Good News! Jeffrey Kessler is trying to sabotage the talks again

[mb6592]

Re: Good New! Jeffrey Kessler is trying to sabotage the talks again

If I felt I was wrong in any way, I would admit it. If I wasn't man enough to admit it, I'd be a lawyer

I fixed it for you.

 

[Joker]

Schefter's report of Smith admonishing Kessler in the media as an innoculous remark.

you know, I can actually SEE Schefter writing innoculous and subsequently defending the spelling to the bitter end...I wouldn't believe this moron if he told me the sun was coming up this morning....the only real "report" Schefter has EVER made is the one that echoes inside his empty cranium after yet another facepalm on air.

 

[ausbacker]

Seems like as good as time as any to let everyone know I'm drinking a very nice cup of tea.

 

[Deus Irae]

Tea sounds good, but I've already got a drink, so I'll settle for passing on an update:

While saying he was optimistic because the two sides were continuing to negotiate, Smith painted a different picture than that of a collective bargaining agreement being reached as soon as this weekend.

Smith began the call by informing players — 50 Pro Bowlers were given call-in information but the number who participated is unknown — that recent reports by certain news outlets were way off. That is why Smith wanted to tell players they still haven’t gotten a good enough offer from the owners to bring to them just yet.

NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith to players: No agreement in near future - NFL News | FOX Sports on MSN

 

[NEPats1]

the reality, as we’ll explain in a separate post, is that the parties aren’t close. as you might imagine, each side has a version as to why the two sides aren’t close. The players’ version is set forth above. Before i call it a night, i’ll share what i think is the owners’ version at this point.

noooooooooooooo

 

[NEPats1]

Is De Smith willing to do a deal? | ProFootballTalk

Florio calls out De Smith...long read but worth it...thoughts?

 

[NEPats1]

btw I've seen his name referenced a lot, why is Marvin Miller so infamous?

 

[NEPats1]

Florio warned us about Kessler for months:

February:

Source: Some in union think Kessler wants to force a lockout | ProFootballTalk

March:

Our take: Jeffrey Kessler currently has a conflict of interest | ProFootballTalk


He's bad news and I hope Smith wises up and tells him to "stand down" again!

 

[ausbacker]

Florio warned us about Kessler for months:

February:

Source: Some in union think Kessler wants to force a lockout | ProFootballTalk

March:

Our take: Jeffrey Kessler currently has a conflict of interest | ProFootballTalk


He's bad news and I hope Smith wises up and tells him to "stand down" again!

I know it seems like a bizarre question to ask but if the NFLPA and DeMaurice Smith are unhappy with Dewey & LeBoeuf why don't they actively seek alternative representation?

 

[NEPats1]

Ausbacker, thats a good question but I have no idea.

I have to say, after reading Freemans take on the situation, I officially have no idea what's going on, but I must say this is extremely fascinating:

Sports - CBSSports.com Sports News, Fantasy Scores, Sports Video


^^ I think everyone should take some time and read this article

 

[dhamz]

I know it seems like a bizarre question to ask but if the NFLPA and DeMaurice Smith are unhappy with Dewey & LeBoeuf why don't they actively seek alternative representation?

The likely answer is they are not unhappy with their lawyers.

Kessler and company have played their role. They implemented the litigate before we negotiate any givebacks strategy Smith got elected on. That stratgey was planned for 2 years and had it been successful would have meant playing under the old rules the players loved and negotiating from a position of power.

With the short term legal victory the NFLPA had hoped for now seemingly a lost cause, Kessler is back playing the same role he has played in the NFLPA (and NBAPA) for years. He is the ideologue standing in the background reminding the owners that if you don't deal with a more reasonable man like Smith, Upshaw, Billy Hunter, etc then you deal with the guy who doesn't care if the game closes down for years to get what he wants. Kessler also provides cover for Smith and Hunter publicly and with their players. Those guys need a public profile and to win elections from their players, he doesn't.

When this is settled, you will read about how Smith stood up to the hard liners and made a deal for the players and fans. This narrative has already started with leaks to Florio, the NFL's biggest rumor monger and the comical Adam Shefter story staring De "Stand Down" Smith as John Wayne. Smith will be re-elected by the players in 2012 and Kessler will remain as counsel for the NFLPA with Smith's thanks for doing his job exactly as they wanted him to.

 

[ausbacker]

The likely answer is they are not unhappy with their lawyers.

Kessler and company have played their role. They implemented the litigate before we negotiate any givebacks strategy Smith got elected on. That stratgey was planned for 2 years and had it been successful would have meant playing under the old rules the players loved and negotiating from a position of power.

