With the expected merger between Fourth and Goal and the NFL Alumni, it appears that our services will no longer be needed. I want to thank all those who were so gracious in the support and best wishes. The fight is not over so please visit www.fourthandgoalunites.com for additional information.

CRITICISM OF KESSLER MOUNTS

Posted by Mike Florio on November 13, 2008, 11:10 a.m. EST

As NFL players continue to stew in the aftermath of a verdict that threatens to take $28.1 million from the players’ union, more and more league insiders are criticizing NFLPA outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler.

In addition to calling the verdict a “miscarriage of justice” and virtually guaranteeing a victory on appeal (after previously predicting a win at trial), Kessler has said that the verdict will hurt the relationship between the current players and retired players.

“If you’re an active player, you have to look at this and say, ‘We try to help and this is what happens to us?’”

Or maybe, Jeff, if you’re an active player, you have to look at this and say, “You know, I’m going to be a retired player at some point, too, and I hope that the folks running the union don’t treat me the way they treated those other guys.”

Either way, there’s a belief in some circles that Kessler should just zip it.

Said one league insider:  “Kessler needs to shut the f–k up.  He needs to spend less time spinning a horrific result and more time explaining how fighting a lawsuit against retired NFL players was in the best interests of current NFL players.  If this outcome was a possibility, then there had better be a memo somewhere explaining the risks attendant to litigation.”

“Kessler has two gears,” the source continued, “shrill and whine.  A punitive damage award [of three times the compensatory damages] means the jury did not like the lawyer or his case.  Kessler got his head handed to him.  ‘Miscarriage of justice’ my ass.”

As we mentioned on Wednesday night, the folks who currently run the union (and even though Kessler isn’t a union employee, his law firm is surgically attached to the NFLPA teat) surely don’t want the players to rise up and elect an Executive Director who’ll hold current leadership responsible for this outcome, sever ties with the likes of Kessler, and demand that former players receive better treatment going forward.

Said the lead lawyer for the class of retired players of the late Gene Upshaw, a retired player who made millions per year in his position as Executive Director:  “Gene was very rarely held accountable for how he treated retired players, and this jury held him accountable.”

We think that Kessler, who was the primary outside counsel for much of Upshaw’s tenure, should now be held accountable as well.  We have a feeling that plenty of players agree; if they do, they need to make their opinions known.

Divided N.F.L. Union Could Use a Baseball Lesson

November 13, 2008

Sports of The Times

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Florham Park, N.J.

N.F.L. players were jolted in August by the unexpected death of Gene Upshaw, their union leader. Upshaw, 63, had served as executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association for more than two decades and was the only leader many players ever knew.

At a time when no collective bargaining agreement is in place and the league is increasingly ruling players with an iron fist, the need for an aggressive advocate like baseball’s Donald Fehr is more pronounced than ever. Fehr does not have a cozy relationship with major league baseball owners, who respect him, though they may not like him. They think twice about taking on his membership. You cannot say the same for the N.F.L. Players Association.

The need for enlightened leadership was underscored Monday when a jury in San Francisco found in favor of more than 2,000 retired N.F.L. players in a class-action lawsuit. They were awarded $28.1 million, including $21 million in punitive damages against Players Inc., the union’s marketing arm. Upshaw served as chairman of Players Inc.

The trial underlined that Upshaw’s relationship with the commissioner’s office was too close. The union never pushed hard for the kind of security that guaranteed contracts offered to professional basketball and baseball players.

E-mail messages showed that Players Inc. instructed EA Sport, the video-game maker, to distort the likenesses of retired players so Players Inc. could avoid paying royalties to those players. Players Inc. received $25 million a year from EA Sport.

Why would Players Inc. shortchange retired players?

“As you know, these guys lived pretty high on the hog,” Ronald S. Katz, the lead lawyer for the retired players along with Peter Parcher, said Tuesday during a telephone interview. “They paid themselves exorbitant salaries. There were a lot of golf tournaments, Super Bowl parties. That’s where the money went to.”

Katz said that the centerpiece of Players Inc.’s case was that “the players were worthless.”

“That was disproven by the fact that there’s 143 vintage teams in the EA game,” he said. “But instead of accepting that fact and paying our clients, they scrambled their identities so that they wouldn’t have to be paid.”

The verdict confirmed what many retired players had suspected all along.

•

Whomever the players select in March to replace Upshaw, the new executive director’s priority must be a reconciliation between active and retired players. The players must make their association whole again.

“This is probably the most important election we’ve ever had as an organization,” the Jets’ Tony Richardson, a 14-year veteran, said Wednesday. He is a player representative and member of the union’s executive committee. “This next person is going to be taking us through a transition period. We’re going to ask a lot of this next person.”

Three weeks ago, the members of the executive committee of the players union met in Washington. The topic of a round-table discussion was the characteristics they were looking for in the next executive director.

“The No. 1 thing that kept coming up time and time again was leadership,” Richardson said. “The locker room is so different, and it’s a different day from what it was 20, 30 years ago. You have so many people from different backgrounds: white, black, Latino — single family. You have to be able to talk to each player individually and reach each player at his own level. The next person has to be a person who can sit down and reach all 53 guys and be able to give them a message.”

That really is the only one wise way to pick the next leader.

While the ultimate decision will be made by the 32 player reps, each one should invite the final three candidates to address players at training facilities to answer questions, outline a platform, discuss the pressing issues.

The major challenge for the next executive director is bridging the divide between past and present players.

This bizarre and artificial division became more pronounced about three years ago after Upshaw declared that he answered to and was responsible for only active players.

“Over the years I have seen that division, where it looks like some retired players feel we don’t care about them,” Richardson said. “The next person should be a person who can bring retired players and first- and second-year players together and make them understand that we’ve all put on the cleats, we’ve all been through training camp, we’ve all worked hard to get to this point.

“This is a huge fraternity. I’m one play away, or one or two years away from being in that same category. I will be a retired player, and I do understand their fight, I do understand their arguments.”

Predictably, the players association fell back on this generational divide on Monday when assessing what the verdict meant to active players.

Jeffrey L. Kessler, who represented the union, said, “If you’re an active player, you have to look at this and say, ‘We try to help, and this is what happens to us?’ ”

There is no “us,” there is no “them” — just a universe of football players, old and young, who have given broken bones and blood to the growth of a multibillion-dollar industry that undervalues all of them.

Upshaw and his associates did an admirable job of fighting for the membership, gaining free agency and a larger share of revenue. There came a point, however, when they hijacked the union and, in the face of increasing complaints by retired players, turned young against old.

Now players have an opportunity to reunite.