NFLPA Files Collusion Lawsuit Against NFL, Owners

The Goodell Dictatorship with no regard to actual rules is getting annoying.


Don't blame those bringing these lawsuits (except the concussion claimants like Chip Lohmiller)...blame the man who is making these lawsuits absolutely necessary. I think Vilma may have a case. What was done to us and Dallas was completely absurd.

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I don't know how this is going to work out but people need to sepereate this from the actuall runnning of the league ,one is business ...let it go to court.Vilma has more to do with the way the NFL is being run and yes that is Goodell and it's morons like Vilma and Greg Williams that screw it up and on the other side you have the players who want to sue for billions becuase of concussions yet will take the NFL to court for making them wear thigh pads and knee pads and bitch about making the game safer but sue later when they can't walk and blame the NFL.

There is ZERO chance the Redskins and Cowboys do anything to help the NFLPA here. They're the League as far as this is concerned.

Even if they wanted to help, I believe the League bylaws prevent them from voluntarily participating in a suit against the League. They could testify if legally compelled, but not voluntarily.

In either case compelled or not I doubt the NFL wants them on the stand saying anything remotely about collusion or agreements made without the NFLPA's agreement to it. Which takes me back to I could see the NFL finding a way to settle our CAP issue to make us happy to conveniently forget or should I say "not recall" any agreements.

I understand what they're claiming. I just don't find it believable.

It's not a matter of claiming, who cares if they knew ahead of March 12th, fact is they had no actionable facts to lay before a judge and say, here is the proof of collusion until Goodell, and later, Mara, made statements validating there beliefs.

Look if I believe that two local gas companies are fixing the price at the pump, I may see the trend early on, but I can't go to the courts, just because every monday station 1 puts up a penny lower price, and every thursday station 2 puts up a penny lower price. But if station 1 owner comes out one day, and says I am having a sale on Thursday, and the media asks him why, he says "because station 2 owner didn't keep to his side of the bargain", then the consumers could take the data of Monday/Thursday price fixing, and tied with Station owner 1's foot in mouth statement and sue the bejeebus out of both of them. It's not the media report that is the proof, it is the statement that is the basis of the media report. Further, if the judge says that looks shady, then the consumers and their lawyers could dig and ask for emails/communications that might further prove the depth of the collusion.

Just because the initial complaint doesn't lay out time/date/medium doesn't mean that Kessler and the other NFLPA lawyers won't go back now and start looking for trends and actions that are clearer in hindsight.

Back to my example, lets say station 1 owner and station 2 owner met in October 2010 and had some emails arranging that meeting, but not specifically discussing the collusion, and then in Jan 2011 met and agreed to begin in February 2011. At the time, the consumers might be curious, but have no direct information, or detectable pattern of behavior that would allow for further discovery. But after Station 1 owner's statement, the lawyers go back, see the emails about the meeting in Oct., then find that they met again in January, and the detectable price fixing pattern began in February. Maybe it's enough in court to convict, maybe not, but the consumers would absolutely have enough to make a media circus and living hell for the two station owners until they did something to make the consumers "forgive" them.

If the NFLPA gets to that point, we very well may see a whole new labor agreement, that is more favorable to the players. Remember, Kessler is an absolute free market, no salary cap, no restrictions period attack dog.

Circumstantial evidence is still evidence. All they have to do is be able to put enough information together to be able to make the judge come to the same conclusion that there was collusion on the part of the owners and they've won.

If the judge see's the March 11th agreement as a lose/lose deal he might decide the trial should go on. and I think it might. If the players said "no we don't agree to the punishment." then the NFL was going to lower the CAP for all teams basically taking money away from the players. Had the NFLPA said "ok we agree." as they did then the players lost revenue cause CAP space was taken away from two teams that would have used it and spent and given to teams who generally don't spend. Either way the NFLPA was in a losing situation.

Frankly Goodell and Mara were idiots to comment on the issue. They should have simply said the two teams took competative advantage and left it at that. As others have said the NFL does not owe us and explaination at all. But they didn't they ran their mouths thinking they were safe.

