Despite the possibility that Minnesota law will insulate Vikings defensive tackles Kevin and Pat Williams from four-game suspensions for testing positive for a prescription drug secretly placed in an over-the-counter weight-loss supplement, Friday’s ruling in the StarCaps case strengthens the league’s overall position, as negotiations on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement loom.
After Judge Magnuson imposed a preliminary injunction blocking the suspensions in December, the union crowed that the discipline procedure (to which the union had previously agreed) was so flawed that the league would have no choice but to unilaterally change it.
In other words, the union was hoping that the players wouldn’t have to give up as much (or anything) at the bargaining table in order to secure the arbitration of all disciplinary suspensions by a truly neutral party.
Instead, Judge Magnuson’s ruling reaffirms the policy and the discipline procedure, which culminates in binding arbitration over which the Commissioner or his designee presides. Thus, the league’s position on collective bargaining will be simple: “If you want to get rid of the current system, you need to be ready to give up a lot of stuff.”
And this could make the negotiations even more complex, and potentially acrimonious.
Indeed, at a time when folks are smiling and shaking hands and publicly saying all the right things, Judge Magnuson’s ruling speaks to a poisonous atmosphere that easily could culminate in all-out war.
“There is no doubt that it would have been preferable for the NFL to communicate with players specifically about the presence of bumetanide in StarCaps,” Judge Magnuson writes at page 18 of his opinion. “The NFL’s failure to do so is baffling, but it is not a breach of the NFL’s duties to its players. It is clear that this situation arose because the parties to these cases do not trust each other. The NFL does not trust the Union or the players. The players and the Union do not trust the NFL. No one believes that the opposing parties have any common interests. The situation is deplorable and leads to suspicion and the sort of no-holds-barred litigation tactics so clearly on view here.”
Modern civil litigation routinely involves such uncivil tactics and attitudes. The fact that Judge Magnuson witnessed something sufficiently worse than what he normally experiences to compel him to include that observation within his ruling suggests that, in this case, the venom is real — and significant.
Though this single dispute does not mean that the league and the union are on a collision course for a lockout, it demonstrates that the two sides not only feel strongly about their position, but also hold unflattering views of their adversaries. Thus, one of the biggest challenges for Commisioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director De Smith will be to find a way to control their hatchet men long enough to allow a true feeling of trust and partnership to emerge.
We think that Smith is capable of this based on the manner in which he apparently has brought together a previously fractured union. We think that Goodell is capable of this based on the manner in which he recently solved what had appeared to be a hopeless impasse with Comcast.
Moving forward, both men should take to heart the observations of Judge Magnuson, and both men should quickly move to silence the handful of persons in their respective camps who are putting the game we all love at risk, possibly because they’ve yet to find a way to control their own egos.