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LOCKOUT UPHELD


boltnlava
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Via ESPN - I just heard this on ESPN.

 

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has granted NFL owners' request for a permanent stay of a prior ruling halting their lockout.

 

The 8th Circuit originally granted the league a temporary stay on April 29, four days after U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson lifted the lockout. The order means the lockout remains in effect until the NFL's full appeal of Nelson's ruling is heard on June 3.

 

The court's decision comes on the same day the two sides resumed court-ordered mediation in Minneapolis. It was the fifth day of talks in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, but the first since April 20.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6557162

Edited by boltnlava
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3-4 more hours of work being done, and a new offer will be presented BY the owners, which is huge. This might be a good, very good thing.

 

No matter what the owners offer the players will turn it down as not enough. Nothing will ever be enough.

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:fingerscrossed:

 

ETA: So idiotic to go through all this BS when they could have done this months ago. :wacko:

 

if they could've they would've. but they didn't. i'm with skylive. it won't be enough. it's going to take time marching towards missed paychecks to bring them to a resolution.

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I'm not a lawyer, but to me this ruling looks like a signal about how the 8th circuit will rule on Judge Nelson's opinion on June 3. The players are going to lose.

 

I don't care who "wins" this dispute. But I think DeMaurice Smith needs to cut the grandstanding and "we're at war" rhetoric and try to cut a deal before June 3, get all that he can and agree to something reasonable through gritted teeth. If there is no deal and the 8th circuit rules against the players June 3, Smith's chances of getting something that is decent will go downhill even if the players appeal the 8th circuit court's ruling.

 

And I hope Goodell and the owners decided to act like reasonable people and offer a reasonable deal, but I'm doubtful. Just my two cents.

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I'm not a lawyer, but to me this ruling looks like a signal about how the 8th circuit will rule on Judge Nelson's opinion on June 3. The players are going to lose.

 

That is correct. This decision by the two 8th circuit judges is a rebuke to Judge Nelson’s interpretation of the case - that the court has the jurisdiction to stop the lockout. So it is logical to assume that line of thinking will apply to this appeal and the 8th circuit will ultimately rule for the owners (likely 2-4 weeks after the June 3rd hearing ends). It doesn't seem likely that their current opinions will change after that hearing.

 

Judge Doty still has to rule (soon) on the damages via the TV lockout money, which could tilt the leverage back somewhat to the players. But for now the leverage has tilted to the owners. Whether or not that means the players will be more receptive to what the owners are said to be offering now through the court ordered mediation is anyone's guess. My gut says the players stick to their guns until after the 8th circuit appeal ruling is final in late June to early July.

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:fingerscrossed:

 

ETA: So idiotic to go through all this BS when they could have done this months ago. :wacko:

 

No, it's not. This is business - big business. There's a lot of capital at stake. People seem to forget that because when they watch the NFL it's a game. If a deal can be swung in the next couple of weeks we won't have lost a thing and the game as we watch it will continue on.

 

That said, given that Jerry Richardson is still involved on the owners' side and DeMoran Smith is still the leader for the players despite the alleged decertification, I don't have a lot of hope. Both of those guys are extremists who would rather burn down the game than allow the other side to claim a victory.

Edited by Bronco Billy
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No matter what the owners offer the players will turn it down as not enough. Nothing will ever be enough.

What is this nonsense? This is another "new beginning" in negotiation and nobody on the face of the planet would accept the first tendered offer in a 9 billion dollar negotiation.

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No, it's not. This is business - big business. There's a lot of capital at stake. People seem to forget that because when they watch the NFL it's a game. If a deal can be swung in the next couple of weeks we won't have lost a thing and the game as we watch it will continue on.

 

That said, given that Jerry Richardson is still involved on the owners' side and DeMoran Smith is still the leader for the players despite the alleged decertification, I don't have a lot of hope. Both of those guys are extremists who would rather burn down the game than allow the other side to claim a victory.

All I'm saying is that they may have not had to go through the whole court issue if the owners had spoken for themselves to begin with.

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All I'm saying is that they may have not had to go through the whole court issue if the owners had spoken for themselves to begin with.

Nah, this had to happen, it's the arms race leading up to the dismantling.

 

Union decertifies, claiming anti-trust which is a significant threat to the owners' long-term outlook

Owners lose in Doty's court and have a big penalty pending - which along with anti-trust law (no given) comes with possible treble damages

Lockout granted permenant status, threat of owners being able to hold out indef

Owners drop rhetoric about disbanding the league if it becomes intentatble.

 

Now they both have their missiles firmly in place with MAD in place. It's now lose-lose and everyone can just call me sily call me rude, but call me please and get it done. The next steps are too scary for each side to risk - league shutdown would cripple the players who are in their prime earning years and anti-trust win by players would force that. And the owners aren't walking away from 9 billion a year.

 

I forget now who it was, but there was someone on Sirius NFL a couple months ago explaining that this was all just a posturing process and that every step was mostly a predicable chest-thumping that simply had to play out with the inevitable deal being signed. The only question he had was how far it would have to go and who would give more ground - he predicted the owners getting a modest concession from the players on current dollars while sharing a bigger part of future dollars.

