Titans, CJ2K meet, but sides remain far apart on new deal

View the original article here

Latest talks accomplish little, but sides will meet again Monday

NEW YORK -- Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in January that a deadline "has to be real" to create the anxiety needed to push parties to a new collective bargaining deal that works for everyone.

And so it is.

NFL players and owners wrapped up a frustrating couple of days in Manhattan with 10 hours of talks Friday that didn't produce much. In fact, three sources, including figures on each side, said there was little to no progress on the core issues the parties had hoped to break through in constructing a new labor deal this week.

Players could file another injunction According to legal sources, the language from Friday's ruling creates an opportunity for the NFLPA to file another expedited injunction seeking more rights for rookies and free agents not under contract. More ...

As a result, the lockout, which is now in its fifth month, will continue into next week. There will be communication between the parties over the weekend -- it's not considered a "weekend off" -- but the next set of face-to-face labor talks won't occur until Monday. The legal teams and staff from each side will convene in Manhattan, with the players and owners expected to join them Tuesday or Wednesday.

"We're going to break for the weekend, get back to work next week. We continue to work hard to get something done," NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith said. "I know our fans want us to get something done as quickly as possible."

Smith led a six-man group of players, with retirees Kevin Mawae, the NFLPA president, Sean Morey and Pete Kendall joined by active players Charlie Batch, Jeff Saturday and Domonique Foxworth. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was accompanied by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II, Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt and the New York Giants' John Mara.

Smith conducted a conference call with players at 3 p.m. ET, about six hours into the meeting, was thanked for his efforts by a number of players and told the group would stay united during an important time.

Next week's talks will be critical, with the days waning before preseason games will be forced off the schedule. The NFL estimates an entirely canceled preseason would cost nearly $1 billion in revenue, and although the players believe that number is inflated, there is little question the figure would be significant and take a serious toll on any proposal made by the league.

Judge Arthur J. Boylan, who is mediating the labor dispute between NFL owners and players, also scheduled a future session for July 19 in Minneapolis. Boylan set the meeting on Saturday, just before starting his vacation. But he also made clear that both sides should continue their own sessions in the interim as they work toward a new collective bargaining agreement.

Boylan ordered both sides to continue mediation without him "in an effort to define and narrow the differences between their respective settlement positions." He also ordered attorneys from both sides to be ready to meet with him on the evening of July 18 "for an in-person agenda- setting session" that presumably would set the stage for meaningful, fruitful talks the following day.

Adversely affecting Friday's talks was the late-morning ruling from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson's April decision to issue an injunction to lift the NFL lockout.

Although the decision enabled the lockout to remain in place, the players were afforded leverage as well, and NFLPA officials found solace in elements of the decision.

First, the appeals court allowed the players' antitrust litigation to move forward, meaning the owners are operating in treble damages liability as long as the lockout is ongoing.

Second, the court declined to rule on the legality of the owners locking out the league's unsigned players -- rookies and unrestricted free agents. The players can file for an injunction with Nelson's court to allow those players to sign with teams, something they are confident they would be granted based on the district judge's earlier decision, and create a chaotic situation for the league.

Judge Kermit Bye dissented on the decision. He had said at a June 3 hearing that the decision would be one "both sides aren't going to like," and the panel certainly delivered that.

The idea, ultimately, is to place the parties in uncomfortable positions that encourage them to resolve the situation on their own, something they said in a joint statement that they'd continue to work to do.

One more outstanding court decision remains: Judge David Doty has yet to issue his ruling on the networks rights-fees case, which will determine the fate of more than $4 billion in television revenue.

Doty, like the 8th U.S. Circuit Court, said in court he would rather the players and owners work out their differences before he makes a ruling in his case.

Next Friday, July 15, has long been seen as a deadline to get a deal and save the preseason in full. There are a number of issues -- including the rookie salary system and funding of retiree benefits -- on which the parties have failed to make breakthroughs.

Those issues flow into the larger issue of the revenue split. After progress June 30 and July 1 in Minneapolis, larger concepts in that area, such as the all-revenue model, may no longer be stumbling blocks. But the related issues have potential to tear down what's in place.

When talks resume next week, the lawyers will continue to hammer away at language and details, an area where they were able to make progress earlier this week.

