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.

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

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.

The NFLPA’s web-site has a brief article on the trial verdict under the heading “Miscarriage of Justice”!  It quotes Kessler saying that the verdict will not stand on appeal.  This is the same legal prophet who said “The jury will find in our favor” (WRONG!)   “The court will throw the case out on summary judgment”(WRONG!)

Gentlemen, a miscarriage of justice would be to let this joker continue to fritter away union money on any further legal proceedings!  Judge Alsup did a great job in keeping the case on track, frequently chastising attorneys from both sides if they wander off track or out of bounds.  This verdict was rendered by a carefully chosen jury – how much did the NFLPA pay for a “jury consultant?  These 10 jurors, from various walks of life, came to a UNANIMOUS verdict. 

The NFLPA needs to clean house – including their outside counsel, who thinks his position is a license to print money!  Kessler’s grandmother “If she were here” (as he said in the closing argument) would be appalled!   

By Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

A federal jury stunned the NFLPA yesterday by awarding a class of retired players $28.1M for not marketing them and not representing their best interests. The jury found the union guilty on both contract and fiduciary duty breach, but awarded no damages for the contractual violation and $7.1M for the fiduciary duty breach. The jury also awarded $21M of punitive damages. In arguing to no avail to the jury, the NFLPA contended that awarding punitive damages would hurt the group’s chances in its labor struggle with the league’s owners.

“We are obviously not pleased with any award of damages, but we believe that we have solid legal grounds to get this award overturned through post-trial motions and/or on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Richard Berthelsen, the NFLPA’s acting interim Dir, said in a statement on the union’s Web site.

NFLPA WHACKED FOR $7.1 MILLION VERDICT

Having been in Boston the last 10 days, I returned home to read a letter regarding a gag order. In compliance with his instructions, I have deleted all posts. 

John Hannah