Mickey

Because you still make a ton of money and every year the value of your asset goes up so that if you ever want to sell it, you'll make an absolute killing. Ralph started with what, $100,000 investment? Now the team is worth 750 million to a billion not including the year to year income generated. The reason those players get the money they get is because that is what they are worth. In fact, they are getting less than they are worth as they are not able to sell their services to the highest bidder. The players give up that right for the good of the league and its long term success, even though they don't share in it as they don't get anything in exchange for the value they add to a franchise's net worth. Every anti-trust suit they have ever brought of any significance, they have won. They handed back those victories in exchange for a piece of the pie. No one was held over a barrel. The players gave up something they wanted to get something else and the owners did the same. That is what led to the settlement (SSA) agreement that was later converted in to the CBA that has worked so well for so long. The only reason this issue didn't go nuclear before was because the players were winning their antitrust suits which forced the league into cutting a deal. That may be the only thing that would get it done here.

Why would it be a "cracker jack" league? Whenever a franchise goes up for sale, there is a bidding war for it. There is plenty of money and financing out there and lots of empty stadiums. This is the same stuff they said about the AFL. These guys would have an edge over the AFL, they would be starting with all the best players, every last one of them and would have no competition signing the rookies as their choice would be the new league or the lockout league.

They don't own football. They don't own the players. They don't own the fans. Fans pay to see players play football. Television networks pay money for football games. The last time the league was this arrogant, a thing called the AFL happened. I like to watch football. I especially like to watch the best players in the world play football. And most of all I like watching them play for my favorite team. I would definitely watch a new league on TV and in person if they had the best players and I don't care if their helmets had an NFL logo on it or something else. I would want a team in Buffalo or, in Syracuse, or in Upstate NY but if there wasn't, I would deal with it. There is no guarantee that there will be a team in Buffalo in the NFL either. As much as I admire and respect him, I don't pay to watch Ralph Wilson wave to the crowd.

Tape it. Camp, hike. Then go home and watch the tape. Yes, you can have it all.

We may have to wait until 2012 to see it at the rate the "negotiations" are going.

Wow....its like you can see the future.

Interesting. The league planned for the loss of the 2011 season due to a lockout when they negotiated a lower than market price deal with the networks for 2011 in exchange for hte $ being guarnteed regardless of whether or not any games were actually played. That is the suit that Judge Doty recently decided by overturning a special master's decision awarding the players only 6.7 million of the $4 billion being paid to the league. There is going to be a hearing on damages and Doty will probably give the players half of that money or perhaps prevent the league from collecting any of it. If losing the season was not an option, I don't see why they would have planned so meticulously for that eventuality. Doty's decision however, may have torn up the pea patch so that it really isn't an option anymore since the league may or may not collect the money they planned on using to carry them through a season of no football. That suit and the $2 billion dollars at stake, give or take, may be where the real leverage is in this dispute. Its like watching Zeus and Appollo duke it out. Us mere mortals can only quiver and quake in their shadow.

There will be no FA or OTA's as long as the owners won't let them play while they negotiate. The player's only leverage is, and has always been, an anti-trust suit. Giving that away now would have the same result as losing the case so I don't think they would be worse off. All the court is deciding in July (it will take 30-45 days after oral argument to issue a decision) is the stay of the lower court's injunction. Losing that fight doesn't lose the case, it just means the players will have to survive financially a lot longer than they would have otherwise. And it will mean the lockout by the owners will continue to deprive us of football. The legal position of hte players on the injunction is much more tenuous than on the anti-trust suit. The injunciton is procedural and the burden on showing the need for one, and that it is an available remedy, is on the players. Most injunctions are turned down. As for anti-trust issues, the players have won almost every time they have litigated the issue to a conclusion. The league has zero incentive at this point to sweeten their offer since, for now, the lockout is in place. They have every reason, in the short term, to continue with their strong arm tactics and see how long the players can wait it out. At the same time they are fighting for the injunciton, I don't see why the players aren't trying to get an expedited discovery schedule ordered by the trial court judge. What they want is to see the books and they can do that with a Notice to Produce. Discovery rules are very, very broad. I haven't read anything about discovery demands. My money is on the 8th circuit's court of appeals decision resulting in no football until mid-July when the decision comes out which will probably be another 2-1 decision against the players. That could be appealed to the Supreme Court, though I am not sure they have the power to decide a preliminary, procedural issue like that so early in the history of the case. In other words, the gate is now open, thanks to those two judges on the 8th Circuit, for there to be missed games. On a side note, I can't believe that the courts are going to interpret Norris to forever and ever prohibit employees from pursuing anti-trust claims against an employer because at some point in the past they were in a union. An industry shouldn't be granted a lifetime exemption from anti-trust laws because there was a union at some point.

