NFL Commissioner Goodell Discussion

[Exe Gesis]

Owners warn Jerry Jones that his “antics” could be “conduct detrimental” to NFL
Posted by Mike Florio on November 15, 2017, 8:19 PM EST

As the public spat between Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and his partners over Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension dies down (for now), the battle continues privately, via correspondence written by high-priced lawyers.

Via Ken Belson of the New York Times, Jones received a letter from fellow owners advising him that his “antics” amount to “conduct detrimental to the league’s best interests.” The letter specifically was addressed to lawyer David Boies, whom Jones hired to consider potential litigation.

It’s a classic sign of creating a record that would eventually justify action to be taken against Jones. By reducing warnings to clear, unambiguous writings, there can be no doubt that Jones knew the consequences of ongoing misconduct, if it continues.

The league, PFT has been told multiple times, has no quarrel with Jones’ position regarding Goodell’s contract. However, the other owners object to the manner in which he has addressed the issue, taking it public, leaking damaging (and perhaps false) information to the media, instigating Papa John’s to disparage NFL leadership, and threatening to sue the league and its teams.

Owners previously have warned Jones that fines, forfeiture of draft picks, and a suspension could occur if the behavior doesn’t end. PFT reported over the weekend that multiple owners have discussed a provision in Article VIII of the NFL’s Constitution & Bylaws that allows a franchise to be forfeited in the event of conduct detrimental to the league. While the chances of that happening remain remote, the question of whether an effort ever commences depends directly on whether Jones complies with the expectations of his partners.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/...w-coming-led-dallas-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones

 

[Exe Gesis]

http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/...w-coming-led-dallas-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones

The one massive area where Goodell has failed miserably, is in the whole discipline side of things .... dating all the way back to spygate, including deflategate, and bountygate, let alone all the player fines and suspensions. But that role that Goodell took on, as "judge, jury, executioner" but also sweeping things under the carpet for certain owners also left other owners pissed off with the double-standards. That whole area is where Goodell has failed miserably. A compromise could be had where Goodell remains commissioner and just focusing on growing the money side for the owners, WHILST absconding from the whole discipline side, creating an NFL committee for player/owner discipline like they have the Rules Committee.

 

[drd23]

 

[drd23]

 

[Chism]

RIP NFL.

 

[juice t]

The lockout is going to be fun fun fun

 

[Galactic]

The players can strike for as long as they want for all I care. Take a year off.

 

[GreyWind]

The players can strike for as long as they want for all I care. Take a year off.

I hope they do. There really needs to be widespread change throughout the NFL.

 

[Monocle]

The one massive area where Goodell has failed miserably, is in the whole discipline side of things .... dating all the way back to spygate, including deflategate, and bountygate, let alone all the player fines and suspensions. But that role that Goodell took on, as "judge, jury, executioner" but also sweeping things under the carpet for certain owners also left other owners pissed off with the double-standards. That whole area is where Goodell has failed miserably. A compromise could be had where Goodell remains commissioner and just focusing on growing the money side for the owners, WHILST absconding from the whole discipline side, creating an NFL committee for player/owner discipline like they have the Rules Committee.

Good suggestion, however, the trouble is that Goodell's massive ego and power trip , won't ever allow him to seriously consider absconding from the whole discipline thing.

He just loves the concept of being "judge, jury and executioner".

And that in the end may well be the final straw that triggers a spiteful , vindictive , protracted strike by the players.

It needs to go back to the owners to collective set out protocols and procedures that are :

1. Consistant.
2. Understood.
3. Fairly administered.

Once thats done they need to select a forum that oversees and polices the disciplinary process by consensus not by a single person, which is what it effectively is at the moment. The bolded bit in the quote is a good start.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Chuck Schumer wants federal oversight of sports betting
Posted by Mike Florio on August 29, 2018, 8:33 PM EDT

Getty Images

Who says there’s no longer any bipartisanship in Congress?

Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer has joined Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch in calling for federal legislation that applies to sports wagering programs throughout the various states that choose to allow it.

“As a New York sports fan — especially my Yankees and Giants — and a Senator, my priority in the wake of the Murphy v. NCAA decision is making sure the integrity of the games we love is preserved, that young people and those suffering from gambling addiction are not taken advantage of, and that consumers that choose to engage in sports betting are appropriately protected,” Schumer said, via ESPN.com. “With the Supreme Court’s ruling, it’s incumbent on the federal government to take a leadership role and provide the necessary guidance to prevent uncertainty and confusion for the leagues, state governments, consumers and fans alike.”

