Lockout Thread

[Feva]

Players were allowed back into team facilities this morning. Not 1 Eagle has showed up as of 9am.

Dedication.

[Feva]

owners are requesting an immediate stay pending appeal.

quick, trade Kolb in the next 7 minutes

No joke. Make this happen.

everything ive read says they have little to no chance of getting a stay

And we pray...

[Sgt PSN]

Players were allowed back into team facilities this morning. Not 1 Eagle has showed up as of 9am.

Dedication.

Players from several teams showed up at their respective practive/workout facilities this morning only to still be locked out and had to call someone to come let them in.  And then once they got inside, were told that strength and conditioning coaches had been given the day off.  So even though players are now allowed inside, owners are still being petty bitches and finding ways to keep players from actually working. 

[PhillyPhreak54]

Yeah Jamar Chaney tweeted that he is at his normal workout facility in Jersey.

[NGM]

No matter what happens, the Eagles still aren't going to be able to trade Kolb by draft time Thursday.  That is all I care about.  I couldn't give a shtein less about which group of millionaires is or isn't in the right. 

[PhillyPhreak54]

taterskin Robert Henson tweeted the following:

"I just had first taste of rejection from the taterskins staff,and found out their jobs are being threatened if they help us"

Danny boy!

[Rome]

Did any other season ticket people get the email from the Eagles yet?

Good God.  I'll summarize:

Wahhhhhhhhhh...

[ice grillin you]

eagles should be happy now because they can collect all their season ticket money in june again

[Sgt PSN]

Did any other season ticket people get the email from the Eagles yet?

Good God.  I'll summarize:

Wahhhhhhhhhh...

Copy and paste, please. 

[Rome]

Dear Sucker,


As you may have heard, Judge Nelson issued a ruling granting the players a preliminary injunction. The League has filed an appeal in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals which, in part, includes direction as to whether the lockout is lifted during this time period or if the lockout will continue.

The League remains committed to finding a solution through collective bargaining. We thought it would be helpful to share the article below that Commissioner Goodell wrote in this morning's Wall Street Journal.

As always, we appreciate your continued support.

The Philadelphia Eagles


Then they included this:


Litigation endangers NFL success

By ROGER GOODELL

Late Monday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Richard Nelson issued a ruling that may significantly alter professional football as we know it.

For six weeks, there has been a work stoppage in the National Football League as the league has sought to negotiate a new collective-bargaining agreement with the players. But Judge Nelson ordered the end of the stoppage and recognized the players' right to dissolve their union. By blessing this negotiating tactic, the decision may endanger one of the most popular and successful sports leagues in history.

What would the NFL look like without a collectively bargained compromise? For many years, the collectively bargained system - which has given the players union enhanced free agency and capped the amount that owners spend on salaries - has worked enormously well for the NFL, for NFL players, and for NFL fans.

For players, the system allowed player compensation to skyrocket - pay and benefits doubled in the last 10 years alone. The system also offered players comparable economic opportunities throughout the league, from Green Bay and New Orleans to San Francisco and New York. In addition, it fostered conditions that allowed the NFL to expand by four teams, extending careers and creating jobs for hundreds of additional players.

For clubs and fans, the trade-off afforded each team a genuine opportunity to compete for the Super Bowl, greater cost certainty, and incentives to invest in the game. Those incentives translated into two dozen new and renovated stadiums and technological innovations such as the NFL Network and nfl.com.

Under the union lawyers' plan, reflected in the complaint that they filed in federal court, the NFL would be forced to operate in a dramatically different way. To be sure, their approach would benefit some star players and their agents (and, of course, the lawyers themselves). But virtually everyone else - including the vast majority of players as well as the fans - would suffer.

Rather than address the challenge of improving the collective-bargaining agreement for the benefit of the game, the union-financed lawsuit attacks virtually every aspect of the current system including the draft, the salary cap and free-agency rules, which collectively have been responsible for the quality and popularity of the game for nearly two decades. A union victory threatens to overturn the carefully constructed system of competitive balance that makes NFL games and championship races so unpredictable and exciting.

In the union lawyers' world, every player would enter the league as an unrestricted free agent, an independent contractor free to sell his services to any team. Every player would again become an unrestricted free agent each time his contract expired. And each team would be free to spend as much or as little as it wanted on player payroll or on an individual player's compensation.

Any league-wide rule relating to terms of player employment would be subject to antitrust challenge in courts throughout the country. Any player could sue - on his own behalf or representing a class - to challenge any league rule that he believes unreasonably restricts the "market" for his services.

Under this vision, players and fans would have none of the protections or benefits that only a union (through a collective-bargaining agreement) can deliver. What are the potential ramifications for players, teams, and fans? Here are some examples:

No draft. "Why should there even be a draft?" said player agent Brian Ayrault. "Players should be able to choose who they work for. Markets should determine the value of all contracts. Competitive balance is a fallacy."