There is no reason for the league to make any offer different than what they already have. If they had more room to compromise off their bottom line, they should have done it before the deadline for decertification ran out in March. I don't expect the league is making any new offers likely to resolve the situation. Its a lockout for as long as the league doesn't get what it wants and as long as the players can hold out financially.

One of the best receivers I have ever watched and is in a dead heat with Bobby Chandler as my favorite Bill ever. He was one of those guys' whose speed was effortless, a long strider like Lofton. I don't think he had a durability problem, he was fearless over the middle and every where else which opened him up to taking some big hits. He had some bad luck and suffered a nasty knee injury in a time when knee injuries all but ended an athlete's career.

Just curious, what do the investors getting a minority share in the team get for their money? They would be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for someonelse to run the team and make all the important decisions. I don't imagine there are huge stockholder dividends being paid out. Other than tying up lot and lots of capital they could invest elsewhere, what do they get out of it? Has that ever happened in the past with another team? I think Schumer and Hillibrand should propose legislation in the Senate waiving the estate tax on Ralph's estate for so long as the team remains in Buffalo. I don't think we will ever know what is going to happen with this team when Ralph passes away until he actually does. This is sort of like speculating on our first round pick in the 2020 NFL draft.

The injunction is temporary, it only covers the time it takes the lawsuit to conclude. This kind of an injunction attempts to freeze things in place to avoid "irreparable harm" to the injunction applicant while the suit goes on. These are sometimes necessary as a lot of wrongful conduct that a suit would eventually stop can work a lot of harm while the suit drags on. As for a strike late in the season or just during playoffs, I think that is a bit hairbrained to be honest. It would be a public relations nightmare for the fans. I also think that legally, it would probably revive the application of Norris so that the suit would be dismissed. The Union had very good success in court in the early 1990's which is what eventually drove the league to enter in to the SSA (structured settlement agreement). That is the document that created the relationship that has prevailed and allowed the league to prosper for so long. It was not a CBA because the union was not certified at that point and had no intention of recertifying because of the success it was having in court, an option they lose if they should recertify. The league insisted that they do so and that the SSA be converted in to the CBA we are all familiar with and which has been periodically extended. The players only agreed to do that when assured that they could decertify again any time they wanted. The league did that by stipulating that they would not object to decertification in the future should the players opt to do so. Of course, that is what they are doing now. They are all righteous and indignant over the decertification issue when they agreed back in 1993 that decertification was a legit option for the players, so musch so that they agreed not to B word and moan about it if it should happen. In any event, I don't see the players going through all of this to set up a strike in week 17 this season. Again, the instigators of this crisis are the owners. The players didn't want any of this. The league opted out of the CBA, they are the ones who terminated the agreement which had proved so effective for so many years. They say they have good reasons for doing so. Now they just need to prove it. I'll tell you one thing: Litigation can create its own momentum. Its like a war. It never turns out the way you planned and it never follows the course you anticipated. People fixate on what is and is not a win in court and then start thinking that they have to win at all costs, that anything less than whatever definition they have for "winning" is unacceptable no matter what. That can get ugly fast.

The players aren't asking for more, the owners are asking them to take less and to play more. The unsustainable model has been sustained for 18 years with record growth and profits. The owners are the ones who forced this fight. The league wants us all to assume that the money isn't working out right but they don't want to fork over the data upon which that conclusion is based. For me, I'm not accepting anything either side says at face value. I guess I don't follow the logic here. Why would the players get an injunction so that they can play only to strike? A strike gives the league the same thing a lockout would, players not getting paid.

