Players Association sues NFL over suspensions

Make nooooooooooooooooooooo mistake about it, folks. This is the union making a power play against the league. The bottom line here is guys tested positive for a banned substance in a supplement the league tells players they should avoid. The league created this policy ALONG WITH the NFLPA. They created it, endorsed it, and enforced it. Now, they are making a play for more power over the league, and using the courts to do it. Ugh. Again, this policy the league suspended these players under is a policy the NFLPA helped create and endorsed. This whole thing is, of course, a major distraction from what we should be talking about: GAMES! I'm no legal expert, but all my legal friends say the same thing: These guys will get suspended anyway for breaking league rules because, legally, they do not have a leg to stand on to stop the suspensions. And fights like this could create bad blood for when owners and players renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement this off-season.

11 months ago BigBlueShoe 4 comments 0 recs |

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It's ridiculous.

I think the NFLPA should be more concerned about helping disabled former players.

I hope that the suspensions come during the play-offs when they will hurt the most. I’m very glad that our tax money is going to a law suit of importance. \sarcasm

"I throw, you catch. It's NOT that hard!"
Peyton Manning, SNL, 2007

by peytonsthebest on Dec 4, 2008 12:28 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Union

I’ll be honest here: I am very pro-Union. I belong to two Unions myself. I personally feel that workers should be organized because (unfortunately) companies and corporations take advantage of workers to increase their profit. That is just what they do, and unions help counter that (or, at least they should).

However, with this I have very little respect for the union. The league is in the right to suspend these guys, and trying to stop it is only going to make things worse.

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by BigBlueShoe on Dec 4, 2008 12:46 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

An argument can be made that this is the NFLPA’s job, keeping its members playing and earning as much money as they can. There’s something to that argument, but I don’t think it ultimately holds up well. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with the CBA issue. In many labor negotiations we hear unions complain about management not negotiating in “good faith.” This issue seems to be one where the union is not negotiating in good faith. Don’t know if it will affect the bigger negotiations in the offseason, but I’d guess it couldn’t help.

by ctnyc on Dec 4, 2008 7:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'm on the fence

I think many of you would be too if this were Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. I’m a Colts fan first and a Vikings fan as well. I think this is a bit of a special case and theres a reason why the suspensions took so long to hand out as the league wanted to make sure they had their bases covered. Well the union and the Williams’ lawyer (who happens to be named Patrick Williams, haha) must feel they have something that could overturn the decision. Also the judge would not have put the temporary restraining order on the players ban had their not been some significant evidence that this could be overturned. He’s not just going to do it because they asked politely, there has to be something that makes the NFL’s case questionable or they would not have taken it this far.

I just read on Daily Norseman that PFT has an article about a player originally found to be taking starcaps who did not get suspended. It’s a pretty factless article that doesn’t spell much out but if the NFLPA knows who the player is and has good evidence this could be what they are using against the NFL to try to reverse the suspensions.

Peyton's good but have you ever heard of Jeff George?

by halfchest on Dec 4, 2008 1:15 PM EST reply actions 0 recs