NFL Labor- What We Know?

I'm not sure I agree on some of the timing stuff. I don't think it will take a week for the lockout to end once they come to principle agreement. The lawyers are drafting the legal language that will make up the CBA right now, as they were doing all last week. It sounds to me like they've agreed on revenue but that the length of rookie contracts is the last sticking point. The NFL wants 5 year contracts for 1st rounders. I think that's a bad position to take. You've already gotten the players to agree to pay them less money. Less money should mean a shorter deal. The players have given the owners a mechanism to ensure that they're not overpaying players, and now the owners don't want to turn around and give the players a mechanism to ensure that they're not underpaying players. This is bad for the game, no matter how you slice it. It will increase the number of holdout situations. These rookies have no choice but to sign these 5 year deals which will pay them far less than they would have gotten if they'd been drafted pre-wage scale. And yet they could go three years into the deal performing like Chris Johnson has with 2000 yard seasons and whatnot, and the teams could say "Team policy. We don't re-negotiate deals with multiple years remaining on them." And then he'd have no choice but to hold out, and of course the fans will hate him for that. It's bad for the game. Focus on paying players what they're worth, you WILL be much better off for it in the end, IMO.

I also don't think they will give teams a week to re-sign their own players before free agent signings begin. I think if there is time for that, it could be 24 or 48 hours, maximum.

And I'm hearing that the cash floor will be around 95%. Mike Florio just said so earlier today.

The owners are indeed fighting for some right of first refusals but I don't believe they've gotten anywhere with the players on this issue. The players (correctly) have taken the stance that the flood of free agents is coming about because of the owners' preparation for and execution of this lockout, so deal with it.

 

I've heard that it will take some time for this deal to be signed off on. The deal would still have to go before a judge wouldn't it, since there has been court controlled mediation. If so, those decisions rarely take just a few days. The individuals involved in the anti trust (?) would also have to drop their proceedings etc before it could be signed no?

A week for a court to approve a deal sounds about right to me. Anything less than that would be odd to me.

 

I think the NFL would lift the lockout while they do all those things.

 

Can the owners just do that while stile removing themselves from any liability seeing as there is no CBA? I know what your saying, but you know the lawyers will likely argue against that. Its been said that the lockout will not be lifted until the deal is signed an ratified, just to protect themselves.

I think there's too much at stake for them to jut lift it without a deal in place.

 

What I'm saying is that I believe the CBA can be agreed upon and ratified by the owners in a vote even while the lawyers are working with the courts and with the plaintiffs on resolving the court cases. I don't think that's going to take a week once they agree in principle. In fact I heard from one source that the lockout could be lifted as soon as 24 hours after they come up with an agreement and it's ratified by the owners.

 

This is what I imagine happening:

1. Roger Goodell and De Smith come up with an agreement they both like.
2. The agreement is faxed out to owners for review, almost immediately as the lawyers already have 95% of the language for the deal in place.
3. An emergency re-scheduling of the July 21st owners meeting is called for a vote, probably within 24 to 48 hours.
4. The owners vote on the CBA.
5. The lockout is lifted within 24 or 48 hours, with free agency starting the moment the lockout is lifted (because the moment the lockout is lifted will be the start of the new league year)
6. The lawyers and plaintiffs work out a settlement in the Tom Brady case in the background while league activities resume

I don't think that's going to take a week. I think once the Roger Goodell and De Smith reach step one, the lockout will be lifted within 72 hours. That'll be an immediate fax of the CBA agreement to the owners, a day until they hold their meeting and vote, and another day before they lift the lockout, with maybe one more day stuck into that process somewhere.

I do not think the players are going to agree to a week of time to re-sign teams' own free agents. They may not give teams any time at all. Teams already had time to re-sign their own free agents. The lockout began on the day that the new league year would have began, which would have ushered in free agency in most years. There was already time to re-sign free agents. Teams held off just because they wanted to see what the shape of the new CBA was going to be but they didn't have to do that, they could have signed guys to long term deals and the chances are there would have been no negative consequences of that. In fact, various teams and players DID do exactly that...the Browns and Seneca Wallace come to mind. The Dolphins were working on a long term deal with Paul Soliai but they disagreed on terms and so they just franchised him.

I do not see the players saying it's OK, you can take a week to re-sign players. And they WOULD have to agree to that in order for it to happen. That wouldn't be up to the league's discretion. If the league doesn't lift the lockout, they can't re-sign players. They need to lift the lockout in order to begin re-signing players. The moment the league lifts the lockout in order to do that though, free agency begins. So they'd have to write this week of re-signing into the new CBA. I don't see the players agreeing to that. I could MAYBE see a 24 or 48 hour period being written into it, as a compromise on the issue of the right-of-refusals that the owners are asking for (and won't get).

 

One thing though, will the players ratify this agreement that quickly.......there's a bunch of them involved in this.

If they sign the CBA, then technically the lockout is over anyways as there is a labor deal in place and it would unheard of for owners to continue to lockout players who they have a CBA with. Once the CBA is signed, wouldn't the court cases be moot as those players would be under the umbrella of the players' union? The union would have to be the name they operate under or each and every player would have to sign that CBA wouldn't they as they'd be individuals without a union?

I just think it takes a week for everyone to dot their I and cross their T's so to speak. The mechanisms take time to operate, and in the end the judge has to O.K. it. Thats what will take the time I think.

Under you outline of time, you're looking at 5 days right there, which one could argue is a week, although personally I was speaking of the 7 day variety.

I do expect them to have a deal in place by Monday or Tuesday though.

 

I swear SB, the first thing I thought as I read your post was "wow, this is the transcript of NFL Live but autotuned by these people...

 

Just a thought, but to get to that minimum floor, you could see more....dare I say, guaranteed contracts, at least for this year with the rush to get things back on track. Naturally, once the GMs figure out the new rules, they'll figure a way to work around that...but just a thought to expedite things until they learn the ins and out of the new CBA ?? Paying guys more cash up front this year could be a means to the end...the problem for teams is once they start doing something, it's difficult to not do it in the future...

 

Brother, I was thinkin' the same thing...I can be bought !!

 

Interesting piece of reading.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Free-agency-could-begin-July-28-under-Transition-Rules.html

The NFL has drafted up a set of "Transition Rules" about the timeline of events. It's not that unlike what I was thinking would happen, the biggest difference being that the NFL would basically be trying to make order out of the chaos of things teams have to do once the new CBA is ratified.

According to the Transition Rules, immediately after the CBA is ratified by the owners (presumably at their owners meeting July 21st), the delay in the start of free agency would be a few days for teams to sign their draft picks (under a rookie wage scale), a few days to sign UDFAs, and then a few days to re-sign their own free agents. So the players HAVE agreed to about two days for clubs to re-sign their own free agents, and they want to get their rookies taken care of BEFORE the massive throng of free agents. That's interesting. I'd have thought they'd leave the rookies for last and get everything done on the even of training camp, as they've often done in the past. Seems they want to get the easy stuff out of the way first, this time around.

 

Nice. So teams are giving clubs the 22nd, 23rd and 24th to digest the new CBA rules and adjust their strategies before signings begin, and then they're getting the UDFAs out of the way and giving clubs the 25th, 26th and 27th to get the UDFAs done and to re-sign their own free agents.

A bit more orderly than I expected but it makes sense.

 

aren't there teams that are supposed to report to camp on the 27th?

 

I can't find anything on when teams reporting dates are? when are we supposed to report SB?