And people wonder why I've been skeptical of the players in this process. I wonder if Mankins' extortion attempt will cause any ill feelings on Ross' part. We know Ireland wants Mankins, but if he becomes a free agent, will Ross let Ireland sign him? This'll be interesting.
If he stopped Ireland from signing him for that reason, he deserves a kick in the ***. Though I've heard more dumbass things before.
@judybattista Seriously, NFL and players: we're going to have a federal budget deal before we have a labor deal? The world has turned upside down.
Agreed. It would be insane if Ross prevented us from signing Mankins just over CBA animosity. But I throw that out there because Ross hasn't really demonstrated the kind of owner he is yet. This free agency period will be a big indicator, IMO. As for the tweet from Battista, there is no deal yet, so the CBA will beat the budget-less federal government.
On the issue of NFLPA recertification, people I speak to believe that could be done in a matter of hours, not days. Shouldn't be big delay Per JLC
Wasn't the NFLPA opposed to recertification? A lot of players don't want to give the owners an antitrust shield.
This will also put alot of pressure on the players, ALOT.....which is needed, all unions need to be pressured before they eventually crack..... Get ready for Ralph Wilson voting against the CBA again because "he didnt understand it"...........
Not sure but .. Confirmed: The NFLPA is holding a conference call among its player representatives at 8 p.m. e.d.t. Thursday for a possible vote (CONT) that would clear the CBA’s passage. “Honestly, I think we are close to a deal,” a source told FOXSports.com. The same source said (CONT) he didn’t believe the NFL’s demand that the NFLPA reform as a union would impede a deal from being completed. Per Alex Marvez
I am looking forward to seeing if Polk develops more. He is a good runningback. I disliked Locker's inaccuracy.
They got a WR and a TB that's pretty good, don't they? I haven't gone through any games yet so I don't recall. I've been banging my head with X's and O's a lot recently. I don't know about the QBs. I know they were going to have Nick Montana - Joe's son - there but I think he transferred to Montana. On a sidenote, you watching Derek Dooley's PC? Guy showed up late, lol. Typical Tennessee. "Witten visited us and told the players Power T stands for excellence" - Only in Tennessee.
I don't think it would be appropriate to "switch sides" based on what's happened recently. The players have been pains in the rump about this during the final 2% of the process. The owners controlled 98% of the process and put the whole damn thing on a rail headed for disaster, with illegal and unethical practices, unrealistic demands, and a lax timeline. Consider how it took over a week to come to agreement on the way the 5th year option for 1st round draft picks would be structured, and in the end the owners agreed to almost exactly what the players had already proposed. There was a period of about three or four weeks when really a deal could have been finished at any time, but the owners would decide to make a stink about an issue, break off talks for the weekend, not resume them until the middle or end of the following week, acquiesce on the issue they raised a week later, and then repeat the process, hoping that the players were feeling pressure to get the whole thing done. The stuff that the players have done that I've really objected to really only came about this last week.
Hypothetically speaking...if the lockout were to end today, when would everything start? When would FA start, trades, training camps, etc...? I'm assuming FA/trades would start the 26th. But idk.
I've heard the 25th as well but it's a misinterpretation of the Transition Rules, as I understand it. According to the Transition Rules, if everything gets voted on today then teams will immediately be allowed to contact players and hold team functions. Then on the 25th teams would be allowed to begin signing UDFAs and re-signing their own free agents. Then on the 28th is when greater free agency would start. I wouldn't count on big name free agents changing hands until the 28th. From there it'll be the fastest most furious week of transactions the NFL has ever seen.
Hmm, do not think that is how things will play out for the non Tier 1 types of Free Agents Ck, the name guys will sign a bit later, the identified/priority FA's will sign with teams quickly, but for the most part I suspect teams just are not going to throw contracts at players quickly. Nnamndi will sign for sure, for large money, but John Joseph and Josh Wilson are going to float around for awhile imo.
