NFL All Things NFLPA

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Sean Gilbert contends funding rule constitutes collusion
Posted by Mike Florio on March 14, 2015, 2:47 PM EDT

On Saturday, former NFL player Sean Gilbert made his initial case to the voters for the position of NFLPA executive director. And he finally has unveiled a plan for a collusion claim that could then be used to terminate the current labor deal.

PFT has obtained a copy of Gilbert’s presentation to the NFLPA board of player representatives. In those remarks, Gilbert explained that the NFL’s funding rule for fully guaranteed contracts, as used by the league, constitutes an ongoing collusion violation.

The funding rule appears at Article 26, Section 9 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Gilbert’s argument seizes on the notion that the CBA states only that “[t]he NFL may require” teams to deposit future, fully-guaranteed payments into escrow. The argument will be that the NFL at some point turned the “may” into a “must,” preventing teams from putting fully-guaranteed payments into the future years of contracts unless the owners fund those amounts by putting the money in escrow — even if the owners have the financial resources to honor the future salary commitments.

The NFL surely would respond to this contention by arguing that the NFLPA already has given the NFL blanket authority to mandate funding by using the words “may require.” The NFLPA, under Gilbert, would argue that the mechanism was put in place to ensure that future guarantees made by teams with questionable financial resources would be honored, and that the NFL has twisted a provision aimed at protecting players against franchises that may fold into a vehicle for suppressing guaranteed payments by requiring all teams to fund future full guarantees up front, regardless of whether the owner of a given team has the wherewithal to make the future guaranteed payments.

It’s an argument that relies on nuance, along with an understanding of the specific purpose and origin of the funding rule. Earlier this week, in the wake of a contract signed by Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh that includes $59.955 million in full guarantees (which Stephen Ross had to fund up front, despite being a multi-billionaire), PFT posed basic questions regarding the purpose and origin of the funding rule to the NFL. The NFL declined to provide any information beyond pointing out that the funding rule is a collectively-bargained provision.

The collusion claim faces other potential obstacles. NFLPA executive director candidate (and practicing lawyer) Andrew Smith said on Friday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio that the 90-day window for filing a collusion claim based on Gilbert’s idea has expired by now, based on the argument that the NFLPA knew or should have known about the potential collusion claim from the moment Gilbert said he was aware of a specific form of collusion that was essentially hiding in plain sight. Andrew Smith contends that the failure of the NFLPA to obtain the information from Gilbert or to otherwise figure out the argument on its own within 90 days after Gilbert suggested the existence of a silver-bullet collusion claim makes it impossible to bring the claim within the next 90 days.

From Gilbert’s perspective, none of that matters if it helps him win the election. While it could keep him from being re-elected in three years if the effort to terminate the CBA via a collusion claim fails, the existence of an intriguing, creative argument for the existence of collusion can’t hurt his chances of getting the job.

 

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Gilbert wants NFLPA to create its own fantasy football platform
Posted by Mike Florio on March 14, 2015, 3:22 PM EDT

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Sean Gilbert’s presentation to the NFLPA player representatives didn’t simply outline a plan for proving collusion. He also has a plan for generating revenue.

Gilbert’s remarks, a copy of which have been released to the media, include a proposal for the establishment of a fantasy football platform by the NFLPA.

“Last year, FanDuel took in $50 million,” Gilbert said in the written version of his presentation. “This year, they are expected to bring in $100 million and be valued at $1 billion. We will create our own Fantasy Football site.”

The revenue from an in-house fantasy football platform presumably would offset dues payments; Gilbert proposes getting rid of dues altogether.

Other candidates are welcome to send their remarks or proposals to PFT; Gilbert’s ideas are getting attention in this space because: (1) they’re interesting; and (2) he sent them to us.

 

[ausbacker]

I sincerely hope Gilbert is allowed nowhere near NFLPA leadership. DeMaurice Smith may be incompetent but Sean Gilbert, for matters of ego, will encourage strikes, holdouts and lockouts. No thanks.

 

[exe ex machina]

I sincerely hope Gilbert is allowed nowhere near NFLPA leadership. DeMaurice Smith may be incompetent but Sean Gilbert, for matters of ego, will encourage strikes, holdouts and lockouts. No thanks.

Right you are. Right on cue....

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Sean Gilbert proposes an alternative league during a lockout
Posted by Mike Florio on March 15, 2015, 3:01 AM EDT

Getty Images
NFLPA executive director candidate Sean Gilbert has been clear in his belief that a strike won’t work. And he’s right; in a strike, picket lines can and will be crossed, especially if the NFL uses replacement players, like it did in 1987.

If Gilbert’s proposed collusion claim resulted in a premature termination of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the league and the union can work out a new deal, the players can strike, or the owners can lock out the players.

Gilbert’s leverage against a lockout arises from a proposal to form an alternative league and to sell the broadcast rights to Internet-based broadcasters.

During the 2011 lockout, scattered talk emerged of player-organized games that would generate revenue pending resolution of the dispute. But the league’s broadcast partners surely wouldn’t touch those games, for fear of alienating the NFL.

The next time there’s a lockout (whether after a successful collusion claim or upon completion of the current labor deal), the Internet gives the players a viable, and possibly lucrative, alternative during an owner-imposed work stoppage.

 

[ausbacker]

Right you are. Right on cue....

