentially connected, because they are working as a whole towards the goal, which is to make the NFL a successful/profitable product. You can’t start eliminating the teams that are in trouble, because that affects the NFL as a whole, even the players. If there are more than a couple teams that are having trouble, which it seems like there might be, then the players are/should take a pay cut for the greater good of the NFL, or maybe the owners will have to raise prices. If there are really a few teams having trouble, something is gonna have to give.
SportsBum, the old deal was ended by the owners because of projected new revenues in the billions of dollars. It has nothing to do with teams having any trouble. The NFL is one of the most thriving businesses on the planet. Please see the article below:
Blame the owners in NFL labor impasse
By Phil Sheridan
Inquirer Sports Columnist
For unintentional comedy, it has been difficult to top the National Football League as it lurches clumsily and idiotically toward a labor war.
Two weeks ago, in Dallas, commissioner Roger Goodell and his lead negotiator, Jeff Pash, harrumphed about the union’s use of the courts in the run-up to the March 4 lockout deadline. Just over a week later, the league filed a complaint against the union with the National Labor Relations Board.
Hilarious.
One minute, you get an e-mail from the league’s PR officials trumpeting the enormous success of the league: Highest-rated this! Most popular that! The next minute, you get somber word that the owners are really, really hurting because of the onerous collective bargaining agreement with the players.
Knee-slapping.
If you’re having trouble following the intricacies of this latest sports labor brouhaha, here are the essentials.
The owners voted, 30-2, for the CBA extension that was ratified in 2006. The owners, for whom a contract is sacred when some player decides he’s underpaid and wants to renegotiate, decided in 2008 to opt out of that same deal, forcing the deadline that looms now at the beginning of March.
The owners hired the outside attorney who steered the NHL’s 2004 lockout of its players. The owners arranged to have their broadcast partners pay them their fees even if there are no games. The owners demanded that discussions on a new deal begin with roughly a billion-dollar-a-year giveback by the players.
The owners whine about the debts they’ve taken on to build the new stadiums they insisted they had to have, but never mention the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars invested in those same facilities.
If you’re having any trouble spotting the bad guy in this, here’s a clue: It’s the owners.
In fairness, there probably is no graceful way to shove your so-called “partners” to the side while you command a larger place at the trough. Those who see the NFL’s annual revenues of about $9 billion and figure there ought to be enough for everyone are missing the bigger picture.
Goodell and the owners believe revenues are going to expand exponentially over the next 20 years. There will be an 18-game regular season. There will be expansion. There will be games in London and Japan and Mexico.
Eventually, there will be franchises on other continents. There will be another explosion in income from new technologies.
This is a league that sold $200 tickets for fans to stand outside Cowboys Stadium and watch the Super Bowl on a large screen. Think there may be some new apps available for your iPads and smartphones?
These future billions are the real issue here. It isn’t that the owners can’t grow their profits while paying players the percentages spelled out in the expiring agreement. It’s that the future profits are so enormous, the owners can’t bear the idea of the players getting that big a share.
It’s where the unintentional comedy comes in. It sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove when Goodell gets going on the potential billions out there. His swagger short-circuits the part of his brain in charge of crying poor on behalf of his billionaire constituents. He can’t help himself.
There was a fascinating bit of coincidence on Friday:
In Washington, the league and the union held their first meeting under the guidance of George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
In Indianapolis, the Colts released one of the best defensive players in their history, safety Bob Sanders, because his body was too broken down for him to play effectively anymore.
In Miami, former NFL safety Dave Duerson was found dead. He was 50. While the cause of death was not immediately known, it was impossible not to reflect on how many former NFL players die well before their time.
It is often said that this labor battle pits billionaires against millionaires, and that is partly true. But most NFL players are not, and never will be, millionaires. Most of them make very good money, by any standard, for a few short years. Some are able to live off those earnings, or parlay them into business ventures. The one dividend that keeps paying all of them is physical pain from the brutal sport they played.
That’s their choice, to play the game. No one is suggesting that you feel sorry for the players. Just know that it was the owners who tore up the deal they’d agreed to and started the clock ticking on a lockout. It is the owners who couldn’t abide seeing the players get the same cut of what they believe will be a much larger, richer pie.
Maybe, with a grown-up in the room in Washington, a fair deal can be struck without a labor stoppage. Let’s hope so, because the alternative just isn’t as funny as the jokers who started this.
You posted a clearly bias article from a reporter…… Comical.
I don’t listen to reporters, because they don’t know the facts, they are trying to sell papers any means necessary and as you can see, some are biased. I understand business though. I could point out a lot of mistakes that Sheridan has made in his article, but I already explained much of my feelings in previous threads and they get long, so I don’t feel the need or have the energy to do it again.
Oh, and I do blame the owners for all this sh-t happening……. They are the ones that want a new deal because the old one was so unfair. Listen to Mawae, even he said that the players got a great deal with the last CBA, GREAT DEAL.
Anyway, just because the owners want something that is more fair, or even better, doesn’t mean that I should be against them.
And stop posting articles from another site. Come up with your own insight on the subject. You sound like a parrot.