My understanding is that they can recertify whenever the players vote to do so and the paperwork can go through. But, once they have a union again, then collective bargaining becomes their remedy and the suit would likely be dismissed. I agree with the idea that the new CBA needs to make teams like Buffalo viable. Don't be fooled by the lawsuit. The players didn't file it so that they could end the league as we know it. They filed it only because the league opted out of the existing CBA and then threatened a lockout during negotiations to try and force the players in to a deal. The players wanted more information from the league so as to determine on their own if the leagues complaints about money were legit. The league wouldn't fork over the books. At the very end, at the eleventh hour in fact, they offered a peak at the books which they say was sufficient and which the players say wasn't. None of us know who is beiong honest about that. There is no reason for the players to refuse a new deal if in fact, the leagues complaints about money are true. When a deal wasn't done this spring, time was running out on the players. They had to decertify by a certain date or lose the ability to do so this year. The court had been extending the date to allow additional negotiations but the players were at risk of the court finally refusing another extension request. So they went ahead and decertified and played the main card they have which is the suit. The suit is pretty scary to owners because if it went the distance and the players won, their whole business model would go down the drain. More importantly, in a lawsuit the parties have a right to look at the other side's cards, its called "discovery". Ask Bill Clinton how much fun that is. The lawsuit would allow the players to peek up the skirts of the NFL's accountants, something they have always wanted to do and never been able to. Between the potential for disaster and unwanted disclosures, the suit gives the NFL plenty of reasons for wanting to get a deal done and end this foolishness. The players can always agree to a deal later, they lose nothing at this point to let things continue. However, if the lockout is no enjoined, players start losing $ eventually. I don't know how long the players can hang in there, maybe they don't even know. My own sense of things is that time is on the league's side but that the weight of legal authority is on the player's side. No sense having the fastest horse if he can't finish the race. For fans, no lockout means footbal can go on while these titans bicker and moan. A lockout means, I think, a stalemate for as long as the players can hold out which is a complete mystery to me.

So far, Florio is the only source and he refers only to having heard "rumblings" which is about as lame of an attribution as there is. Stronger statements could be made and still preserve anonymity such as "credible sources", "highly placed league sources", etc. Technically, overhearing two fans speculating in a bar about the future of the litigation would qualify as having heard "rumblings". I don't think that the dispute is so deep rooted and the two sides so terribly far apart that it would justify that kind of a response. I also think that describing the players having decertified as a "nuclear option". There was a deadline by which they had to decertify or lose the ability to do so this year. Without an agreement worked out, the safest move they could make was to decertify. If and when a deal is worked out, it can provide whatever is needed to permit the union to re-certify and execute a binding CBA. The cost to the union of decertifying was essentially zero. That is not what one thinks of when hearing "nuclear option". What is being described regarding a complete league shutdown would not be as cost free as union decertification. It is an interesting idea to speculate about but I don't see it as realistic. Apart from the weak sourcing, it could be just a something floated by the league to scare the players. The key to breaking labor is to weaken the unity of the workers. Rumors like this can help make players very nervous.

