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GERRY FRALEY / The Dallas Morning News
The NFL entered choppy and uncharted waters on Friday.
Six hours before the collective-bargaining agreement was to expire at 10:59 p.m. Dallas time, the National Football League Players Association filed paperwork to decertify. The first off-season work stoppage in NFL history triggered what could be an extended and stormy stay in the courts and a delay to the coming season.
“The answer is we’ll get it done,” Cowboys owner-general manager Jerry Jones told reporters in Washington, D.C. “The answer is we won’t miss any football. Certainly, that is our goal. Their move into litigation will ultimately result in going right back into negotiation, in our view.”
The decertification removed the union from negotiations and freed players to pursue lawsuits against the NFL. They responded with a blockbuster.
A group that included star quarterbacks Tom Brady , Drew Brees and Peyton Manning and linebacker Von Miller of Texas A&M and DeSoto as lead plantiffs filed a class-action suit in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. The suit alleged antitrust violations by the NFL and sought an injunction to prevent the league from instituting a lockout.
Miller is included in the suit because it lists the draft among the anti-trust violations. Miller is a top prospect in the draft to be held April 28-30.
The Cowboys will continue in a business-as-usual mode, preparing for the draft and having head coach Jason Garrett and his staff evaluate players. Like all clubs, the Cowboys face a difficult task in getting renewals of sponsorships, season tickets and suites.
The players also decertified in December 1989. In that instance, play continued. The players won their suit in September 1992. Negotiations between attorneys during the suit led to a new basic agreement five months later, and the union recertified.
Stephen Fox , a principal with the Dallas law firm of Fish & Richardson, said the extreme of this situation would be having all players declared free agents with no restrictions such as a salary cap. A more likely scenario, Fox said, is for the players to ask the court to set working conditions for the 2011 season and to resume negotiations while accepting the NFL’s authority in areas such as scheduling.
Jeff Pash, an executive vice president and general counsel to the NFL, said in Washington that the league had not decided on its next step. The options include a lockout, in which teams would stop all player-related activities other than the draft.
“Ultimately, this is going to be negotiated at the negotiating table,” commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters. “They’ve chosen to pursue another strategy, and that is their choice. We will be prepared to negotiate and get something done that’s fair to the player and fair to the clubs.”
To do that, the atmosphere must improve.
George Cohen, head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said in a prepared statement that after 16 days of talks, “no constructive purpose would be served” by continuing mediation. Cohen said there were “strongly held differences” between the sides.
Trust is a major issue. The players union expressed distrust of the owners for not opening their books and maintained that they want a lockout. The owners expressed distrust of the players for what they said was a refusal to budge in negotiations and said they had wanted to get into litigation all along.
“Any business where two partners don’t trust each other … is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be,” players association executive director DeMaurice Smith said.
In a prepared statement, the NFL said the union “left a very good deal on the table.” Pash said the offer included staying with a 16-game schedule for at least two more seasons and a reduction of off-season workouts and in-season practices. The owners also asked to “split the difference” in their request for the union to give up revenue, dropping from the original $1 billion annually to $325 million.
Smith said “it was with a great deal of pride” that his group rejected what it considered a pay cut because the owners had not justified their position to the union, which, for now, does not exist.
The NFL entered choppy and uncharted waters on Friday.
Six hours before the collective-bargaining agreement was to expire at 10:59 p.m. Dallas time, the National Football League Players Association filed paperwork to decertify. The first off-season work stoppage in NFL history triggered what could be an extended and stormy stay in the courts and a delay to the coming season.
“The answer is we’ll get it done,” Cowboys owner-general manager Jerry Jones told reporters in Washington, D.C. “The answer is we won’t miss any football. Certainly, that is our goal. Their move into litigation will ultimately result in going right back into negotiation, in our view.”
The decertification removed the union from negotiations and freed players to pursue lawsuits against the NFL. They responded with a blockbuster.
A group that included star quarterbacks Tom Brady , Drew Brees and Peyton Manning and linebacker Von Miller of Texas A&M and DeSoto as lead plantiffs filed a class-action suit in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. The suit alleged antitrust violations by the NFL and sought an injunction to prevent the league from instituting a lockout.
Miller is included in the suit because it lists the draft among the anti-trust violations. Miller is a top prospect in the draft to be held April 28-30.
The Cowboys will continue in a business-as-usual mode, preparing for the draft and having head coach Jason Garrett and his staff evaluate players. Like all clubs, the Cowboys face a difficult task in getting renewals of sponsorships, season tickets and suites.
The players also decertified in December 1989. In that instance, play continued. The players won their suit in September 1992. Negotiations between attorneys during the suit led to a new basic agreement five months later, and the union recertified.
Stephen Fox , a principal with the Dallas law firm of Fish & Richardson, said the extreme of this situation would be having all players declared free agents with no restrictions such as a salary cap. A more likely scenario, Fox said, is for the players to ask the court to set working conditions for the 2011 season and to resume negotiations while accepting the NFL’s authority in areas such as scheduling.
Jeff Pash, an executive vice president and general counsel to the NFL, said in Washington that the league had not decided on its next step. The options include a lockout, in which teams would stop all player-related activities other than the draft.
“Ultimately, this is going to be negotiated at the negotiating table,” commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters. “They’ve chosen to pursue another strategy, and that is their choice. We will be prepared to negotiate and get something done that’s fair to the player and fair to the clubs.”
To do that, the atmosphere must improve.
George Cohen, head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said in a prepared statement that after 16 days of talks, “no constructive purpose would be served” by continuing mediation. Cohen said there were “strongly held differences” between the sides.
Trust is a major issue. The players union expressed distrust of the owners for not opening their books and maintained that they want a lockout. The owners expressed distrust of the players for what they said was a refusal to budge in negotiations and said they had wanted to get into litigation all along.
“Any business where two partners don’t trust each other … is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be,” players association executive director DeMaurice Smith said.
In a prepared statement, the NFL said the union “left a very good deal on the table.” Pash said the offer included staying with a 16-game schedule for at least two more seasons and a reduction of off-season workouts and in-season practices. The owners also asked to “split the difference” in their request for the union to give up revenue, dropping from the original $1 billion annually to $325 million.
Smith said “it was with a great deal of pride” that his group rejected what it considered a pay cut because the owners had not justified their position to the union, which, for now, does not exist.