Schumer hasn’t introduced legislation, but he has suggested specific goals and guidelines for a federal effort to create rules for legalized betting.

Via Darren Rovell of ESPN.com, the NBA, MLB, and PGA Tour support Schumer’s effort. The NFL, which quietly supports Senator Hatch’s efforts to provide federal oversight for gambling, did not join in the statement.

A federal law would supersede specific state programs that permit sports wagering. But the federal government can only do so much, as evidenced by the Supreme Court decision that ended the federal government’s effort to keep states from choosing to adopt betting.

Delaware, New Jersey, and Mississippi have legalized sports betting in the three months since the Supreme Court opened the floodgates. Betting begins Saturday in West Virginia

 

[Exe Gesis]

NFL, NCAA issue joint statement on federal oversight of sports wagering
Posted by Mike Florio on August 29, 2018, 8:59 PM EDT

Getty Images

With a Republican and a Democrat working together in Congress to provide oversight to sports betting, the leading professional and collegiate sports league have joined forces as well.

“Protecting the integrity of our sports is of paramount importance to the NFL and NCAA,” the NFL and NCAA said in a joint statement. “We applaud the leadership demonstrated by Senators [Orrin] Hatch and [Chuck] Schumer in support and federal legislation to protect the integrity of our games following the Supreme Court decision. Core federal standards are critical to safeguarding the sports we love, the millions of athletes across the country who play these games at all levels and our fans.”

This represents a fallback position for the NFL and NCAA, which fought tooth and nail to keep sports wagering illegal. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they hope to find a way to keep it under control. Lobbying aggressively for federal legislation makes much more sense in this regard than working on the issue one state at a time.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Richard Sherman says to expect a lockout in 2021
Posted by Curtis Crabtree on September 6, 2018, 11:54 PM EDT

Getty Images

San Francisco 49ers cornerback is one of 11 members of the NFL Players’ Association’s Executive Committee. He has been heavily involved in the union matters since being elected a player representative of the Seattle Seahawks.

He’ll likely be one of the important figures of the NFLPA’s management group when the union discusses a new CBA with the NFL following the expiration of the current agreement after the 2020 season. According to Joe Stiglich of the Associated Press, Sherman says to expect another lockout in 2021.

“It’s going to happen, so it’s not like guys are guessing,” Sherman said.

The players were locked out by owners in 2011 before the current 10-year agreement was reached. Given the constant sparring between the league and NFLPA through the years regarding possible 18-game seasons, disciplinary issues, protests during the national anthem and players’ non-guaranteed contracts, there appears to be several fronts for debate in hammering out a new agreement when the time comes.

In order for a lockout to be avoided, a new CBA would have to be negotiated prior to the expiration of the current deal, which Sherman doesn’t expect to happen.

“We don’t plan on changing anything about the deal we currently have right now,” Sherman said. ” … I don’t think it’s going to be negotiated before the end of the CBA.”

 

[Exe Gesis]

Appeal court reinstates painkiller lawsuit
Posted by Mike Florio on September 6, 2018, 4:26 PM EDT

Getty Images

The NFL’s perpetual 99 problems once again include a painkiller lawsuit.

Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Dailyreports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reinstated a lawsuit against the NFL from 11 former players who claim that the league illegally disseminated prescription drugs during their careers.

The case previously had been dismissed in a ruling that required the former players to pursue their claims under the arbitration provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The appeals court has allowed the case to proceed, but it has not addressed any of the merits of the claims.

Hall of Fame defensive end Richard Dent leads the lawsuit.

The appeals court suggested that Dent and the other plaintiffs could encounter difficulty when trying to attribute the behavior of team employees to the NFL. Much of that will depend on whether and to what extent league policies and procedures were being employed by the various teams.

 

[Exe Gesis]

omg how pathetically hilarious

=============

FCC was flooded with fake letters supporting the NFL’s blackout policy
Posted by Michael David Smith on September 8, 2018, 7:53 AM EDT

NBC

The NFL has given up its blackout policy, allowing games to air on local television even when they’re not sold out. But before finally relenting, the league spent decades defending the policy. And during one lobbying effort with the Federal Communications Commission, a flood of letters from self-described football fans who supported the policy came in.

