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Players apparently are making a last-minute power play

Posted by Mike Florio on July 17, 2011, 12:17 AM EDT


When I left Hilton Head Saturday morning, it had been suggested that almost nothing could derail a new labor deal.

That attitude possibly has jinked the entire process.

Now that I’m back at PFT headquarters and catching up on the stuff I missed while driving 600 miles and stopping for a couple of meals (Florio Jr. strongly objected to waiting 35 minutes for a table at Cracker Barrel), it looks like the players opted — through their lawyers — to make a power play on Saturday, something that the owners had feared.

As ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported earlier today, the players want $320 million in benefits that weren’t paid during the uncapped year, as well as a one-year limit on the use of the franchise tag. Also, if the “lockout insurance” case must be settled separately and apart from the financial package negotiated by the league and the players, it’s possible that another nine-figure sum could be demanded. And to the extent that the Brady antitrust lawsuit needs to be resolved via something more than the contents of a new CBA, the players still could demand even more money and/or special treatment for the named plaintiffs, such as an agreement never to use the franchise tag on any of them.

With a deal now regarded by the media and fans and players and pretty much everyone else as a foregone conclusion, the NFLPA* has by all appearances opted to go for one last home run, possibly buoyed by the league’s decision to cave on the “right of first refusal” concept and the league’s significant concession on the rookie wage scale.

In theory, if the league calls the players’ bluff — and if it ends up not being a bluff — the whole thing could still blow up.

Given the dramatic progress that has been made on far thornier and challenging issues, we can’t imagine the talks crumbling now. Instead, the players likely decided to roll the dice in the hopes of making the deal a little (or, as the case may be, a lot) sweeter, and if the parties can’t work out these remaining issues on their own, then U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan will go Alton Benes on anyone and everyone in the room.

Sure, there’s a chance that the NFLPA* lawyers are hoping that cooler heads won’t prevail, but the failure to wrap this thing up now would create a significant backlash for everyone involved. Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith are in the home stretch of the ultimate three-legged race, and they’re smart enough to figure out what it takes to get to the finish line.
 

sbk92

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I hope it blows up in their faces with no football this year.

Break this f'n union.
 

Theebs

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what exactly does mike florio do to earn money from that site? I will never understand why that moron is embraced and put on nbc.
 

sbk92

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what exactly does mike florio do to earn money from that site? I will never understand why that moron is embraced and put on nbc.

That's right. Whoever tells you something you don't like sucks.

Kinda like how JJT was a hack. Wait. That was Calvin Watkins? Oh, him too.
 

Cythim

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SBK you've really turned into a worthless read on these forums. I agree with you from time to time but your act is getting old.
 
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SBK you've really turned into a worthless read on these forums. I agree with you from time to time but your act is getting old.


"I love football, but not as much as I want rich white owners to show their dominance over the black athletes"
 

BangersandMash

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Only PFT has made it out to be that dramatic. Everyone else is simply saying that there are a few more details to negotiate. I doubt either side will want to within striking distance of a deal and all of a sudden start a dick measuring contest.
 

sbk92

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SBK you've really turned into a worthless read on these forums. I agree with you from time to time but your act is getting old.

My "act" is speaking the truth.

When you agree with me is when you're right. If you're not agreeing often enough, that's your problem.
 

sbk92

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I'd welcome no football for years if it meant putting these irrelevant players back in their proper place and exposing this smokescreen that they have any leverage whatsoever in a labor dispute.
 

sbk92

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If sbk had no football, he'd hang himself in his mom's bathroom. Its all he has.

Right.

The one guy who isn't in a panic about this lockout just. can't. live. without football.

Is this in the internet for morons handbook? Pretend the guy you don't like has no life? He never gets laid.

Put it in your act. It's the closer.
 
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Are you really the one guy who isn't in a panic about the lockout? Because I don't give a shit about it either.
 
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Right.

The one guy who isn't in a panic about this lockout just. can't. live. without football.

I can't think of one poster on this board that seems worried about the lockout.

Is this in the internet for morons handbook? Pretend the guy you don't like has no life? He never gets laid.

I don't not like you, and I'm sure you have sex every now and then, and whatever way you come by it is between you and that girl and possibly the authorities. Seems to me that if there is one person on forum that would go the most crazy without football is you. The rest of us seem to have other things we enjoy talking about. As for you, Kevin James can only put out so many movies.

Put it in your act. It's the closer.

Wokka wokka wokka! Ya got me!
 

sbk92

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lol Yeah none of you idiots are worried about it. Too cool for school.

Especially that piece of shat RoyDaHammah. Who came in here spitting venom when the owners locked out the players. He doesn't care at all.

Me on the other hand, I'm beside myself with worry. I need football that badly.
 
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lol Yeah none of you idiots are worried about it. Too cool for school.

Especially that piece of shat RoyDaHammah. Who came in here spitting venom when the owners locked out the players. He doesn't care at all.

Me on the other hand, I'm beside myself with worry. I need football that badly.

Roy has a different view on the lockout, but he (or anyone else here) seem to be in the camp that there will be no football, or that we will even miss games.
 
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lol Yeah none of you idiots are worried about it. Too cool for school.

lol Yeah, most of us aren't up in arms about the lockout. I haven't paid it an ounce of attention.

And I can only think of one person posterbating to some fictional scenario where the owners shelve football for 2 years, just to show those dumb jocks who's boss!!!!!!1111111

:sbk92
 
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