NFL

DeMaurice Smith, NFL Players Take Case to Congress -- Again

Posted Jul 15, 2009 7:28PM By Dan Graziano (RSS feed)

Filed Under: FanHouse Exclusive, NFL Analysis

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To give you a sense of the different approaches the NFL and its players' union are taking to the coming collective bargaining negotiations, ponder these two facts: On Wednesday, union chief DeMaurice Smith took 20 players -- 17 active, three retired -- with him to Capitol Hill for a full day of meetings in an effort to rally congressional leaders to their side. The day before, when the players and owners met in Washington for their second negotiating session, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasn't even there.

"I can't speak for anybody else, but you can draw your own conclusions," Baltimore Ravens cornerback and union executive committee member Domonique Foxworth told FanHouse in a Wednesday evening phone interview. "Obviously, we would prefer that the man who's in charge be there if it's a meeting where decisions could be made."

Foxworth, who went with Smith to Capitol Hill on June 4, the day after the first negotiating session, was one of the 20 players who spent their day meeting with people like Nancy Pelosi, Arlen Specter and Herb Kohl in Senate and House office buildings. The players believe the owners are planning to lock them out in 2011, and they're hoping that the threat of congressional interest in a deeper look at team finances can move the process along.

"I think it's just education," Foxworth said about the purpose of the meetings. "I think it's important to educate as many people as possible. These powerful people need to know where we stand and how it will affect the players, the retired players and the actual citizens in their communities if there's no NFL football in 2011."

Smith told FanHouse in an interview last month that he believes the owners are planning to lock the players out in 2011. The union believes the teams would actually profit during a lockout, since their TV contracts pay off even if there are no games and they would save on the overhead costs associated with paying players and opening their stadiums. So he's been very public about his efforts to make sure the union's message gets out there. That message is basically that it was the owners, not the players, who opted out of the current CBA claiming financial hardship and now won't offer up the audited financial statements that would serve as proof of the financial difficulties they claim they're enduring.

Since the NFL enjoys an exemption from antitrust laws as well as federally protected tax-exempt status as a non-profit trade association, the union's hope is that congressional pressure and threats against those protections can be a way of getting the league and the owners to negotiate seriously and soon. If no new deal is reached by March, the 2010 season would be played without a salary cap and a 2011 lockout would be even more difficult to avoid.

Foxworth said he didn't want to go into detail about what went on in closed-door meetings in Capitol Hill offices, but he did say the players found the congressional leaders very supportive of their cause.

"I can't put into words how supportive they were," Foxworth said. "Arlen Specter said on camera that he wants to be a help to us, and since he said that with two big ESPN cameras in front of him, I feel okay revealing that much. But everybody was very supportive."

Foxworth admits that the union and the league are on different timetables in terms of the urgency to get a deal done. The players feel that they need to act now to avoid a lockout two years from now. The union is urging players to save large portions of their salaries so they have some on which to fall back in the event of a lockout. And the trip to the Hill on Wednesday underscores the urgency to which they don't mind admitting.

"I think our activity shows how important it is to us and how significant it is to us to get out in front of this," Foxworth said. "Obviously, our intention isn't to upset anybody but just to raise awareness of what's going on. The NFL has grown to the point where a lot of people are depending on us being on the field and those games being played."

Tags: arlen+specter, demaurice+smith, domonique+foxworth, nancy+pelosi, roger+goodell

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