What I'm hoping will happen, what I think WILL happen, is that owners will conduct their vote today at 5:30pm, vote yes, and then players will follow suit tonight at 8:00pm, similarly voting yes. Then the NFL would lift the lockout as of 12:01am tonight, proceeding under the Transition Rules document, which means that teams would be free to sign UDFAs and re-sign their own free agents on July 25th. Then on July 28th begins the greater free agency.
That defensive lineman Ta'amu is a stud too. They never had a good pass protecting OL, but with Polk and that other tailback running the ball, and Kearse to throw to, and the combination of that linebacker that was drafted this year and Ta'amu on defense...it always boggled my mind when people would say that Jake Locker had absolutely nobody on his team. Jay Cutler had nobody on his team. The best player was I believe Earl Bennett, who is showing he's not really an NFL player, and was more made by Jay Cutler than the other way around. Jake Locker had players on his team. He sucked anyway.
The NFLPA has scheduled a conference call with player reps at 8 PM. No word on if there'll be a vote.
The comment isn't showing up, but I don't see what he wrote that is worth giving him a piece of your mind about. The piece he wrote in the link you just posted was 1000% right on. Florio wrote it well, and he's absolutely correct.
Florio has an unhealthy obsession with Jeff Kessler and blames him for every delay or monkey wrench thrown in the process, without a shred of on the record evidence. Kessler is to Florio as LeBron James is to Cleveland
Teams are going to open camp before the 25th under that scenario? If that's true, it would seem that if any team is holding camp (workouts) the list of players attending is going to be fairly small (compared to how many FA's are out there). I mean, if they want to have 90 players per roster during camp, they aren't going to hit that number until well hafter the 28th. Probably looking at a week to 10 days where players under contract would have an "advantage" in reporting on time.
Florio blames Kessler because he has sources telling him that Kessler is the holdup. Sal Paolantonio of ESPN has been reporting the same thing.
Kessler is just an attorney. If his clients don't want him doing something, he won't do it. It's that simple. I can't tell you how many times I've disagreed with a client on a settlement or something else, but you deal with it. He gives his counsel and recommendations. That's it.
Well, in my view, he's another guy who makes a living from the NFL and who profits off how many hits his site has per day. Since there hasn't been much else to talk about, from a monetary standpoint, he's doing the right thing LOL.
It's only possible for Kessler to be a holdup if his clients allow him to be. Notice how you haven't heard the name "Bob Batterman" in a long time. He's the big bad lawyer who convinced the NHL owners to cancel a season. Think he didn't counsel the NFL guys to do the same? Of course he did. The owners obviously haven't listened and he hasn't made a peep.
side news... Tom Moore is joining the Jets as a consultant... anyone else think Peyton is upset about this?
De Smith apparently doesn't have the balls to tell Kessler to shut up, because Kessler is the one throwing monkey wrenches into negotiations. He's the one who spent an entire session arguing that the named plaintiffs (Manning, Brady, etc) should have lifetime exemptions from the franchise tag, for example.
They've hardly spun anything as fact in the past 2 weeks, and I've read about every lockout related article. And, Rosenthal probably posts more or at least as many articles as Florio. While you to tell Florio to stop posting everything, it is his website, you could easily avoid it and therefore stop being disgruntled at him for no good reason.
I don't think that's all that unreasonable. Just because something proposed is something the owners don't like doesn't make it a "monkey wrench". Regardless, none of this will matter in the morning when we likely have a deal.
He (or actually Rosenthal I believe) only reported what the players are putting out there. Re-read his report. He cites articles written by journalists citing player sources saying that the re-certification should take two weeks. As it happens, Florio knows where that is coming from (Kessler) because he had other sources telling him before about Kessler making these nebulous claims about how long it would take to re-form the Union, with lawyers on the other side doing his work for him and explaining in detail how exactly they could re-form the union very quickly, electronically. I don't see what there is to complain about.