I am impressed that you are trying to think through these arguments which are complicated and constructed by some of the smartest lawyers around being paid very well to craft arguments which look very strong no matter how weak they may actually be. This is not my specialty and frankly, even if it was I would have trouble keeping up with these guys. There are so many problems with the NFL's argument using the provision of the LMRA that it is difficult to know where to begin. That may be why it was covered in a footnote in the NFL's brief and replied to, also in a footnote, by the Players. I don't think either side puts much stock in the reasoning that because some other law, applicable to some other set of circumstances, mentions the words "lockout" and "Norris LaGuardia" it settles the arguement as to whether Norris covers lockouts. The rules of statutory construction state that you give the words in the statute their plain and natural meaning and if that answers the question, no further inquiry is done. If it doesn't, there are other sources with different priorities that can be referenced. Congrerssional intent when they passed the statute at issue would be high on the list. Reading other laws to see what this law means would be way down the list. Here, the plain words of the statute are not unclear or ambiguous. If congress wanted to include lockouts, all they had to do was say so. They did not. They did include language which described strikes and because they wanted to included situations where workers ended their employment relationship altogether and when it is a temporary situation, they included that part about "ceasing...to remain in any relation of employment..." The NFL is trying to ignore the part about who is doing the "ceasing" and inserting words that are not there. The statute refers to workers "ceasing or refusing to perform work" because that is who performs work, workers. Those workers however might choose to end any employment relationship they have rather than just to refuse to work. Congress wanted to be sure to include both under Norris. When they refuse to perform work, they are striking in the way that strikes are usually understood. "We refuse to work until you give us higher wages..." But there is another work stoppage where workers quit their jobs and then picket to prevent operations. Its a tactical decision unions make for all sorts of reasons too byzantine to bother with here. Congress wanted to cover both situations so they added the part about "remain in any relation of employment..." The league is reading that part and saying that since the league's lockout is a lot like "refusing to remain in any relation of employment", that the act covers them. Remember that the first question is whether Norris applies when there is no union. Workers are entitled to form unions, they are also entitled to disband them. They should be able to do so without forever being subject to laws applying to unions even whey they no longer have one. Norris is clear on that point, that it applies only to labor disputes. Congress didn't want wealthy owners with access to friendly judges to be able to get an injunction stopping a strike, essentially turning unions into toothless tigers. You have to get past that problem first. Only if you assume that Norris applies to this "unionless" dispute do you get to the next question, "...assuming Norris applies despite the union being decertified, does it prohibit injuncitons against lockouts?" That is the question at stake in the NFL brief that you have focused on. By the way, Norris has a public policy statement in it, an explanation for why it was enacted, that you might find interesting because it gives some context. It states that because"...the individual unorganized worker is commonly helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract and to protect his freedom of labor...the following...limitations upon the jurisdiction and authority of the courts of the United States are enacted." Does that sound like Congress was looking to protect owners from meddling courts so that they could lockout workers who are not even in a union? Where they got in to trouble was in their efforts to make sure that no worker or union or trade association or other group of potentially interested laborers was left out of the act. Consider sympathy strikes. Or, lets say there was a ladies auxillary collecting donated food for striking workers. Along comes an owner and goes in to court and gets an injunction, from a judge who is in their pocket, against them entering on to company land where all the workers live in company owned housing. If Norris wasn't written expansively, the owner's lawyer could argue that it didn't cover those charitable ladies so the injunction could be issued. What Congress wrote is so expansive that many decades later, without the context of 1930's era labor disputes to give it meaning, there is room to argue that what was never meant to be covered is in fact covered. As for the specific issue you are interested in, Congress decided that it would be a good thing to empower a President to end a strike to prevent a national emergency. So they enacted LMRA giving him the power to do so but with a variety of controls so that he or she doesn't abuse that power and call every namby pamby strike a national emergency. A national emergency could arise just as easily from a lockout as it would a strike. Both result in workers doing no work which, if a critical industry is involved, could result in a national emergency. So they included lockouts. Then, because Norris specifically prohibits injunctions from being used to stop strikes, Congress also put in a line exempting the President's emergency injunction from Norris. The exemption was necessary as to strikes, it wasn't for lockouts. Obviously then, congress had to put in the exemption to cover the issue with strikes. The NFL takes a leap in logic to conclude that the exemption also covers lockouts. An ironic argument don't you think? Back away a bit and look at the big picture, they are saying that one statute which allows an injunction in a labor dispute compels the conclusion that another statute prohibits an injunction of a labor dispute. Shorten that to say "Becaue the judge can issue an injunction, the the judge can't issue an injunction." Does anybody really think that congress decided to include lockouts in Norris and did so by the indirect, incomplete, barely comprehensible method of creating an exemption in another statute drawn to address national emergencies? I won't stand second to anyone in the conviction that congress is stupid but they aren't that stupid. That would be like removing "thou shalt not kill" form the ten commandments and then translating it to old low norse before moving it to a footnote in an obsure passage of revelations. The league isn't being disingenous, they are grabbing any thread of an argument they can find. Their argument here is, in my opinion, a long, long, long stretch but its logical enough to make it with a straight face and God knows what a judge might find to be persuasive. Its worth a shot. They don't have to win this fight, they just have to delay this fight until the players can't hold out any longer as they all have bills to pay. The players know that their ability to win an anti-trust case against the NFL is stronger than their ability to hold out long enough to win that case. They will want to push things along and keep the money flowing if at all possible while the league will want to delay things as long as they can. I am backing the players because those are the guys that actually play football. Watching a team accountant balance the books for the frist quarter is way less exciting to me than watching Fitz hit Johnson deep for six. More to the point though, if the players win the injunciton issue, we have football. If they lose, we don't. The nice thing about the injunction, I believe, is that we get our football no matter how long it takes these people to work out a deal. If the injunction is lifted, then whether and when we see an uninterrupted season depends entirely on these people reaching a deal before the end of July, about 80 days from now. Let them play. Players are under contract with their respective teams. When a player shows up to play, they have fulfilled their end of the bargain. I hardly think that the league is going to risk those breach of contract suits and, in some states, treble damages for nonpayment of wages. There comes a point where all the money out there in the big wide world congeals and decides that this is the time to start a new pro football league with all those out of work superstars. That is what happened when the NFL simply dragged its feet in expanding to new, football desperate cities in the 1950's. Imagine what would happen if that capital didn't have to compete with the NFL for fans, players, TV contracts and the like.

