Rams open offseason, Jeff Fisher says some CBA guidelines make no sense

Posted by Michael David Smith on April 2, 2012, 7:42 AM EDT

As a team with a new head coach, the Rams are allowed to begin their offseason plan today. That new head coach, Jeff Fisher, says he doesn’t agree with the rules that have prevented him from getting his new players to work sooner.

Fisher mentioned final month that he worries the rules of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement could stunt the growth of quarterback Sam Bradford. Fisher mentioned he doesn’t see why Bradford couldn’t have been in the team’s facilities operating more than the final two months, if he had wanted to.

“If a quarterback wants to come in the building in February and March and sit down and look at the earlier year or watch [tape] cut-ups with the coordinator or get in the [playbook], I just feel like he ought to be allowed to do that,” Fisher said, by way of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Not forced to go do that. But it doesn’t make sense to me that you can’t have your quarterback in the building and undertaking issues until April when this is a quarterback driven league and we have difficulties as it is building young quarterbacks. So I hope that they’d think about that.”

The problem, nevertheless, is that even if a player isn’t “forced to do that,” coaches have usually utilized the threat of getting cut to compel players to participate in technically “voluntary” offseason activities. The union wanted to guarantee players some actual time off throughout the offseason, and the only way to do that was to close the facilities totally. The owners agreed to do that in the course of CBA negotiations, and now it’s the rule.

And Fisher says he’s nevertheless confident that Bradford will create in the Rams’ offense.

“I feel we have to be patient,” Fisher said. “This is going to be his offensive technique hopefully for a lengthy period of time.”

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From time to time, teams have been punished for violating the terms of the offseason workout rules.  Typically, the offending team loses a week of workouts.

Under the proposed labor deal adopted by the league (but not yet by the players, if you haven’t heard), it’ll cost more than a week of practice time.

The summary obtained by Howard Balzer of the Sports Xchange and 101espn.com shows that coaches would be fined $ 100,000 for a first offense, and $ 250,000 for a second offense.  Teams will be fined $ 250,000 for a first offense, and $ 500,000 for a second offense.

That’s a total fine of $ 350,000 for a first offense, and $ 750,000 for a second offense.

And that’s a significant deterrence for any coach or team that decides to skirt these new rules, if/when they are adopted.

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We’ve heard some rough estimates that unrestricted free of charge agency could begin by Monday July 25, with teams able to re-sign their own players starting on Friday. That timeline sounds a small aggressive.

Judy Battista of the New York Times that a “labor seminar” for league executives will be held Thursday and Friday, should a labor agreement be ratified Thursday.  They will go over all the new rules.  It’s hard to imagine transactions allowed that day or even the next day.

Battista and ESPN’s Adam Schefter noted that a memo was sent out to all 32 teams Monday detailing plans for the week. Teams had been asked to bring up to 4 key personnel members per club to the meeting in addition to owners.   Agents will also have to be briefed.

It sounds like the rough timeline we wrote about when the “Transition Rules” were reported by ESPN are fundamentally still expected.

This all assumes a deal is truly accomplished by Thursday and we’re not prepared to pop any champagne just yet.

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Former Browns center LeCharles Bentley will be allowed to continue his lawsuit against the Browns in a county court following a choice this week by the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals.

The Browns tried to argue that the suit was related to the collectiv bargaining agreement and that state and federal laws support arbitration over litigation.  The appeals court disagreed, upholding a previous County judge ruling.

Bentley is arguing that the Browns persuaded him to rehab at their unsanitary facility, which helped cause him to get staph infection and several surgeries to fix the problem.  Bentley’s attorney said his client nearly died.

Former Browns receiver Joe Jurevicius settled a similar lawsuit against the team final year.

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Five weeks ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard oral arguments on regardless of whether Judge Susan Nelson’s decision to end the lockout should be upheld or overturned.  At the end of the hearing, Judge Kermit Bye urged the parties to function out a resolution, hinting that neither side would like the ruling.

Throughout the past five weeks, it appeared that the Eighth Circuit was holding the ruling unless and until the negotiations fizzled out.  Given that the Eighth Circuit had agreed to expedite all aspects of the appeal, the ongoing delay seemed to confirm that suspicion.

But the clock finally has run out.  The Eighth Circuit has posted at its website a 34-page decision that strikes down Judge Nelson’s choice and makes it possible for the lockout to continue.

