National Football League

CBA may nullify NFLPA's claim

Published May. 23, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

Alex Marvez

If the NFL Players Association has its way, that union and the NFL will soon resume their wrangling in court.

The NFLPA filed a complaint against the NFL in a Minnesota district court on Wednesday alleging that the league colluded to maintain a covert salary cap during what was intended as an uncapped season in 2010 — the final year of the prior Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The complaint has no bearing on the 10-year labor pact that both sides agreed upon last summer after the NFLPA filed a lawsuit (Brady v. NFL) following the league’s player lockout. That means there is no threat of games or an entire season being canceled like in 2011.

However, there would be a major financial impact upon team owners should the NFLPA’s complaint be proven true in a trial that the union is seeking. The union wants at least $1 billion in damages for lost player salaries in 2010.

The NFLPA claims that NFL owners had a private understanding to maintain a $123 million salary cap in 2010 when spending should have remained unfettered.

Two teams — Washington ($36 million) and Dallas ($10 million) — were recently hit with cap penalties for the 2012 and 2013 seasons because of contract practices that the league claimed “created an unacceptable risk to future competitive balance, particularly in light of the relatively modest salary cap growth projected for the new (Collective Bargaining Agreement’s) early years.”

The penalties against the Redskins and Cowboys were upheld on appeal Tuesday by an arbitrator.

An NFL statement in response to Wednesday’s filing asserts that there “was no collusion, no agreement,” and the claims are “totally unfounded.”

“'The claims have absolutely no merit and we fully expect them to be dismissed,” the league’s statement said.

The NFLPA strongly disagrees.

“The NFL, when we negotiated (the CBA), admitted there was no salary cap in 2010 and any behavior by teams would have been entirely lawful and proper,” NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler said. “They gave us no clue about any mythical salary cap. We only learned about that after the agreement was signed.”

Kessler admits the NFLPA agreed to allow the NFL to penalize the Redskins and Cowboys when signing the new CBA. Kessler, though, said the NFLPA did so without knowing about the alleged collusion. That awareness, the complaint states, came after media comments about the Redskins’ and Cowboys’ penalties were made by NFL officials.

Kessler also claims the union was forced to make concessions “to get other cap benefits for the players around the league.”

“Basically, we were forced to agree to it,” said Kessler, who was one of the NFLPA’s top negotiators in labor talks. “But at no time did the league indicate a secret agreement, cap or collusion to put the union in an entirely different frame of mind … All I can tell you is we trusted the league at its word.”

The NFL contends that a clause in the new CBA prevents the NFLPA from having this kind of complaint heard in court.

“On multiple occasions, the players and their representatives specifically dismissed all claims, known or unknown, whether pending or not, regarding alleged violations of the 2006 CBA and the related settlement agreement,” the NFL’s statement said. “We continue to look forward to focusing on the future of the game rather than grievances of a prior era that have already been resolved.”

Kessler said that dismissal provision was not accepted by the District Court in Minnesota, which had jurisdiction over legal challenges made under the previous CBA. That would potentially open the door for this latest legal challenge.

“The NFL already gets special treatment from our government being the entity it is,” NFLPA executive George Atallah said. “It’s disappointing when we have to be the ones to stand up and point out when they’ve broken the rules.”

The complaint adds to the strong acrimony that exists between the NFL and NFLPA. The two sides have butted heads on numerous issues since the new CBA was signed in July 2011. Among the most notable are punishments in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, human growth hormone testing and the NFL’s recent passage of a rule that would force players to begin wearing thigh and knee pads beginning with the 2013 season.