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Sean Gilbert proposes an alternative league during a lockout
Posted by Mike Florio on March 15, 2015, 3:01 AM EDT

Getty Images
NFLPA executive director candidate Sean Gilbert has been clear in his belief that a strike won’t work. And he’s right; in a strike, picket lines can and will be crossed, especially if the NFL uses replacement players, like it did in 1987.

If Gilbert’s proposed collusion claim resulted in a premature termination of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the league and the union can work out a new deal, the players can strike, or the owners can lock out the players.

Gilbert’s leverage against a lockout arises from a proposal to form an alternative league and to sell the broadcast rights to Internet-based broadcasters.

During the 2011 lockout, scattered talk emerged of player-organized games that would generate revenue pending resolution of the dispute. But the league’s broadcast partners surely wouldn’t touch those games, for fear of alienating the NFL.

The next time there’s a lockout (whether after a successful collusion claim or upon completion of the current labor deal), the Internet gives the players a viable, and possibly lucrative, alternative during an owner-imposed work stoppage.

I don't mind the lateral thinking but Gilbert, through his own hold out actions and Revis', has proven he doesn't have the best interest of everyone at heart, only those around him.

Never, ever let the tail wag the dog. Gilbert doesn't seem to understand he's fighting against, for the most part, men with business connections stretching farther than the eye can see. At least Florio was able to touch on that. No partner of the NFL will touch NFLPA sanctioned events given the consequences. It's just not smart business for blowback.

 

[Sven]

BTW - the NFLPA executive director voting is about to get started. Due to problems with doing it electronically, everyone has gone to Maui so they can all be in the same place at the same time. Could be a lengthy voting process.....

 

[ausbacker]

BTW - the NFLPA executive director voting is about to get started. Due to problems with doing it electronically, everyone has gone to Maui so they can all be in the same place at the same time. Could be a lengthy voting process.....

DeMaurice Smith (according to news sources) was re-elected with a first round majority.

Holdouts, no holdouts here.

 

[Dagless]

Thank god Gilbert's BS didn't make a dent.

 

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From the moment System Arbitrator Christopher Droney signed the bottom of a 61-page written decision in the landmark collusion case, both the NFL and the NFL Players Association kept it secret.

The secret was finally exposed today, thanks to Pablo Torre. The next question becomes why both sides zipped their lips over Droney’s decision?

Torre and I delved into the subject during the latest episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out.

Although the NFL ultimately won, the NFL had every reason to keep the decision quiet. The case proved that the NFL tried to get its teams to collude. From the decision: “There is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans’ contracts at the March 2022 annual owners’ meeting.”

The NFL avoided what could have been multi-billion-dollar liability (more on that later) because Droney accepted the self-serving testimony of no fewer than eight owners that they didn’t heed the Management Council’s encouragement to collude. The document nevertheless includes more than enough evidence, in our view, on which a finding of actual collusion could have been based.

The best metaphor (or at least the best one my relaxed brain can come up with) is this: The league was caught with its hand in the cookie jar and with crumbs on its shirt. But because Droney didn’t actually see the league eating the cookies, he accepted as truthful their claim that they did not.

Keeping it secret had another benefit, which also will be discussed later. By hiding it for more than five months, the NFL may have prevented other potential victims of collusion (starting with quarterbacks who since 2023 have not received fully-guaranteed contracts) from pursuing a grievance of their own.

The far bigger question is why would the NFL Players Association not trumpet this ruling?

The union should have been shouting it from the rooftops. They’ve finally proved that which had been suspected for years — that the quarterly meetings are (as former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith calls them) “collusion meetings.” The details are unprecedented, and the takeaway is unmistakable.
With the Deshaun Watson contract lighting the fire for fully-guaranteed contracts, the league needed to put it out. Quickly. And the league (through the Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner) grabbed a hose and started spraying.

Even though Droney ultimately failed to connect the dots and/or apply common sense (in my opinion), the union proved that the league WANTED the teams to collude. That’s a massive finding.

One reason to keep it secret deals with internal union politics. New executive director Lloyd Howell is viewed as a business person who can secure gains through negotiation, not litigation. Smith, who filed the collusion grievance, was the wartime consigliere. With a ruling that tends to prove Smith’s approach works, Howell has no reason to do a victory lap with the fruits of Smith’s brainchild.

That’s just a theory. And if it’s accurate, it’s a mistake. It doesn’t serve the interests of the players. And it may have slammed the door on the ability of other players to parlay this partial (but significant) victory into a case of their own.

The other potential explanation comes from the fact that former NFLPA president J.C. Tretter criticized in text messages then-Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson for failing to parlay the Watson contract into a fully-guaranteed contract of his own.

The decision refers to Tretter’s criticism of Wilson. As best Torre and I could determine, Tretter at a minimum referred to Wilson as a “wuss.” Tretter also said this, I was told: “Instead of being the guy that made guaranteed contracts the norm, he’s the guy that ruined it for everyone.”

As Torre has reported, the union kept the ruling quiet in part to protect Tretter. If the former union president and current NFLPA chief strategy officer has designs on becoming the executive director after Howell (and some think he does), it does not help Tretter’s cause to have been caught making pejorative remarks about a member of the union.

Of course, that cat is now out of the bag. And one of the big questions going forward is whether and to what extent the union’s failure to use the collusion ruling as a sword against the NFL will have practical consequences for current NFLPA leadership.

 

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It's crazy how it's not a bigger story that JC Judas Trettor traded his integrity by changing the union's constitution to fasttrack Howell in and get his "strategist" role quid pro quo all so the league could sabotage fully guaranteed contracts. then helped hide the proof.

 

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