WASHINGTON -- The NFL and NFL Players Association are down to the details in finalizing a 10-year labor agreement to end a lockout that has lasted four months.
Negotiators started work early Sunday morning after very productive talks Saturday, according to sources involved in negotiations. After some of last week's turbulence, the NFLPA put its 13-man executive committee and 32 player representatives on standby for Monday, depending on the progress made over the weekend. Late Saturday night, after the day's progress in talks, the trade association put plans in place for the executive committee to travel to Washington and meet Monday.
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During Monday's meeting, the executive committee members will look over the potential deal, according to sources. Assuming the committee recommends approval of the deal, it would be passed on to the player reps for a vote, likely done by conference call. An affirmative vote there would pass the deal to the 10 named plaintiffs in the Brady et al v. National Football League et al case for approval.
NFL Network insider Jason La Canfora reported the NFLPA continues to seek certain language which, while complicated, could result in the ability to achieve certain opt-out options deep into the 10-year deal.
On Saturday, the parties used personal phone calls, email communication and conference calls to regain some momentum that was lost Thursday. They continued driving toward a resolution that could save the four full weeks of preseason games, with the Hall of Fame Game already canceled. They addressed topics such as workers' compensation, injury protection in contracts, a potential opt-out clause in the deal and, most pointedly, the potential timeline for the reforming of the NFLPA as a union.
In addition, the NFL's labor committee, which has negotiated with the NFLPA's executive committee throughout, held a Saturday afternoon conference call to discuss the remaining issues.
Two votes, neither of which amounted to a deal, have taken place. On Wednesday, the NFLPA empowered its executive committee, lawyers and executive director, DeMaurice Smith, to work out a deal, so long as certain conditions were met. On Thursday, the NFL passed a comprehensive proposal 31-0, but that rankled scores of players who believed the league had framed it as a deal to put pressure on the other side.
It seems as if cooler heads have prevailed. Smith and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell have been in constant contact since the players and owners last met face to face, on July 15 in New York, and spoke just before the owners took that vote Thursday.
And even before talks Saturday, another problem was evaporating.
Earlier in the day, it was learned that the league no longer needed to worry about placating the named plaintiffs in the Brady antitrust lawsuit. Requests for concessions for numerous players -- including but not limited to San Diego Chargers wide receiver Vincent Jackson and New England Patriots guardLogan Mankins -- loomed earlier in the week. But Jackson and Mankins dropped their demands for $10 million to settle the suit against the league, leaving fewer obstacles to a new collective bargaining agreement that would end the lockout, which started March 12.
The form in which post-recertification issues would be attacked was discussed Saturday. From a legal standpoint, topics such as benefits (including drug testing) and player discipline cannot be negotiated until after the NFLPA reforms as a union. The idea, for now, is that the parties will pick up talks on those subjects where they left off in March, when the NFLPA still was a union and negotiations were held at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington.
And that topic -- the actual reformation of the union -- has been a hot one over the past few days. The players have concerns over how a hastened recertification process would affect their ability to act legally in any future labor disputes, particularly if the league did choose to assert that a future decertification was a "sham," as it did earlier this year.
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Eventually, all 1,900 players would have to take a majority vote to approve returning the NFLPA to union status. When talks broke down in March, allowing the old CBA to expire, the players dissolved the union, turning the NFLPA into a trade association. That's what allowed the players to sue the owners in federal court under antitrust law.
The major economic framework for a 10-year deal was worked out a week ago. That included how the $9 billion-plus in annual league revenues will be divided (about 53 percent to owners and 47 percent to players over the next decade; the old CBA resulted in nearly a 50-50 split); a per-club cap of about $120 million for salary and bonuses in 2011 -- and at least that in 2012 and 2013 -- plus about $22 million in benefits; a salary system to rein in spending on first-round draft picks; and unrestricted free agency for most players after four seasons.
Goodell and team owners expressed hope Thursday night that their 31-0 vote -- the Oakland Raiders abstained -- to approve the proposed CBA would lead to a speedy resolution to the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987. They called it an equitable deal that improves player safety and allows the sport to prosper even more.
"It is time to get back to football," Goodell said.
NFL Network insider Jason La Canfora and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