One problem: Those letters were bogus. Some of them were signed with names of fictional characters like Luke Skywalker and Bilbo Baggins. Others were signed with the names of real people, but when the Wall Street Journal contacted those people they said they never sent the letters that bore their names. The Wall Street Journal investigation suggests that thousands of fake letters were sent advocating for the blackout policy.

The NFL, which hired four lobbying firms to assist its efforts to defend the blackout rule as the federal government worked to abolish it, insists it was involved in no wrongdoing. But someone clearly sent in fabricated letters in an attempt to make the FCC think the general public supported the blackout rule.

In reality, fans had no reason to support the blackout rule: It was never designed to help fans, it was designed to help the NFL sell tickets. The owners were worried that their games wouldn’t sell out if fans figured they could just watch it for free on TV anyway. The idea that thousands of fans would so strongly support the blackout rule that they’d lobby the FCC on the rule’s behalf is silly.

Yet thousands of letters came in, and some of them were definitely fake. The Wall Street Journal’s report says that submitting fraudulent statements or representations to the federal government is a felony.

 

[Chism]

Your time is up Roger and piss off.

NBC Sports: NFL may have overcorrected, post-Ezekiel Elliott.
Posted by Mike Florio on December 1, 2018, 10:36 AM EST

The Ray Rice fiasco, which nearly brought sweeping and dramatic change to the league office, sparked the NFL to respond in a way that would avoid future P.R. debacles. And then, in the opinion of at least one influential owner, the NFL went too far the other way, creating problems when there officially otherwise were none.

Less than two years after Ray Rice, the NFL launched an aggressive investigation regarding allegations of domestic violence against Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott. The league eventually imposed a six-game suspension on Elliott, even though he was never criminally charged or civilly sued. The procedures, which included a half-dozen private interviews of the alleged victim, included no opportunity for Elliott to confront or question the accuser, and featured at least one league investigator who believed that Elliott should not be suspended.

The situation greatly angered Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and it fueled a persistent, creative, and stunning effort by Jones in 2017 to block the Commissioner’s contract extension, with the ultimate goal of securing a new Commissioner.

And so, in the immediate aftermath of the Commissioner getting his extension, it appears that the league may have softened its stern, unforgiving approach to off-field misconduct, an approach that ignored all efforts of law enforcement and drilled down on the facts and circumstances with the goal of reaching a conclusion as to whether the player did what he was accused of doing, under a much lower standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt. How else can anyone explain the fact that soon-to-be-former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt: (1) was accused of shoving a woman in February 2018; (2) nothing seemed to happen over an extended period of time, even though the alleged victim clearly was motivated to receive some sort of justice or satisfaction; and (3) nearly 10 months later, a video of the incident suddenly emerges and Hunt is immediately suspended with pay by the league and then fired without pay by his team?

Rest of the story:
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/12/01/nfl-may-have-overcorrected-post-ezekiel-elliott/

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Here's what i find funny, seems to me the only people who can get their hands on hotel video surveillance are TMZ. Why hasn't the NFL put them on the payroll? Seems to me you should if you can't find out the proper story 10 months ago and cleared the player of any wrong doing, only to suspend him instantly when TMZ release a video of said incident.

 

[11sjw]

Here's what i find funny, seems to me the only people who can get their hands on hotel video surveillance are TMZ. Why hasn't the NFL put them on the payroll? Seems to me you should if you can't find out the proper story 10 months ago and cleared the player of any wrong doing, only to suspend him instantly when TMZ release a video of said incident.

TMZ are known to pay sources. Explains why some low level security person would approach them.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

TMZ are known to pay sources. Explains why some low level security person would approach them.

Well of course they do. But do you want "the truth" or do you want bad publicity for not being able to find out the truth?

 

[11sjw]

Well of course they do. But do you want "the truth" or do you want bad publicity for not being able to find out the truth?

How the Chiefs/NFL thought any video wouldn't come out is beyond me. Why the KCC's weren't doing everything they could to get a hold of it way back when bewilders me. They should of been on the phone to the hotel (I believe KH had an apartment within a hotel, happy to be corrected) straight away asking to at least be able to view all available footage (understanding that they may not be able to obtain a copy) and sent someone there to do so..

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

How the Chiefs/NFL thought any video wouldn't come out is beyond me. Why the KCC's weren't doing everything they could to get a hold of it way back when bewilders me. They should of been on the phone to the hotel (I believe KH had an apartment within a hotel, happy to be corrected) straight away asking to at least be able to view all available footage (understanding that they may not be able to obtain a copy) and sent someone there to do so..

who knows, maybe they did, now only appearing to get on the front foot before the public outcry.