No minimum team payroll. Some teams could have $200 million payrolls while others spend $50 million or less.

No minimum player salary. Many players could earn substantially less than today's minimums.

No standard guarantee to compensate players who suffer season- or career-ending injuries. Players would instead negotiate whatever compensation they could.

No league-wide agreements on benefits. The generous benefit programs now available to players throughout the league would become a matter of individual club choice and individual player negotiation.

No limits on free agency. Players and agents would team up to direct top players to a handful of elite teams. Other teams, perpetually out of the running for the playoffs, would serve essentially as farm teams for the elites.

No league-wide rule limiting the length of training camp or required off-season workout obligations. Each club would have its own policies.

No league-wide testing program for drugs of abuse or performance enhancing substances. Each club could have its own program - or not.

Any league-wide agreement on these subjects would be the subject of antitrust challenge by any player who asserted that he had been "injured" by the policy or whose lawyer perceived an opportunity to bring attention to his client or himself. Some such agreements might survive antitrust scrutiny, but the prospect of litigation would inhibit league-wide agreements with respect to most, if not all, of these subjects.

In an environment where they are essentially independent contractors, many players would likely lose significant benefits and other protections previously provided on a collective basis as part of the union-negotiated collective-bargaining agreement. And the prospect of improved benefits for retired players would be nil.

Is this the NFL that players want? A league where elite players attract enormous compensation and benefits while other players - those lacking the glamour and bargaining power of the stars - play for less money, fewer benefits and shorter careers than they have today? A league where the competitive ability of teams in smaller communities (Buffalo, New Orleans, Green Bay and others) is forever cast into doubt by blind adherence to free-market principles that favor teams in larger, better-situated markets?

Prior to filing their litigation, players and their representatives publicly praised the current system and argued for extending the status quo. Now they are singing a far different tune, attacking in the courts the very arrangements they said were working just fine.

Is this the NFL that fans want? A league where carefully constructed rules proven to generate competitive balance - close and exciting games every Sunday and close and exciting divisional and championship contests - are cast aside? Do the players and their lawyers have so little regard for the fans that they think this really serves their interests?

These outcomes are inevitable under any approach other than a comprehensive collective-bargaining agreement. That is especially true of an approach that depends on litigation settlements negotiated by lawyers. But that is what the players' attorneys are fighting for in court. And that is what will be at stake as the NFL appeals Judge Nelson's ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Goodell is commissioner of the National Football League.

[Sgt PSN]

Ok, maybe it's just because I don't do a lot of indepth reading on the lockout, but that letter is the first I've heard of the union wanting to do away with the draft or minimum salaries or the salary cap or any of the other things the commish talked about.  In fact, pretty much everything I've heard from the union reps and individual players is that they are fine with basically renewing the old CBA.....they just want to look at the books and make sure they are getting the proper % promised to them.  I think the only other major concern of theirs (players) is long-term health and post-career healthcare.  I'm sure there's more once you dig a little, but at least from the outside I've never gotten the impression that the players are really asking for very much. 

[Rome]

It's Goodell using horsesh*t lawyer doublespeak to state the NFL's indefensible positions.   The union was more than happy to go along with the agreement that was in place.  He's taking random extreme positions from players agents (note - not the players themselves) and using them as a scare tactic.

The funny thing is I always thought it was the commissioner who was supposed to represent the best interests of the game, not whore it and himself out to the owners.

When I posted "lawyers suck" I was specifically referring to that slimy piece of shtein.  farg Goodell and the owners.  I hope the players farg 'em over raw & dry now.

[Sgt PSN]

Yeah, I don't see how the commish stands to benefit at all by aligning himself with the owners.  He should have remained impartial (at least in appearance).  Because now, even when a new deal is reached, players aren't going to trust him one bit.  I guess in the long run, it really doesn't matter what players think of the commish, but I'm sure they'd prefer not to think he was ever against them.  I wouldn't be surprised if players use his position during the lockout against him when it comes to future suspensions and fines that he hands out. 

And the owners just keep doing their best to alienate the fans.  First they walked out of negotiations prior to the lockout and refused to talk to anyone for over a week.  Now they're doing petty shtein like giving coaches the day off so that no one is available to work with the players.  And I have no doubt that they've privately threated people's jobs if they actually do work with players.  So it's probably safe to say that at least for the next couple of days, players will show up to practice facilities and there won't be a soul in the building for them to work with. 

[Rome]

He does get paid by the owners but his first duty should be to the health & welfare of the game.    If he's going to be nothing more than a whore for the Jerry Jones and Danny Snyders of the league, then don't continue on with the pretense of appealing to the fans to save face.  Just come out and say it... you're following orders and those orders are to break the players and maximize the owners' profits under any and all circumstances. 

[MMH]

The players are in fact suing that sans a CBA the teams are thirty two individual entities and not one group, and therefore collusion is illegal at any level.  This includes the draft.
PFT is going haywire with this shtein, if anyone could possibly be interested.