Specifically, the Eighth Circuit ruled that the Norris-LaGuardia Act prevents courts from issuing orders that end strikes or lockouts.  Judge Bye, to no surprise, disagreed with the ruling.

Even though it appears to be a huge win for the NFL, it wasn’t unexpected.  And it is far from the total win the NFL wanted at this stage.  As to the critically important question of whether the nonstatutory labor exemption survives the decertification of the NFLPA, the Eighth Circuit made no ruling — which indicates that even though the lockout can continue, a chance remains that the lockout later will be found to be illegal, exposing the NFL to a potential verdict of $ 12 billion or far more if the 2011 season is lost.

We feared all along that the Eighth Circuit would issue a ruling that significantly modifications the dynamics of the situation as the parties had been close to resolving the situation.  And there’s a chance that the parties will require to tap the brakes and evaluate the ruling prior to continuing to speak.

In the end, they ought to agree that the ruling changes absolutely nothing.  As expected, the lockout might continue.  As expected, the players have the capability to pursue a gargantuan verdict if the lockout wipes out typical-season games.

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There’s an assumption in some circles that, if/when a new labor deal is reached, the free of charge-agency will open when the clock strikes 12 to begin the next day.  The reality, however, is that the teams will need to have time to read and to understand the new rules that will apply to the acquisition and retention of players.  Teams also will need time to digest the salary cap rules, for the purposes of forming a budget for signing players.

As one source explained it earlier right now, the NFL possibly will make a decision to call a league meeting on an expedited basis for the purposes of explaining the nuances of the new CBA.

Thus, roughly a week could be necessary to prepare for the launch of free of charge agency.  Based on our prediction that an agreement in principle will be announced on Thursday, June 30, no cost agency would then start at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, July 8.

With all fourth-year, fifth-year, and sixth-year players having expired contracts likely eligible for unrestricted free agency (except for those restricted by the franchise tag) and with an anticipated requirement that teams spend money in the amount of 90 percent of the salary cap, there could be record spending and activity once football officially returns.

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We’ve observed somewhere these days a suggestion that the renewed talks between the NFL and the NFLPA* will continue until the Eighth Circuit issues a ruling on the appeal of Judge Nelson’s order lifting the lockout, and that soon after the ruling the shift in the leverage will help nail down a final deal.

That’s precisely what shouldn’t happen.

On multiple occasions, the NFL has said that it desires the next labor deal to be fair to both sides, so that neither the owners nor the players will really feel compelled in two or three years to pull the plug and take a stand.  The very best way to craft a win-win agreement comes not right after 1 side “wins” this vital phase of the legal proceedings, but before.

If they wait until there’s a clear winner and a clear loser on the question of whether the lockout will be lifted (and, despite Judge Kermit Bye’s admonition that neither side will like the ruling, there likely will be a clear winner and a clear loser), a win-win outcome will occur only if the clear winner decides to be uncharacteristically magnanimous.  So the time to do a lasting deal is now, before the Eighth Circuit rules.

Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com mentioned on Twitter earlier these days that “multiple sources” tell him a deal “could” be reached before the Eighth Circuit rules.  Without having question, it should be.

And to the extent that everyone fears the two sides are playing beat the clock, with a game-changing ruling from the Eighth Circuit springing up just as the parties close in on an accord, it’s safe to assume that the folks in St. Louis will be keeping tabs on the mediation procedure that has been coordinated by Judge Nelson.  The court program usually prefers the parties discovering their own justice to imposing justice upon them, specially in high-profile instances like this one.

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It is understood that rookies have a lot to lose during the lockout, with lower round rookies and undrafted free agents likely producing it tougher to make NFL rosters.

Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports asked Commissioner Roger Goodell if the league would consider expanding NFL rosters after the lockout in order to help out coaches that want to keep their draft picks.

The Commish sounded open to the notion in the course of his comments to the media Wednesday.

“I do believe that the uncertainty is some thing we’ll have to contemplate as it relates to finding players ready to play,” Goodell stated. “One, from an injury standpoint, and two, from making the proper evaluations.  We have talked about different concepts depending on how lengthy it goes, that we may have to implement.”

That answer is yet another reminder that the end of the lockout, whenever it ends, won’t end the exclusive circumstances of 2011. The league is going to look a little diverse when it returns, particularly in the short term.

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