With the short term legal victory the NFLPA had hoped for now seemingly a lost cause, Kessler is back playing the same role he has played in the NFLPA (and NBAPA) for years. He is the ideologue standing in the background reminding the owners that if you don't deal with a more reasonable man like Smith, Upshaw, Billy Hunter, etc then you deal with the guy who doesn't care if the game closes down for years to get what he wants. Kessler also provides cover for Smith and Hunter publicly and with their players. Those guys need a public profile and to win elections from their players, he doesn't.

When this is settled, you will read about how Smith stood up to the hard liners and made a deal for the players and fans. This narrative has already started with leaks to Florio, the NFL's biggest rumor monger and the comical Adam Shefter story staring De "Stand Down" Smith as John Wayne. Smith will be re-elected by the players in 2012 and Kessler will remain as counsel for the NFLPA with Smith's thanks for doing his job exactly as they wanted him to.

Nice post not withstanding that was the roll around point dhamz. This all seems to be one contrived strategy, one which would have been in play some time ago.

 

[Rob0729]

Florio puts out a pretty good case supported by "news" of unnammed sources to support that Kessler and Quinn and possibly Smith himself are trying to derail the process to get the players on board to ride the antitrust case to its completion. He supports his claim with "facts" like the players arguing for special concessions for named plantiffs in the antitrust case (previous reports are that they are looking for a lifetime exemption from the franchise tag for Manning, Brady, Brees, Mankins, and all the other named plantiffs) and demanding the players get 48% of all sales tax collected from ticket sales.

The interesting thing about the 48% of sales tax story, Florio says his source is someone from the PLAYERS' SIDE. That means it has to be true because I can't see any advantage for the players to leak a false story like this. As Florio points out, it is just a time waster to ask for 48% of revenues collected that the owners give 100% of to the government.

Another issue relates to the contours of “total revenue,” of which the players reportedly would receive 48 cents. The players, we’re told by players-side sources, want the sales tax on tickets to be included with the “total revenue” figure.

As Florio points out, if the deal isn't done in two weeks, the whole climate for getting a deal done will change. If Kessler's gameplan is to force the antitrust case to go through (which I firmly believe it is), he is going the right course to derail the process by fighting over stupid issues and slow the process down.

Just like "news" of the owners slowing the process down, there is now "news" of the players arguing stupid and quite frankly selfish issues to slow down the process (In fairness, the owners' issues are most likely at least selfish, but we do not know the specifics they are fighting over or even if they are since Florio implies in article he placed last night that his sources for the owners slowing down the process comes from the players' side). Special treatment of named plantiffs and revenue sharing of sales tax should not even be on the table.

Is De Smith willing to do a deal? | ProFootballTalk

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Ausbacker, thats a good question but I have no idea.

I have to say, after reading Freemans take on the situation, I officially have no idea what's going on, but I must say this is extremely fascinating:

Sports - CBSSports.com Sports News, Fantasy Scores, Sports Video


^^ I think everyone should take some time and read this article

Bingo. This is all about the aftermath of the deal. Power and influence and spin control. This isn't about the game of football, no matter how much the fans and most players want it to be. It's always been about the business of football and the egos and aspirations of those actually sitting at the table (and a few people with considerable influence standing just out of earshot by court mandate like high power agent Tom Condon who used to sit a Gene's right and weilded as much influence as Kessler did from his left or Rich McKay who hoped he'd one day be commissioner) beyond the field of play. The framework of a deal is within spitting distance, now it's all about who can spit further...and how prepared they are to deal with the criticism that will follow any deal not because it is necessarily good or bad but because it surely could have been better had the critics been at that table...

The deal will be done when the top ten personalities at the table are comfortable and ready to face the aftermath of getting it done.

 

[BlueThunder]

I think the lawyers are playing Russian roulette with a semi-loaded gun and only ONE empty chamber which is pointed at the NFLPA's head, not theirs....the lawyers have nothing to lose and everything to gain with no agreement....

Fans will be P*SSED royally if the season is cut short or not played at all....the revenues lost on BOTH sides will never be recovered....

Let's hope both sides recognize this and are closer to agreeing than Florio or others think....

JMHO

 

[lamafist]

Re: Good New! Jeffrey Kessler is trying to sabotage the talks again

Forget Florio. He isn't the only one making comments about Kessler and his long history of being a roadblock to get a deal. Rich Eisen has said the same thing that back in the day, Upshaw had to keep him on a leash because he was pushing for a free market NFL through the courts. Daniel Kaplan from Sports Business Journal has echoed similiar sentiments. I have heard people on Sirius NFL radio repeatly say it.

Florio is just one voice of many. He does focus on Kessler a lot because he is genuinely one of the bad guys in this. He is not the only bad guy and there are bad guys on the owner's side as well. He has an agenda and unfortunately his agenda could destroy the NFL. The owners have their own agendas and many of them have negative impacts towards the NFL. But no one has a worse agenda and up until the Florio report today no one has been reported to be more disruptive in the meetings (along with Quinn).