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This is from Peter King's weekly football article - thoughts from Chris Collinsworth - a less optimistic view.. His best case scenario is a 10 week season beginning around Nov 1st. Worst case, no draft, football becomes baseball in terms of competitive balance.

 

 

 

 

I want to start today with a guy who can be a fair referee to both players and owners. He was a player, a very good one, and now he's close to lots of players, and to key people on both sides. He's part jock, part lawyer, part E.F. Hutton. And one great color man. And he has a thoughtful, plaintive wail for everyone in this labor mess:

 

"Is this really what we want -- judges determining so much about the future of the National Football League?'' Cris Collinsworth said over the weekend. "We've got the greatest game in the world here in a time of incredible wealth, and we're in a position where that very possibly can be changed forever here very soon. And I'm just asking: Why?''

 

The other day, I noticed Collinsworth had written on his website, footballpros.com, and tweeted that his best guess for the start of the NFL season was early November. Then there'd be a nine- or 10-game regular season, then the same number of playoff games. So I reached out to him to see what he meant.

 

This disclaimer right up front: I've known Collinsworth since 1984, when I covered him on the Bengals in Cincinnati. Now I work with Collinsworth and consider him a friend. We've beaten each other up on many topics over the years, but that's why I like him. I can tell him he's nuts, and usually he likes it; we did it a lot at HBO and then NBC before he left the studio and went into the play-by-play booth. But I understand if you're sitting there thinking I'm not going to be impartial or I'm going to paint Collinsworth in a good way. I am -- but that's because what he's saying makes a lot of sense.

 

Collinsworth's point is an interesting one. He thinks the appeals court will side with the owners and the current lockout will stay in place. If it does, neither side will be supremely motivated to move; the owners will figure they've already made a strong offer (the March 11 offer) and will wait for the players to budge. But the players, on a tremendous streak in the courts right now, will figure they've made sound arguments in front of a mediator in Washington and judges in Minneapolis, and even if the lockout stays legal, their antitrust case will have a good chance in the Eighth Circuit.

 

And the players won't blink until they start missing paychecks. Collinsworth saw it twice as a player, in 1982 and 1987. "The only thing I'm absolutely certain of,'' he told me, "is that there will be players broke by the middle of September. There will be pressure to make a deal. But there will be pressure by owners too. They've got payments to make too -- stadium mortgages.''

 

Collinsworth gives them three or four weeks to make a deal. Then a week of free agency, signing undrafted college players and unsigned veterans. Two weeks of camp. One preseason game. Then the season starts, either on Oct. 30 or Nov. 6.

 

But if that scenario doesn't happen, and if the two sides stay in a cold war, what happens if, say, a season is missed? Here's where it gets hairy, and where we have to start wondering which way the game will go. In Brady v. the NFL, the players argue for a new way of doing football business. Longtime players' attorney Jeffrey Kessler would like to see the draft abolished; in fact, as Daniel Kaplan of Sports Business Journal has reported, Kessler would like to see no player-acquisition rules. No draft. Free agency for every unsigned player. What would the NFL look like if every player and every team were allowed to make its own business decisions that would, of course, be in the best interests of each?

 

Say the TV contracts were abolished and teams could make their own deals. "If the Cowboys could sell their rights, maybe they'd get $500 million a year, and maybe the Bengals would get $50 [million],'' he said.

 

Say Peyton Manning could sign anywhere. Could some owners field super teams and some field Kansas City Royal-type teams?

 

Say there was no draft. It's every player for himself. Collinsworth isn't even sure that's the worst thing. Nor am I. But it'd certainly be revolutionary.

 

And say drug-testing was abolished.

 

How many doors do you want to open?

 

"It's possible the structure of the game could change forever,'' he said. "Now, game after game after game, week after week after week, goes down to the wire. The pro game could become like college football -- 55-14 most games, with four or five tremendous games of national interest every year. Now we have that many every week.''

 

There's no guarantee Collinsworth's right. I remember the late George Young, the Giants' longtime GM, railing against free agency for years as the '80s ended and a free market was inevitable. "We're not like baseball,'' he said. "You can't just plug in a guard the way you plug in a second baseman. Guards can have much different responsibilities depending on what team they're on.''

 

True. But it worked out fine. Free agency's been a boon. And not only hasn't it hurt the competitive balance of the game, but also it's given the league another hot-stove month of the offseason when football's in the headlines. Traditionally, the combine's big for the last two weeks of February, free agency big for March, the draft for April, offseason workouts for six weeks in May and June, and then training camps begin at the end of July.

 

So I'm not sure the death of the draft would be the death of competitive balance. Teams would figure it out the same way they figured out how to replenish the roster when losing unsigned vets.

 

But if players take this all the way in the courts, and win, and change the game forever, what would stop Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder from becoming the Steinbrenners and John Henry? (If baseball had a franchise player designation, Adrian Gonzalez would be a Padre for life, not tearing up the American League for Boston right now.) There'd be nothing to stop Jones, with a monster TV network, from having a $250-million payroll. Similar to baseball, the bottom-feeder NFL teams would struggle. Dallas might have five minimum-salary special-teamers. Cincinnati might have 20, and some might start.

