CBS REFUSES TO RUN AD FOR NFL PLAYERS UNION

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The National Football League is about to lock out its players. The league is refusing to negotiate with the players union in good faith. The latest theory is that the NFL will declare an “impasse” in negotiations and simply impose draconian conditions that cut player salaries while extending the football season two more games. More work for less pay.

The union has made it crystal clear that they WANT to play. They just don’t want to have massive givebacks when the average NFL team makes $20 million a year in profits.

Now, the NFLPA has taken its fight public. They’ve made a “Let Them Play” tv commercial begging for fan support. Unfortunately for the union, CBS has refused to air the ad. The network claims they don’t want to “take sides” in the current labor dispute

SHOULD ROGER GOODELL SUSPEND HIMSELF FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY?

ROGER GOODELL AND BOB MCNAIR: FUTURE CELLMATES?

Don’t laugh. It’s possible that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has commited several felonies.

Here’s a story that has totally flown under the radar of most the national media. The NFL and former members of the NFL Players Association are being investigated by the feds for collusion. Not only that, but it looks like the current union has a pretty strong case.

The union’s former human resources director is suing for wrongful termination. In court documents, she accuses former NFLPA president and  player Troy Vincent and several union officials of  leaking confidential information to Goodell and Houston Texans owner Bob McNair. The woman accuses Vincent, Texans player rep Kris Brown,  and  NFLPA executive committee member Mark Bruener (a former Texans player) all of secretly meeting with Goodell and McNair and providing them with confidential union information.

If the former employee’s charges are true, that’s a serious, serious crime. The Labor Department has  supposedly acknowledged that there’s an investigation going on which is looking into whether the NFL players union “may have been the victim of violations of federal laws.”

Current NFLPA president DeMaurice Smith is from Chicago and is a personal friend of President Barack Obama. The NFLPA is reportedly being considered “a potential victim” in the Labor Department’s investigation. That’s horrifically bad news for Goodell and the NFL which is currently in a collective bargaining dispute with Smith and league players.

Goodell doesn’t deny meeting informally with Vincent and other union officials. He maintains those meetings were simply icebreakers and nothing untoward happened at them. Unfortunately, after Smith became the head of the NFLPA, Vincent took a job WORKING FOR THE NFL. That certainly doesn’t look too good to investigators.

DEMARICE SMITH: UNION PREZ AND FRIEND OF POTUS

NFL UNION IS OUT TO GET RUSH LIMBAUGH

DEMAURICE SMITH

The National Football League Players Association came out over the weekend as officially opposing conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s effort to own the St. Louis Rams. Union head DeMaurice Smith not only voiced his displeasure over Limbaugh to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, but sent out a memo urging the league’s players to vocally oppose him. Smith has criticized a number of the talk show host’s past comments, which he feel are racially charged. Smith urged his players to oppose Limbaugh as “proud sons, fathers and spouses.”

In an e-mail, Smith contends that allowing Limbaugh into the NFL would mean “going backwards” for the league’s African-American players. Seven NFL players, all African-Americans, have already come out on record as opposing Limbaugh owning an NFL team.

Limbaugh and former NBA executive Dave Checketts are one of six groups to make a former purchase offer for the Rams. St. Louis lost over the weekend and has not won a football game in over a calendar year. Smith’s anti-Limbaugh crusade has received play nationally as well as in St. Louis.

Conservative blogs have responded by calling Smith and the union racist. That’s not going to help Limbaugh’s bid. Limbaugh has not commented publicly on the union’s stance yet. However, the NFL hates both publicity and controversy and Limbaugh’s controversial  past statements on race (not to mention his firing by ESPN over the Donovan McNabb fiasco) may very well cost him his dream-owning an NFL franchise.

NEW NFLPA PREZ IS OBAMA FRIEND

DEMAURICE SMITH

In a stunning move, the National Football League Players Association has selected a Washington lawyer to be its new union head. DeMaurice Smith was elected on the first ballot by NFLPA player reps in Honolulu. He replaces the late Gene Upshaw.

ESPN’s John Clayton and several others have written that players wanted to go in a “new direction” and picked Smith over a host of other candidates with previous NFL experience and strong union ties. Smith is described as a Washington D.C. lawyer who is a friend of President Barack Obama’s.

Smith is quoted in today’s Washington Post as saying the union “has a moral obligation to take care of retired players.” That’s an enormous departure from the past disgraceful behavior by the NFLPA. The NFLPA recently lost a $28 million lawsuit because of its horrific treatment of former NFL players.

GENE UPSHAW IS SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE. GOOD.

GENE UPSHAW

It’s pretty hard to beat up on a dead guy. It happened on Monday.

A jury ruled against the NFL Player’s Association and ordered that they pay $28.1 million to retired football players. The judgement against the NFLPA was based almost solely and entirely on the incompetence of Gene Upshaw.

Upshaw passed away earlier this year at the age of 63 from pancreatic cancer. By all accounts he was an honorable and decent man. Sadly, he may have also been the worst union head in the history of organized labor.

It’s undisputed how shabbily older former NFL players have been treated with regards to their pensions and medical care. It’s such a national disgrace that much has been written about the former players plight and congress has even held hearings on the matter.

Monday a San Francisco jury decided to penalize the NFLPA based on their shameful behavior. Former Packers and Cowboys defensive back Herb Adderly had sued the union. Adderly is 69 and played in four of the first six Super Bowls in the 1960’s. He filed his lawsuit on behalf of 2,056 retired NFL players claiming they had been cheated out of royalties and licensing money by their own union.

Adderly and his lawyer spent three weeks convincing the jury how far Upshaw and other NFLPA execs went out of their way to screw former players. As proof, Adderly’s lawyer managed to come up with a smoking gun-a memo sent from the NFLPA to the video game company EA Sports. In the letter, the union ORDERED the video game manufacturer to scramble the names on the backs of jerseys of “vintage” NFL teams. That way the union didn’t have to pay ONE CENT to former players. Instead, the union kept all of the video game royalties (over $35 million a year) for themselves and current players.

Meanwhile retired NFL players live in squalor with laughably small pensions. The NFLPA has even gone to court to testify against their own players in certain cases to argue they are NOT disabled and deserving of medical care. The NFLPA refuses to pay the medical bills of former players. They get no insurance.

Adderly played 12 seasons in the NFL and was a Hall of Famer. His NFL pension is $126.85 a month. We’re not talking about a guy who played in the ’20s, ’30s or ’40s. Adderly played through the 1970’s and PAID UNION DUES. A comparable baseball player would make between six figures an $1 million a year in pension money. Baseball and basketball players also get fully vested in card and video game licensing money PLUS receive full medical coverage.

The NFL is the only American professional sports league that goes out of its way to cheat their own players. That was mainly due to Gene Upshaw. Adderly’s lawyer begged the jury to “punish” the NFLPA. He specifically called Upshaw’s behavior a “betrayal” of former players.

Monday the jury agreed.