Its funny how strongly/swift teams and the NFL act when video footage surfaces.

 

[drd23]

Fairly certain GG posted a report earlier that the hotel denied the NFL and/or the Chiefs access to the footage without a subpoena, and that Cleveland PD wasn't going to show them it either

 

[Exe Gesis]

Some owners wonder whether NFL should get out of investigation business
Posted by Mike Florio on December 7, 2018, 6:51 PM EST

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Jerry Jones was ahead of his time, again.

The Cowboys owner argued during an owners-only meeting in March 2017 that the league should get out of the business of investigating player misconduct. Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that some owners are now questioning the league’s investigative practices in the aftermath of the Kareem Hunt case, including the question of whether the NFL should even be engaging in investigations.

“It’s certainly an issue that needs discussion,” an unnamed person with “knowledge of those owners’ views” told Maske. “Is there a way to do this better? If not, should the NFL even be in the investigative business?”

Such an approach would reset the clock to the pre-Ray Rice days, forcing the NFL to rely on the outcomes generated by the criminal justice system, outcomes that vary widely based on a variety of factors, given the broad discretion prosecutors enjoy. In jurisdictions where police are inclined to look the other way as a favor to the local NFL team or hometown athlete, a commitment to accept whatever happens in court could result in nothing happening at all, within the confines of the league office.

Still, the NFL has proven time and again that it lacks the skill and the resources to do the job properly, with the Hunt case being perhaps the most vivid example of the ineffectiveness of the league when it comes to getting all of the evidence needed in order to determine what precisely occurred. Indeed, it could be argued that the NFL didn’t really want to get the evidence in Hunt’s case, because it would have forced the NFL to create its own P.R. mess by imposing a significant suspension on Hunt and then releasing, in the face of a media outcry, the evidence supporting the sanction.

It also could be argued that the NFL decided to simply check the boxes (“we asked the hotel, and we asked the Cleveland Police Department for the video”) and then accepted the risk that TMZ eventually would get the video. That worst-case scenario would match the best-case scenario if the NFL had found the video on its own and published it, in order to support a suspension that would have prompted some (like me) to say, “How can you impose such a stiff punishment on a guy who never was even arrested?”

And so, as the league struggles to find a middle ground between the Ray Rice and Ezekiel Elliott cases, the league could retreat to the days before Rice, opting only to act when forced to do so by the fact that a player was found to be responsible for criminal misconduct by the criminal justice system, recognizing that the criminal justice system has plenty of imperfections — but perhaps not nearly as many as those demonstrated by the league’s own efforts to investigate crimes.

 

[Exe Gesis]

NFL hopes to ditch marijuana ban via collective bargaining
Posted by Mike Florio on December 20, 2018, 9:00 PM EST

Regardless of whether Josh Gordon‘s latest suspension arises from marijuana or other recreational drugs that don’t enhance performance, his indefinite banishment brings back into focus a question that gnaws at power brokers like Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: Why does the NFL test players for marijuana use while on their own time?

It started during the War on Drugs, which wasn’t really a war and did nothing to get people to stop using drugs. Three decades later, more and more states are legalizing marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, and more and more observers believe that marijuana does more good than harm for players suffering from pain and other issues related to playing tackle football for a living.

The NFL realizes that there’s no longer any good reason to keep the best football players from playing football over marijuana. But the NFL isn’t yet willing to make dramatic and wholesale changes to the marijuana testing policy because the NFL hopes to dangle the changes within the context of collective bargaining, securing a concession from the union in exchange for softening a policy that badly needs to be softened.

If negotiated as a separate issue, the union wouldn’t bite. More than 95 percent (maybe higher) of all players know how to avoid testing positive in the first place, and most of those who accidentally test positive once avoid more positives under enhanced testing, given the enhanced consequences.

So why make a broader concession that would affect all players in order to help only a handful? The union wouldn’t do it, and the policy would continue to ensnare a handful of players and the NFL would have to decide whether it’s OK with that.

And so the easiest approach will be to dump the changes into the next round of CBA discussions, blending the revision in with the broader negotiations and claiming that a concession was achieved.

Even if it isn’t.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Shouldn’t surprise. Reports that some NFL owners have approached NBA Commish Adam Silver over last few years to take over from Roger Dickhead.

https://www.si.com/nba/2019/02/14/adam-silver-nfl-commissioner-inquiries-league-owners