DeMaurice Smith

Bob Grant’s update on the retired player issues.

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I wanted to share an update to the retired players with my readers.

Bob Grant will be joining us on Monday June 4 to bring us up to date on the issues that face retired players.  Please join me in supporting our retired players.  It was on their backs and their bodies that the NFL that we all love was built.

 

Communique on Retired Player Progress

Fellow Retired Players,

Just a moment to bring you up to speed on a few recent events.

The Independent Retired Player Summit, held in Las Vegas Last week was great.  Under the new format it was the best that we have had.  The Lawyers and Doctors presenting were allowed twenty minutes to introduce themselves and then given time to conduct individual workshops.  All gave great, interesting, informative and compact presentations.  The Players and Wives were given two hours each day for forums and discussion.  If you were unable to attend I can tell you that they were fantastic.  More than a dozen of them agreed to serve on a committee to work toward Improvement and Advancement of Retired Player Affairs and encouraging ALL Retired Players, from every quarter, to do the same , … Read more at FryingPanSports

The Truth behind the NFL CBA situation.

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To understand why we now have a lockout with a union that has de-certified, we have to first look at the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

After a long struggle of bickering back and forth, negotiations came together very quickly over a single weekend. Federal Judge Doty put pressure on the league to accept a revised proposal from the union.

The deal was rushed through in a fashion that made the legal (and illegal) back room deals that got Obama Care passed in the Senate look like child’s play. Just like then Speaker Pelosi said of Obama Care, the NFL owners would have to pass the deal to find out what was in it. Just like Obama Care, there were some land mines embedded deep within the agreement.

The biggest one was that the hold back that the league got off the top of the revenue to help defray the expenses of putting on the games was a fixed amount–one billion dollars. As the revenues grew that fixed amount became a smaller and smaller percentage of total revenue. The result was that as revenues grew the players were getting far more than the 59.5% of total revenue that they were designed … Read more at FryingPanSports

Things to look for this week in College and Pro football.

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FOOTball

The Big East is a fraud. Despite the pollsters doing their best to get a BE team into the top 25, the league stinks this year. Several teams have crept into the top 25 only to lose and fall back out the next week. The current top team is Syracuse (6-2) who is tied for 28th in the AP. The league is recruiting BcS #3 TCU to join the league. TCU would love to get into an automatic qualifying conference. The BE desperately needs a team–any team– that can get into the top 25 and stay there. It also would love to have a TV presents in the Dallas market. The only problem is the BE basketball is 16 teams already and TCU does not have a strong basketball tradition.

#3 TCU @ #5 Utah – The loser is out of the Championship picture. The TCU D is #1 in most college stats and the O is 9th in scoring and 9th in rushing. The Utah D is 6th in points allowed and their O is 3rd in scoring. The key may be the difference in opponents. The only big time opponent that Utah has played was a badly over … Read more at FryingPanSports

Niblets for August 2010

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nib

Best comment of the month:

From Tena

I’m not a baseball fan, but this whole episode stinks to the high heavens. WHY in God’s name is congress (A group of liars if there ever was one) WASTING their valuable time on a baseball player who allegedly lied about taking drugs that may even kill him someday. The country is in the grip of a horrible mess caused by the inattention of politicians for the last 30 years. That boil is getting ready to burst,and here we have Congress trying to “look busy”. It’s really disgusting. It’s impossible for Congress to hold anyone in contempt, because that is the feeling that the entire country has -against THEM!…..

You must also become a reader of fryingpanpolitics.blog.com because I made EXACTLY the same argument. Well done.

Updates on previous columns:

LeBron, Gilbert, Miami and Cleveland LeBron came back to Cleveland for a bike fund raiser. He was roundly booed and expressed disgust that the city wanted to be paid to provide police protection for the riders. LeBron, if you though that was a bad welcome, wait till the Beach Boys come to play.

The NFL, NFLPA, and an 18 game season. If you … Read more at FryingPanSports

The NFL, NFLPA, and an 18 game season.

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nfl

“We’re ready for round 5 in the Goodall vs. Smith fight.”

While almost every NFL analysts was projecting a massive spending spree by the league in an uncapped year, nearly 2 years ago I told you that the NFLPA would be crying for the reinstatement of the salary cap floor because teams would use the uncapped year to dump expensive players and save money. That is exactly what happened.

More than a year ago on this site, I proposed a solution to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that involved the 18 game season. The proposal was that the current players would get paid 18/16ths of their current contracts which would increase their gross by 12.5%. It should allow the NFLPA and NFLPA Exec Dir DeMaurice Smith to give back 8% of the player’s cut of the total income from around 60% down to around 52%. If that proposal included an increase in the rosters from 53 to 60 and a rookie salary cap (to cut the amount of the pie that went to newbies and increase the pool available for the Vets) with the reinstatement of the NFL Salary cap, I believed that the NFLPA would accept it in … Read more at FryingPanSports

Sports Buffet for 08/10/10

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SptsBuf

Football

The NFL negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the owners and the NFLPA are not going well. The NFL has proposed an 18 game season but the injuries to players this preseason are hurting the chances of the Union accepting the deal.

The list of players already on the IR seems to be a lot longer than usual. The list already includes Raven DBs Walt Harris and Domonique Foxworth, Ram DL Chris Hovan, and others. Bronco LB Elvis Dumervil could be the next one on that list depending on how the operation to fix his torn muscle goes.

FPS will be reporting on preseason games and let you know which teams are looking solid and which are looking like pretenders.

Baseball

The Reds face a tough series this week against the Cardinals. The Reds lost game 1 and as of last night had their lead cut to 1 game. The Cardinals are one of the teams that have had a lot of injuries but are still very talented.

The division races have all tightened over the last couple of weeks except for the AL West where the Rangers are running away from the rest of the division. … Read more at FryingPanSports