Well, this isn’t good. After all the negotiating and back and forth and independent arbitrator nonsense, none of it mattered in the end. The players have now played their trump card and applied for decertification.
While we saw this coming, it’s still a dark day for professional football. And who loses? Everyone that loves the NFL.
“The NFL Players Association announced today it has informed the NFL, NFL clubs and other necessary parties that it has renounced its status as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of the players of the National Football League,” the NFLPA said in a statement.
“The NFLPA will move forward as a professional trade association with the mission of supporting the interests and rights of current and former professional football players.”
The players have long been threatening to decertify so that the NFL owners couldn’t lock them out. No union, no lockout. Without wading into legal waters that I have no business being in, this is a power play by the players so now if there is no football, the players can file a lawsuit for restraint-of-trade antitrust violations.
Awesome.
Basically, this is about to go from the negotiation room to the court room. And it won’t be pretty. This is about to become a huge legal mess and I won’t pretend to have any idea when it will get resolved or what the process will be like.
The application to decertify comes right after DeMaurice Smith said that if the owners wanted to extend the negotiations for a third time, that he’d want to see 10 years of audited team financials. Yeah, that ain’t happening.
I spoke with a former NFL player last night about this, and while he really wants the players to get a good deal, he made a great point about the transparency of financial information. If you owned 32 7-Eleven’s across the United States, would you be showing your employees your books? Of course not. As a business owner myself (I don’t really own 32 7-Elevens), I think the players are a little out of line asking to see that information.
So now, here we are. Do I think there really won’t be football come September? No, I think everyone has too much to lose and this will get sorted out before then. But, your guess is as good as mine.
Thinking out loud here..
With this de-certification, would any Football player now be able to go play
for the UFL league that starts in a couple of months.. What would prevent a younger player, older player in need of making $$$ now go and try out for
the Omaha or Las Vegas Football teams…
This will get tied up in the COurt System for months and probably even years to go thru.. I think the Owners/Players will come together on a temp agreement come August, but nothing will happen before then, no trades, no free-agency, no player movement at all… I am not even sure why they bother to even have a Draft next month since teams havne’t been able to address their needs thru free-agency and clarify their own rosters. Now you won’t be able to have rookie workouts, sign them to contracts, have OTA’s..
Having the Draft while no CBA in place will backfire on the NFL…
Micah
If I owned 32 Seven-11s and was asking the employees to kick back $1 billion dollars, I’d expect them to want to see my books.
Also, if my employees’ pay was based on percentage of revenue, I’d expect them to want to see my books.
NFL ownership and Seven-11 ownership are not nearly the same.
as a season ticket holder and a business owner i always kinda sided with the owners . but in this day and age , i am starting to think more and more about these books. are the owners more concerned about the players knowing the books or are they fearful of the public knowing of the info. am i paying 30 dollars to park . 8 dollars for a beer . because times are tough on lurie or because lurie needs a bently instead of a beamer ?
nev856
Undoubtedly, Lurie already has a fleet of Bentleys. Just sayin’.
i know what your saying drum , i shoulda used a higher end comparison .
Are you really that surprised G? You’re a born again Christian, I’m sure you see the writing on the wall. This is just another drop in the bucket of all the greed and evil revolts.
I want to invite you guys into the chat room to continue talking about today’s decertification.
Just click on the Chat Room words at the top of the website.
I think this winds up hurting the Eagles ability to field a Super Bowl challenging team for the 2011-2012 season. Can’t trade Kolb before the draft so they won’t get additional draft choices to bring on to the team and fill holes. Add to that the situation where Kolb stays for the 2011 season as a backup and walks in 2012 free agency. If there is no free agency before the draft the Eagles must draft CB, OLine, LB, S, Oline, DLine in the draft. Then if there are no OTAs or mini-camps the new players ability to contribute in 2011 is severly impacted. With the offer the NFL put on the table around 12:00pmEST today I’m beginning to side with the NFL and not the players.
Ahhh… sorry missed the chat G… I just would have bitched and complained about how Roger Goodell is a liberal and all liberals are good at are fomenting unions and dividing the narrative. LET’S GO PHILS
Bringing religion to this site sux
Freedom of speech is a great thing. You don’t like it? Go check out Kremlin. Sometimes all things come together for the purpose of His glory my friend. You should maybe take heed of the world around you and question what is important other than a blog on the internet. Sorry for inconveniencing your small world FanSince1960. I would have been a fan since 1960 as well but I was to busy being persecuted for my beliefs in Soviet. Your ignorance is understandable however; your a spoiled patron of this great nation.
This Off-Season is essentially over now.. There will be a players lock-out and no team activities and any team facilities by players,coaches,medical & rehabbing players,etc,etc..
There will be no player movement until this gets resovled and I expect nothing of substance by either the Players/Owners until the Courts get involved which will take a few month (mid-late July)
I still don’t know why the NFL bothers to even have the NFL Draft without a CBA in place.. You can’t have Rookie,Spring OTA’s, there is no Trades and now some potential 1st Round Picks are proposing a Law SUit about limiting their Salaries if their is a rookie salary pool (Von Miller and other players are being asked to attach themselves to a Lawsuit against the Owners..)
About the only group of people making out in this whole fiasco will be the lawyers.. This litigation from both sides is going to dump millions of $$$ into all these law firms that get invovled in this.. Who is going to pay for their fees.. The fans will …. Screw these guys, How can you mess up a gravy train like the NFL.. Pure greed,arrogance and ingnorance which I think has been displayed by all Parties involved… Let’s go Baseball Season
NFL, a pleasure to Welcome you to the real world of unemployment and layoffs.
Take your time coming back. The longer you take, the more fans will realize they like you but don’t have to have you. With 500 cable channels and gas prices going up, I am sure many of your fans will find something else to do to pass the time. And those ticket prices, Whew!. Not gonna miss that.
Some fans Might even take a much needed walk or bike ride.
Maybe spend more time Sunday doing more constructive things.
Just thinking logically here: If the players decertified the union, doesn’t that mean that D. Smith should be unemployed? If there’s no union anymore, what exactly is he the head of? I was also thinking about the fact that the owners want to keep more revenue than they have in recent years. I understand that the NFLPA doesn’t want to give up that money, but maybe the individual NFL players should remember that they’re making so much more money in their contracts now than they were at the beginning of the recent contract. It is a possibility that if the owners take that money and invest it differently, they might create even more revenue that would end up being shared with the NFLPA. Even though the percentage might be lower, the total amount of money the NFLPA receives might actually end up being higher.
Paulman, you are warped. You exercise YOUR freedom of speech so much at this site that you smother everyone with your non-stop exercise of trying to bring attention to yourself. You love the attention, whether it is negative or positive. You crave it. Do you go outside? Is this your life? You’ve tried to make this site about YOU!
I don’t want to hear about religion here. Why don’t YOU go to a religious website if that is what you are into. Or create a Paulman.com so we don’t have to read your crap. Of course I believe in religious freedom, I just don’t want to hear people’s prejudices here. If someone came here and started talking about Allah, everyone would be going nuts. And your racial comments all the time are a bore as well.
To FS1960,
I respect your passion, but it seems like you are the one always bringing up
“religion” and seem to have a problem with everything I post on here..
Maybe you have some issues that need to be addressed..
4 Simple words SHOW US THE BOOKS! Every NFL owner is a billionaire every last one. Yet they want a larger piece of the pie and for that what do the fans get? No psl’s? Cheaper concessions? Stop beggin city and state gov’ts to build your stadiums? will they pay their concession workers more money? I just want to how much is enough how much?