You might want to take a look at the player's response which points out that Norris LaGuardia doesn't apply to cases where there is no union as is the case here. A quick look at the caption demonstrates that there is no union mentioned as a party. But, even if you buy there argument there is a union even when there isn't, Norris Laguardia only strips the court of jurisdiction to issue injunctions being made against striking workers. The provision of Norris LaGuardia at issue... "...prohibits injunctions against "[c]easing or refusing to perform any work or to remain in any relation of employment." The phrase "[c]easing or refusing to perform any work" in Section 104 has no application to an employer's refusal to permit someone else to work. The provision is directed to workers, not employers." If the injunction holds, we have football. If it doesn't, we don't have football. I don't care who wins this negotiating standoff, my only interest is that football continues with OTS's and FA signings and all the rest right through training camp and the start of the season. Currently, that happens if the players with and the injunction holds. So that is the side I am on and I don't really get why a football fan would be against that and for the lockout. Reasonable minds may differ on who should get how much $$ in the next agreement but why are their fans rooting against football???

All I know is I hope they sign some people as soon as the lawsuit stuff permits then to because I don't think I can make it through much more of this, "Why don't they sign X to play backup?" whereby X eventually ='s every QB not under contract either in or out of the league. I know that is what we do around here but still...., I would so much rather talk about people actually on the roster than a guy we might pick up at some indefinite point in the future who will, in all likelihood, not play a meaningful down all year. I say that because I am confident that the line is going to turn a corner this year.

Sorry man but that is about as likely as signing OJ to be a third down specialist.

I likeTaylor, Gailey would find a use for him I'm sure. Quarterbacks? We don't need no steen-keeeng quarterbacks!

Yeah, but what do the Patriots know about finding good players late in the .......... hmmm. Nevermind. *sigh*

That was a toss up for me between Bowers and Mallett. I think Bowers will be gone but if NE passes on him, I would be a bit more worried about his injury situation. I trust the patriots' personnel people better than our guys. If they don't want him, not sure I would either. Mallett drives me crazy. At times I don't want us to get near him and at others, I have to wonder if he isn't a major steal. He has the best arm in the draft and that is what QB's do, they throw the ball. Pocket passers are the guys who win championships and he is the best pocket passer by far in the draft. But that attitude worries me. All in all, the upside on Mallett is just too good to pass up in the second. But then again, I think that.....oh never mind. Glad I don't have to make these decisions, I'd be reduce to pulling out the magic eight ball at this point.

Agreed. That move would minimize his primary athletic asset. He is just fine where he is.

