Union not acknowleding filing of collusion suit, yet

Posted by Mike Florio on January 18, 2011, 10:35 AM EST

On Monday, we reported that the NFL Players Association had filed the long-awaited collusion case against the league, focusing primarily on the lack of activity in the restricted free agency market in 2010.

Mark Maske of the Washington Post has confirmed the report, properly giving us credit.  (Thanks, Mark.  Tell Mike we said hello.)  Everyone else has to date failed to mention the collusion case, possibly so that they won’t have to give us credit thanks to those pesky new AP guidelines regarding credit and attribution.

More importantly, the NFLPA isn’t talking about the collusion case.  At all.

There’s nothing on the NFLPA website, and union spokesman George Atallah hasn’t responded to requests for official confirmation and comment.  (Other than to say the union has no response.)

Given the recent rancor that the union has displayed and the calculated P.R. ploys aimed at pressuring the owners to do a deal without imposing a lockout, the union’s failure to confirm that, indeed, the collusion case has been filed is curious, to say the least.

Our guess is that the union wanted to apply pressure without reinforcing the league’s claim that the NFLPA is more interested in litigating than negotiating.  Even though it’s litigation that could persuade the owners to engage in more serious negotiation.

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5 responses to “Union not acknowleding filing of collusion suit, yet”

  1. I dont think the owners are too worried about a collusion case from the uncapped 2010 season. The facts are that each owner pretty much decided on their own, not to pursue free agency, because it was a risky business decision, given the uncertainty of 2011. Methinks the union is getting nervous and more than a little desperate. The heavyweight owners are very surely going to tap the brakes after March 4th and they are not gonna step on the gas again until the union blinks or the revenue sharing plan is revised. Considering that all these men are already independently wealthy and rich enough to live lavishly for the rest of their days, they have no motivation to move quickly on this. Meanwhile, most players either dont make enough to retire at 30 or spend it so unwisely that they depend on another payday to keep the money train rolling.

    The solution to all of this is simple, when you consider the golden rule. He who has the gold, makes the rules.

  2. He who has the gold, makes the rules? What an ignorant comment for this situation. The NFL is a goverment-regulated, tax-exempt, non-profit corporation. It is a *cartel* that would otherwise be illegal, and that owes it’s existence to the People.

    John Clayton said this morning he still thinks there will be a new CBA around March 11. Let’s hope he’s right.

  3. it’s an old rule, still pretty valid.

    the owners can live without football for a year. a lot of players cant.

    duh smith wants to litigate and get help from osamabama.

  4. I think that the players think if they hold out they will push the owners to think with their greed not their conservative patient business minds. So we as fans just have to wait for the super bowl to be over and then buckle in cause it could be a bad game of “Chicken” and we have nothing to drink beer to on sunday afternoons next fall or we could see some rich old men throw out a lot of dough.

  5. I for one hope the owners break this union head. Smith is counting on political pressure and courts to force the owners to give them the same, if not more.

    What most of us in the real world understand is this: There are thousands of qualified athletes who would kill to be on an NFL team. In other words, players are fungible. They come and go.

    You might argue owners are fungible, but I certainly can’t float a $100m salary structure plus all the costs involved in running a team.

    Are the 5 superstars per team really worth letting the inmates run the asylum? I vote no.

    If they put the players’ union in their place, we won’t have to do this again for 10-20 years. If they don’t, we’ll deal with this every 3-5 years.

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