There is ZERO chance the Redskins and Cowboys do anything to help the NFLPA here. They're the League as far as this is concerned.

Even if they wanted to help, I believe the League bylaws prevent them from voluntarily participating in a suit against the League. They could testify if legally compelled, but not voluntarily.

Is this the same laws that stated there was an uncapped year?

Is this the same laws that stated there was an uncapped year?

No the bylaws are the set of rules that owners abide as part of their ownership responsibilities. They are the governing "laws" of the ownership agreements. Different than the CBA which is a settlement that outlines the rules governing working conditions and rights for labor.

Here is an interesting arguement from someone on another message board:

I'm not talking about the 2010 collusion.

It's against the antitrust laws to combine to restrict trade or commerce. The agreement that contains our cap penalties restricts trade or commerce.

The catch is that collective bargaining is generally exempt from antitrust scrutiny. However, for an agreement to be exempt, it must be "the result of bona fide arms' length bargaining."

Everything I have read suggests that the NFL had the upper hand in the negotiations. Furthermore, apparently, the NFL was misleading about the purpose of the penalties. The NFLPA admits that they were "forced" into the agreement, and, if they had know the true reason for the penalties, they wouldn't have made the agreement.

That's the antitrust issue I'm talking about: What was the nature of the bargaining? There is a very strong possibility that the agreement is not exempt. Without that exemption, the agreement is almost certainly illegal, and, if so, we get our cap space back.

Those are the arguments that the Redskins didn't seem to make, but the NFLPA is now making these arguments.

It would be interesting if the judge see's it this way also. I'd love to have our CAP space back as a huge FU to Goodell and Mara for opening this can of worms when they could have let sleeping dogs lie.

DeMaurice Smith, NFL - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=7970628)

I'm still dumbfounded by the idiocy of DeMaurice Smith here. You knew about the collusion back when the NFL came to you to sign off on the cap punishments for the Boys/Skins yet said nothing. Did nothing. Allowed it to happen all because you wanted to get re-elected as the NFLPA head honco, and you couldn't do that if the cap and benefits were lowered that year.


So you wait until a arbitrator decides to dismiss the Skins/Boys argument to finally get into the fray? I would be outraged if I were a NFL player and had this clown working in my behalf.

NC, I agree he's a clown and the players were idiots to keep him in place. However I still say there is a difference between the NLFPA believing collusion was happening (prior to March 11th) and possibly even their having physical evidence on or after March 11th. I know... WTF am I saying? lol. Lets say you know the NFL is colluding but you don't have actual proof. None of the owners are coming out and saying "yea we had this agreement to keep costs down", and otherwise all you have is the fact there were no major deals struck (which by the way everyone thought would happen) and no teams restructuring contracts to pay off the majority of the contract in the uncapped year, then you can only guess there is something up.

Then you have a few teams either spending money or restructuring their players contracts and the NFL approves those deals then your collusion case is kinda weak.

Then out of the blue the NFL calls you and says "hey if you don't agree to this we will have to lower the CAP" (and leave you with no proof of collusion), or "if you agree to the punishment we will make sure the CAP stays the same" (they have the proof: blackmail/strong arm tactics, the signed agreement to allow the punishment for some rule violation, and the actual punishment for the rule violation).

I'll take the agreeing everytime in order to get and have more ammunition for a collusion case. Now why did it take so long? Paper work is a lot of hard work, looking into the CBA and notes to see if you can file will take time, and possibly being a co-defendant in an appeals case might make you not file your charges until after the appeal is completed and making sure there is no way you can be used to convict your self in the appeals case.

I want to point out, that the league didn't call the NFLPA out of the blue, The NFLPA asked for restructuring of the salary cap to keep it from going down (They admit this in their complaint), but the NFL said if you want that then we want to punish these 4 teams (2 drastically). It's not much of a difference, but the NFLPA was the group trying to keep the salary cap up, again, so that DSmith didn't lose his job (IMO). The NFL, and Mara, saw an opportunity to smack the Skins and Cowboys, and (again IMO), didn't think it through, because the NFLPA were already coming hat in hand asking for Salary cap adjustments. It's like a shady car dealer changing the interest once the deal is all but done.