Umm...not for nothing but that stuff about Kessler is presented in the article you linked as if it was a quote, it isn't. It is the writer of the article's speculation of what Kessler's views are. It was the league and not the players who instigated this dispute by opting out of the CBA. The players' best negotiating tool is a lawsuit which essentially threatens armageddon for the league if successful. If the players wanted to stop the draft and all these other terrible things, why weren't they the ones who opted out of the current deal? The draft and limits on player movement are in the long term interests of the league as they perserve and promote competetiveness. That success, if shared, benefits players and owners alike. That is why the league is as old as it is without the anti-trust issue ever having been completely resolved in court. Its is not in their interests, players or owners, to do so. The player give up economic freedom in exchange for more $$$$ and their share in a pie that gets bigger every year. The league accepts that because it gives them labor peace and their own share of an expanding pie. The fight here is over the size of each piece of that pie and everything both sides are doing is geared toward to getting a better deal. The NFL decided that it was worth risking all that is now being risked to get a better CBA. The player have responded in kind. Frankly, all the trembling and quaking over the "end of football as we know it" is just plain silly. The sky isn't falling. Coke and Pepsi are fighting over market share, that's all. Now that the lockout has been kiboshed, I think the league will now have to fork over the books and then the real fun at the negotiating table will start. That is, unless the injunction gets turned over on appeal. If that happens, I think there is a real chance there won't be football come opening day. This is not what the players want. The owners triggered this disupte by opting out of the CBA, there is no orchestrated campaign by the players to end football as we know it, etc. The league strated this by pulling out of the CBA and then threatening a lockout which would have given them a huge advantage in negotiating a new CBA. The players filed the lawsuit to stop the lockout and thereby remove that card from the deck and to have a means by which to force the league to open its books. A lawsuit means depositions, document requests, etc. The players will be able to poke around the league's financial closet. That will give them the ability to validate or invalidated the league's claims of financial stress. Both sides are just trying to position themselves to be able to negotiate from a position of strength. I am sure that the league will be pumping out all sorts of dire warnings about the players and their suit and I am sure that plenty will buy their story that the players are causing the sky to fall. I'm not.

Here is a link to Judge Nelson's thorough opinion with regard to the injunction sought by the players against the league imposed lockout. Judge Nelson's Opinion in Brady et al v. NFL You may find her discussion of the public interest at stake beginning on page 87. The discussion prior to this decision being issued around here seemed to imply that the Judge could just rule whichever way she wanted to effect whatever outcome she desired. Her opinion shows that she simply analyzed the applicable law and reached the conclusion that was dictated by that analysis. Anyone who disagrees with her decision should point out where her legal analysis went astray rather than complain about biased judges. Her reasoning is here laid bare, that of her critics should be as well. For those whose position on these things is governed by their understanding of judicial philosophy, I would note that the league's position relies on their qualifiying for a "non-statutory" anti-trust exemption. That means the exemption was not created by congress but by the courts. I will leave it to those who regularly rant against "legislating from the bench" who nevertheless support the league being given the benefit of a non-statutory anti-trust exemption to explain away this apparent hypocrisy. Being a fan and caring only for my self interest, I wanted the injunction to be granted because that is what I believed would lead to football continuing, pretty much as it has, while these titans square off to fight over the hideous amounts of cash fying around in their universe. The judge essentially felt the same way by pointing out the interests of the fans in football going forward in the 2011 season: "And, of course, the public interest represented by the fans of professional footballwho have a strong investment in the 2011 seasonis an intangible interest that weighs against the lockout. In short, this particular employment dispute is far from a purely private argument over compensation." I do not believe that this is step one of some grand plan by the players to change the face of professional football. The reason we have a draft and restraints on player movement is becuase it is in the long term economic interests of the league and, for the players to prosper, the league must prosper first. The players have been willing to essentially consent to a loss of ecomonic freedom in exchange for a share of the pie which meant more money for all. The league has been willing to do fork over that share of the gold in exchange for being able to limit player movement and thereby preserve competetiveness which is at the core of league success. The arguement here is not over the leagues business model, its over the numbers. Same formula, different numbers. That is the argument along with the rookie cap. I don't think that as fans we have a dog in the hunt apart from the season being interrupted. I don't see any major change in the current system limiting player movement so as to preserve competetiveness. The rookie cap is a great idea and I think the players will have no issues with it as long as their overall share of revenue remains the same.