In May, the NFL’s owners passed a pair of rule changes that require NFLPA approval.
A league source tells PFT that a recent memo from the league office to the 32 teams explained that the NFLPA has yet to approve the changes.
One adjustment would nudge the trade deadline from Week Six to Week Eight. The other would grant each team the ability to put one player who is injured after passing the training-camp physical on temporary injured reserve, with a potential return coming after Week Six. Currently, any player who is injured after the start of training camp must either be carried on the roster or placed on season-ending injured reserve.
Both changes arguably benefit players. (That said, some may not want to be traded, so they’d prefer that they window close earlier not later.) Per the source, the union hasn’t agreed to the changes because the union wants something in return for agreeing to the changes.
It one of the basic realities of collective bargaining. If one side wants something, the other side wants something in exchange -- even if the thing the first side wants helps the other side.
Complicating matters is the general atmosphere of acrimony that currently exists between the league and the union. From the bounty brouhaha to the collusion case to the ongoing posturing as to who “won” the 2011 labor negotiations, things aren’t good right now between the league and the union, which will make it hard for the union to agree to anything that the league wants.