32 Player Reps = Fail

Sorry Dave, forgot to set publish date in future.

are no saints here (no pun intended), but Demaurice Smith has botched this for the NFLPA. He is in over his head, and has political ambitions. But in order to speed up the process, I’d have the owners pull 1% of the revenue to be shared with the players off the table beginning Tuesday for each day the players fail to ratify the offer.

the 32 player reps failed in their job of communicating and being up to date with the progress and issues the NFLPA executive committee negotiated,

How could the 32 reps be informed if D Smith and the exec committee (who are directly involved in negotiations) did not communicate with THEM? Because they didn’t call D’s cell phone often enough? First comment by steelcity09 here.

The only players who really know what is going on and know the inter workings of the CBA proposed are the ones on the negotiating team (Jeff Saturday, Dominique Foxworth, Charlie Batch, and the few others.) Thats it! It appeared that D Smith and this negotiating team got what they thought was a fair deal this week and called the 32 player reps in to look at it and vote on it on Wednesday. (If D Smith and the negotiating team thought they had a good deal then this shouldve been a no brainer to pass. These guys wouldnt have been called in to vote otherwise IMO.) For whatever reason the 32 reps did not vote "yes" on it despite it being presented to them as a "good deal."

That is why you have player reps saying they were hoodwinked or didnt get what they wanted,etc……because the owners passed the deal that D Smith and the negotiating team thought was fair, not the ones the player reps wanted to be passed

Forget Bleacher Report, it’s like Fox News around here.

FYI via wikipedia:

The executive committee for the NFLPA includes newly elected members: Domonique Foxworth of the Baltimore Ravens, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, and Mike Vrabel of the Kansas City Chiefs as new members of the executive committee. Re-elected members were: Brian Dawkins of the Denver Broncos, Jeff Saturday of the Indianapolis Colts, Tony Richardson of the New York Jets, free agent Kevin Carter, and retired players Keenan McCardell, Mark Bruener, and Donovin Darius.

I’m not defending the owners. The CBA was not re-written. That is rhetoric. Question— who wrote the CBA? Did YOU miss the “players and owners, smith and goodell have gone home for the weekend, but lawyers from both sides are still meeting in order to write up the CBA” news over the last few weeks?

Secondly, what do you ELECT and PAY an executive committee including DSmith and Lawyers for if you aren’t going to trust them when they say “this is it”? DeMaurice Smith’s job was to get a fair deal. He went to every team over 4 times just to be sure he knew exactly where each issues were of the highest priorities and which issues he could budge on. He’s done his job.

The player reps who were not part of the executive committee failed to be intrested and ask questions. How can I say this? Very easily. EVERYONE knew what Wednesday and Thursday were supposed to be. Everyone also knew the players would have to reform a union and withdrawl their lawsuits in order to and upon ratification.

So 1— plans should have been in place for both
and
2— players who were surprised by the deal that was ratified only have themselves to blame.

You no longer hear anything about owners “changing the language of the CBA and that it wasn’t the one we agreed too”.

Know why? Because they are finding out from the executive committee that it is in fact the agreement they “hand shake” agreed to with Goodell.

From The Mongoose:

It’s fairly ridiculous to assume that the owners would try to “slip something through” at the last minute, for a number of reasons.

That’s not how business is done at levels this sophisticated. This isn’t some used car transaction; there are millions of people watching and lawyers crawling all over the place. Nothing would get sneaked in, and when the ruse was discovered, the owners would look ridiculous. There is nothing to gain, really.

The people suggesting that such trickery occurred are business-ignorant, if you will. People who think that such things occur in high-end business transactions obviously have no experience with high-end business transactions. Like, say, football players. Or random yayhoos on an internet forum.

The Robert Krafts, the Art Rooneys, the John Maras of the world have integrity. They aren’t going to stoop to some shady tactics, because it isn’t in their best interest to have their partner discover such a move down the road. It simply isn’t done like that, much less with the whole world watching.

The players’ executive committee probably knew what was going on, but the rank and file dudes who took to panicking on twitter and NFL network obviously are exactly what Jerry Richardson accused Brees and Manning of being – rubes who have no experience in business.

ALL that I am saying is that EVERYONE— media, casual fan, and player — knew what Wednesday was supposed to be and what Thursday was supposed to be. The CBA has been written, by both legal teams, over the last few weeks. The executive committee, who was elected and trusted to do so, agreed to a deal they feel is fair. EVERYONE involved also KNEW well in advance that in order to go forward, they would have to withdrawl the lawsuits, recertify as a union, and ratify the agreement.

So, why are they acting like this is new news and will take forever to do? Why do they pretend to not know the steps to take and the manner to take them when everything has been leading to this and it’s so common you and I know what has to be done? Why, when their executive committee and lawyers negotiated and wrote the deal is the deal all of the sudden a surprise?

Notice also that at this point, 4pm Friday, you no longer hear “the NFL changed the CBA” or “the NFL tried to pull a fast one on us”.

Know why?

Easy. All these players with instant access and social media are actually communicating with the executive committee and looking like idiots now that they have the full story. Good thing they kind of put a gag order on themeselves because now they don’t have to stick their foot in their mouths.

Mr. Dave, I’m glad you removed that scolding comment to Jr. about this post. That should have been handled by private email. He’s taking enough of a public spanking on this from me.

If you believe that in a democracy, you get the representation that you deserve, what does is say for the players that elected De Smith to represent them?

So the disagreement is about the NFLPA* player reps not informing the players? I thought that this owner vote on a proposed CBA was done in private and voted on 31-0 to pressure the NFLPA into ratifying it. If the player reps were actually there during the vote, then I missed something. The story I got was that a roughly 500 page CBA was dropped like a “bomb” and a deadline given to the NFLPA. Let me know if I missed something, but I gotta go with Stujo4 100% on this.

I know I’ll get slashed and whipped for this, but I always thought this 4 month deal waiting period was old D Mo Smith’s fault from the beginning. The dude has a job at doing nothing, then all of the league has to listen to him for what? C’mon. Go make your millions elsewhere and let the NFL play football like they’re supposed to.
 OK, i’M WAITING.

Honestly. I know the players have to be represented by someone, as in DeMaurice Smith, but how come the only time I hear about him is now during this lockout? Anytime anything goes wrong in the NFL you have to deal with Roger. So if that’s the case, can anyone take D Mo’s place in an instance? I don’t know if he’s really speaking up for the players or if he is speaking up and hurting the players. Either way, I just don’t really see what his purpose is considering the fact that we have a group of players that could represent the NFL. So when this deal gets done, it’s good for ten years, I guess he can sit in his chair for ten years and let Roger solve problems in between that span. But he’ll be there for the next lockout.