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Leagues and Governing Bodies

Suspensions come with no cap relief

The NFL has no plan to grant salary cap relief to teams whose players are suspended with pay under the new personal code of conduct policy that the league unveiled last week, NFL general counsel Jeff Pash said.

The new policy immediately sidelines with pay players who are charged with a violent crime, or who are suspected in one after an investigation by the NFL. Pash, speaking after briefing reporters on the policy, did not rule out team cap relief down the line but said the subject is not under discussion. That means if a team is at or near the salary cap and a player is sidelined, that team likely will be unable to spend to replace him.

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A player’s time on what is called the commissioner’s exempt list does count toward the time needed to reach free agency, Pash said. However, many players receive significant bonuses for time on the field and performance, so it is unclear how the league would deal with those considerations if a player is sidelined and then later exonerated.

Pash, in remarks to reporters, along with NFL consultant Lisa Friel, a former sex crimes prosecutor whom the league retained this fall, emphasized that leave with pay is a standard corporate America policy to deal with an employee charged with a crime. However, with an NFL player’s short shelf life, and the bonus structure of many NFL contracts, it’s not exactly a matching comparison to desk jockeys and executives in corporate America.

UNION RESPONDS: Suffice to say, the NFL Players Association is not pleased with the new policy, with the latest skirmish between management and labor now fully engaged. As of late last week, the union had not said what, if any, action it would take in response to the NFL’s policy unveiling, though those actions could include a National Labor Relations Board grievance, an arbitration grievance or a federal lawsuit.

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The key issue for the NFLPA is its contention that changes to the conduct policy must be part of collective bargaining. (The union also wants a player pulled from the field only after a criminal conviction, not a charge.) So while the league, among the array of information it passed out to media last week, listed 47 organizations that the NFL heard from in forming the policy, only one of those, the NFLPA, does the league have contractual obligations to.

Pash’s contention is the CBA already grants the commissioner the power to execute the personal conduct policy, and the league’s plan to hire a new disciplinary officer falls under that discretion. The NFLPA clearly does not buy that and said the new policy would compel players to testify against their interests as part of a beefed-up investigative unit. That group will look into allegations before the criminal justice system finishes its process, a key element of the new policy.

“Only the NFL would make an argument that they supersede the U.S. Constitution and threaten to punish someone for exercising a Constitutional right,” wrote NFLPA spokesman George Atallah via email. “That is hubris personified.”

Pash, at the news conference, said Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination apply only to criminal cases. “I’m not aware of any workplace … where someone who is believed to have violated a workplace policy can refuse to participate in an investigation on Fifth Amendment grounds,” he said.

L.A., PLAYOFFS AND THE SALARY CAP: The six-hour meeting was dominated by player conduct talk. Of 19 questions asked of Pash and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the closing news conference, only three dealt with other matters. Two were on the league’s long quest to return to Los Angeles. On that subject, Goodell is not too hopeful. Asked about a solution to return by 2015, he responded, “I can’t identify one right now.” He also was asked about possibly expanding the playoffs in 2015, to which Goodell responded that the issue is likely to be brought up more fully at the league’s March meeting.

The league at this meeting also approved a small ownership transfer within the family holding company that owns the New York Jets, and NFL Media executive Brian Rolapp updated owners on TV ratings, which continue to rise.
In addition, the annual December meeting is the meeting when clubs get initial salary cap estimates for the next season. The cap, now at $133 million, is projected to rise to about $141 million next year. However, these figures are often prone to rise. A new CBS Thursday night deal would likely cause a bump, and in the past, teams after the December meeting revise their revenue figures higher. Some of the cap is based on what local revenue teams earned the previous year.

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