I've read some of what Kaplan and Eisen have to say about Kessler, and it's not even in the same ballpark as the stuff Florio spews. Kaplan actually seems to find some of Kessler's ideas interesting, and, without endorsing them, helps explain some of the business logic behind even the more radical ones like an NFL where every player is a free agent after every year. Eisen is wary of the guy, it would seem, but still, I haven't heard anything from him that even remotely resembles the conspiracy-theory-level stuff Florio's saying about the guy.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

One has to wonder how DaBuinz made it onto DI's ignore list?

DI is a closet Canuks fan?

 

[lamafist]

Florio puts out a pretty good case supported by "news" of unnammed sources to support that Kessler and Quinn and possibly Smith himself are trying to derail the process to get the players on board to ride the antitrust case to its completion. He supports his claim with "facts" like the players arguing for special concessions for named plantiffs in the antitrust case (previous reports are that they are looking for a lifetime exemption from the franchise tag for Manning, Brady, Brees, Mankins, and all the other named plantiffs) and demanding the players get 48% of all sales tax collected from ticket sales.

The interesting thing about the 48% of sales tax story, Florio says his source is someone from the PLAYERS' SIDE. That means it has to be true because I can't see any advantage for the players to leak a false story like this. As Florio points out, it is just a time waster to ask for 48% of revenues collected that the owners give 100% of to the government.


As Florio points out, if the deal isn't done in two weeks, the whole climate for getting a deal done will change. If Kessler's gameplan is to force the antitrust case to go through (which I firmly believe it is), he is going the right course to derail the process by fighting over stupid issues and slow the process down.

Just like "news" of the owners slowing the process down, there is now "news" of the players arguing stupid and quite frankly selfish issues to slow down the process (In fairness, the owners' issues are most likely at least selfish, but we do not know the specifics they are fighting over or even if they are since Florio implies in article he placed last night that his sources for the owners slowing down the process comes from the players' side). Special treatment of named plantiffs and revenue sharing of sales tax should not even be on the table.

Is De Smith willing to do a deal? | ProFootballTalk

Yeah, there are some interesting facts and some interesting news to be picked out of Florio's ramblings, but the overall narrative he's trying to spin it into is just crazy-talk, with all this "The owners believe, we believe,..." stuff.

How does he get from the fact that sales tax and specific concessions for the named plaintiffs being brought to the table, to Kessler trying to kill the deal so that he can play Russian roulette with his career + and reputation along with the livelihoods of his clients? I just don't see anything in what Florio is actually reporting that supports what he's trying to make out of it.

As for the talk about the sales tax and the revenue split -- I don't know how serious a push the players' counsel is making for this, or whether it's just something introduced to get something equally unlikely from the owners' side taken off the table with it. That said, Florio's off-the-cuff dismissal of the idea isn't sound. By Florio's logic, the players could argue that the taxes they pay on their wages shouldn't count towards the salary cap/floor.

Not saying I think the players should make this a big sticking point, just that it can't be disregarded as readily as Florio would like.

 

[Deus Irae]

So, has anyone figured out how trying to keep the named plaintiffs from getting hit with the franchise tag is somehow torpedoing everything when that's what happened the last time this all went down?

 

[Rob0729]

Yeah, there are some interesting facts and some interesting news to be picked out of Florio's ramblings, but the overall narrative he's trying to spin it into is just crazy-talk, with all this "The owners believe, we believe,..." stuff.

How does he get from the fact that sales tax and specific concessions for the named plaintiffs being brought to the table, to Kessler trying to kill the deal so that he can play Russian roulette with his career + and reputation along with the livelihoods of his clients? I just don't see anything in what Florio is actually reporting that supports what he's trying to make out of it.

As for the talk about the sales tax and the revenue split -- I don't know how serious a push the players' counsel is making for this, or whether it's just something introduced to get something equally unlikely from the owners' side taken off the table with it. That said, Florio's off-the-cuff dismissal of the idea isn't sound. By Florio's logic, the players could argue that the taxes they pay on their wages shouldn't count towards the salary cap/floor.

Not saying I think the players should make this a big sticking point, just that it can't be disregarded as readily as Florio would like.

But the story of the owners holding things up and the deal would have been done if not because of the owners is the same thing as this article. Just the other side of the argument. Either you dismiss both stories or you accept both stories.

I agree that most of it is opinion, but there are some nuggets in there to support the opinions. It does make sense though since Kessler is pushing for a free market NFL.

As I said both sides are probably making selfish demands. I have said both sides have been roadblocks in getting a deal done. I just think most people on both sides want a deal, but want it on their terms. I think Kessler wants a court decision.