NFLPA Plans To Decertify By Thursday To Pre-empt Lockout

NFLPA already has obtained unanimous approval from players to decertify

Absent a "last-minute agreement that no one around football expects," the NFLPA "plans to decertify by Thursday in an effort to pre-empt an owners-generated lockout," according to sources cited by Mortensen & Schefter of ESPN.com. The NFL CBA states that the union "in effect must wait six months to decertify if it does it after" the CBA expires, which will occur at 11:59pm ET Thursday. If the union decertifies, it is "no longer a union, and the National Labor Relations Board loses its hold over the NFLPA." The owners are "expected to claim the decertification is a sham and challenge it in the NLRB." The union "already has obtained unanimous approval from players across the league to decertify, a process it undertook throughout last seas ...