It has been estimated that it would take between 10 and 14 days to go from an agreement to a signed document, and the aim of those sessions is to cut down that time and lay groundwork to quickly move things from a settlement to the opening of training camps. The Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams, who are scheduled to play in the Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 7, are scheduled to report to camp July 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Sides make progress on revenue split with N.Y. talks on tap

MINNEAPOLIS -- At 4 p.m. Thursday, the NFLPA conducted a conference call with its player reps and executive committee members that painted a grim picture as the labor situation made a turn for the worse.

Then everything changed.

As it turned out, the call, made after seven hours of negotiations at a downtown Minneapolis law firm, came less than halfway through the day's talks. And after those talks finished just before 1 a.m. CT and another set was staged on Friday morning, a different story was emerging.

The owners and players still have much work to do, but major progress was made to fix the revenue split, the overriding issue in the labor battle, on Thursday night and Friday morning. One source said that if smaller pieces connected to it don't shift the numbers too much, it "might not even be a stumbling block going forward."

In addition, the parties took strides to work out disagreements over how to define "all revenue" in the model they plan to use, and they also discarded some terms in the deal the other side found unacceptable.

The countdown concludes with a two-hour special revealing the top 10 on NFL Network on Sunday, July 3 at 8 p.m. ET. Stay tuned for a reaction show right after.

So one set of critical talks now gives way to another. The legal teams for each side will meet in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, with players and owners returning to the table Thursday and Friday. The format for the week follows the one set for this week's Minneapolis talks.

"We'll continue to meet next week, and our goal is to get a deal done," NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said on his way out. NFL general counsel Jeff Pash, again citing the gag order, simply said: "We'll be back at it again next week."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan proved a pivotal figure when things were at their darkest Thursday. Boylan was able to rein the parties in, narrow their focus to what was important on the revenue split, and forge a very productive evening.

This was after issues that arose last week in Massachusetts (over the rookie salary system) and Monday (over what the players perceived as a deception play by owners on the revenue system) resurfaced and again proved explosive, with players and owners re-entering the room after legal teams handled the earlier part of the week.

Things went so well Thursday that Boylan implored the sides to keep going past 1 a.m. The players and owners convinced the judge -- who ran court-ordered mediation in April and May, but has no binding power in these talks -- that they were spent, but the positive momentum continued into Friday morning.

And realistic hope remains that the league will be able to stage the preseason in its natural form, without the cancellation of any games, which would save hundreds of millions of dollars. Internal deadlines to have a deal done in order to save the preseason sit around July 15, and part of the ratcheted-up sense of urgency is the acknowledgement by both sides that a settlement will be exponentially tougher to reach if significant revenue is subtracted from the equation.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell led a group that included Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Giants owner John Mara, and Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, with Kraft and Mara the two constants for the owners in the five sets of clandestine meetings.

Smith's team included NFLPA managing director Ira Fishman, outside counsel Jim Quinn, general counsel Richard Berthelsen, Colts center Jeff Saturday, Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, Chiefs guard Brian Waters, and former player Sean Morey. Foxworth, like Kraft and Mara, has been a constant presence at these meetings, which started May 31, over the last five weeks.

The four previous "secret" sessions over the past month took place in suburban Chicago, New York's Long Island, Maryland's Eastern Shore and Massachusetts' South Shore. The Chicago talks, the first in the series, started May 31 and lasted three days, with the Long Island, Eastern Shore and South Shore negotiations going for two days apiece.

The St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears, this year's Hall of Fame Game participants, are scheduled to open training camp in 21 days, so time is beginning to run short.

The parties have spent the past four weeks largely discussing the revenue split. And it's not just the revenue now, but also how to account for the league's future growth, particularly when the 2014 television deals are done, in the players' take. The idea of an "all revenue" model, which would largely eliminate cost credits to the owners and limit revenue projections, has bridged differences over the course of the discussions.

As for the rookie salary system, the numbers aren't the only issue. Finding a way to replace the market effect those contracts have on veterans as well as getting high draft picks to free agency quicker are among the players' concerns. As it stands, six-year contracts are allowed for high first-round picks making big money.

Goodell was invited to the symposium by Smith, who said he was "thrilled" the commissioner accepted and participated. The men stood side by side after the visit Wednesday morning to Florida.

Goodell and Smith, who arrived in Minneapolis on Monday, took a break from talks Tuesday night to fly together to Sarasota, Fla., and speak to assembled players at the NFLPA's rookie symposium the next morning. They returned to Minneapolis on the same plane.

Goodell was invited to the symposium by Smith, who said he was "thrilled" the commissioner accepted and participated. The men stood side by side after the event Wednesday morning and vowed to continue working on a deal.

View the original article here