 

The question is: Would that make the game better?

 

Collinsworth, at times in our conversation, sounded like he sounds when he gets strident -- like he's throttling the microphone and would do anything to make you see his point.

 

"God, I just wish I could get through to somebody,'' he said. "You know how when you're talking to your kids, and you know positively what the right thing to do is, and you also know they're going to do something else, and there's nothing you can do about it? That's how I feel now. And, God, is it painful to watch.

 

"The game's so good. The players are making money. The owners are making money. The commissioner's got some good safety initiatives going. The networks are thrilled. The fans are thrilled. The game's never been better. It's time to quit sugarcoating this thing and really start thinking about what the NFL really might look like at the end of the process.''

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Nah, this had to happen, it's the arms race leading up to the dismantling.

 

Union decertifies, claiming anti-trust which is a significant threat to the owners' long-term outlook

Owners lose in Doty's court and have a big penalty pending - which along with anti-trust law (no given) comes with possible treble damages

Lockout granted permenant status, threat of owners being able to hold out indef

Owners drop rhetoric about disbanding the league if it becomes intentatble.

 

Now they both have their missiles firmly in place with MAD in place. It's now lose-lose and everyone can just call me sily call me rude, but call me please and get it done. The next steps are too scary for each side to risk - league shutdown would cripple the players who are in their prime earning years and anti-trust win by players would force that. And the owners aren't walking away from 9 billion a year.

 

I forget now who it was, but there was someone on Sirius NFL a couple months ago explaining that this was all just a posturing process and that every step was mostly a predicable chest-thumping that simply had to play out with the inevitable deal being signed. The only question he had was how far it would have to go and who would give more ground - he predicted the owners getting a modest concession from the players on current dollars while sharing a bigger part of future dollars.

 

This is right on target. Both sides had to figure where they stood in relation to each other per the courts. The owners made a gigantic concession in 2006 when they extended the CBA and wanted to get the economic model under control against that 20% gain to the players in 2006 and then projections of continuing 8% annual growth. The players didn't want to give back any of that gigantic gain in 2006 and did not want to concede to an economic model with a newly projected 5% annual growth.

 

So they invited the lawyers/courts to the party and found out that the owners are most probably going to get nailed by Doty with anti-trust finding and the potential for treble damages and then get a favorable ruling from Nelson in the intial finding on the lockout/labor relations ; and that the players were going to get nailed when the 8th Circuit appeals court undid Nelson's allegedly inpenetrable finding and allowed the owners to lock out the players.

 

Now all the pieces are in place. The players get to concede their winnings in Doty's court, the owners will concede their lock out, both sides will likely find common ground somewhere between the 5% annual revenue growth projection and the 8% annual revenue growth projection, probably leaning a little to the owners' favor - maybe 6.25% projected revenue growth and allow the players to maintain that base that includes the 2006 extension gains - and will get rookie salaries under control. The rest like the 18 game season, the FA issues, etc are just window dressing where we'll see some gains and some losses on each side as collateral issues.

 

Now if they can just get around the militant pricks on each side, like Richardson and DeMoran, they have common ground and a knowledge of where each side stands to hammer out an agreement.

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it is annoying to me that the courts are essentially allowing themselves to be used as a cudgel in this affair. this is a dispute between labor and management about how to divide profits. if they were just left to negotiate, this whole thing would probably be done by now. but instead, one side keeps thinking it can get more than it would otherwise by getting the court to put its thumb on their side of the scale.

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it is annoying to me that the courts are essentially allowing themselves to be used as a cudgel in this affair. this is a dispute between labor and management about how to divide profits. if they were just left to negotiate, this whole thing would probably be done by now. but instead, one side keeps thinking it can get more than it would otherwise by getting the court to put its thumb on their side of the scale.

 

I believe this is a valid statement regarding not only the NFL but also in larger part about our society in general. There's a reason universities graduate more lawyers than any other profession each year.

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Well, in fairness, all the courts have done so far is take away unfair leverage from the owners that they gained by failing to negotiate in good faith and, yet, allowed them to choose not to do business if they don't want to. Both seem like reasonable rulings, without either of which, one side or the other would be given an unfair advantage.

 

So, unfortunately, now it seems to come down to how well the players have done saving their money. And, while they have every right to hold out as long as they can afford, and so do the owners, both sides need to realize that, if they do so long enough, they're going to be splitting up a much smaller pie. Small enough to more than undo any % of which they "win" in the battle.

 

That, ultimately, is the rub. They were, what? $100 million apart when they broke last time? While that's a big number, there only needs to be a relatively small consumer lash-back to cost both sides at least that much when the dust settles.

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The NFL is now guaranteed to start on time & play a full 16 game season ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

How do I know this you ask ?????

 

Well I just made a $20 wager with my boss that they do not & I have not collected a FF / NFL wager from him in ever !

I have beat him in many leagues but when making side bets of who will put up the best #'s

or who will be the starter at the beginning of the season types of wagers I believe he is like 8 & 0

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