DeMurice Smith: They Made Us Do It

[joebabyny]

Fvck that.

The owners were making a sh*tload of money, but voided the CBA that was in place and locked the players out because it still wasn't enough. If the owners had merely been satisfied with with they had, there'd be business as usual going on right now. Their greed goes way beyond the players' greed.

D Smith and the nflpa forced the lockout by decertifying. The owners had no choice at that point otherwise there would have been a mountain of anti trust lawsuits.

The longer this goes on and the more D Smith opens his mouth, the worse it looks for the players. It seems even the media is starting to second-guess the nflpa leadership, lots of interesting things being said on sirius NFL about these comments the guy is making.

And what does smith mean by "the owners suing to not do business??" it was the nflpa who fired the first salvo in court, the owners haven't sued anyone.

And as for him declaring the owners deceptive and not acting in good faith by setting up the tv money deal a year or two ago to protect them in case of a lockout, well, the nflpa did pretty much the same thing a year or two ago setting up there lockout player fund.

Sorry, D Smith just has no real credibility to me, and he has only made it worse as this has gone on. This guy was just too quick to run to court, but looking at his resume that shouldn't be any surprise I guess

[joebabyny]

DeM in his comments, is essentially bargaining for the collective benefit of all players

I thought they decertified ?

LOL

Union decertification happens when the union members feel they are not being represented well by the union reps, in which case you would NOT see the president of that union continue to act as the mouthpiece and leader of the now union-free employees.

I can't see how any lawyer coundnt declare this as a sham.

[Bugg]

Union decertification happens when the union members feel they are not being represented well by the union reps, in which case you would NOT see the president of that union continue to act as the mouthpiece and leader of the now union-free employees.

I can't see how any lawyer coundnt declare this as a sham.

It's not a sham, merely a tactic. The unions who represent firefighters and police in NYC are by law not technically unions, merely "associations". It's the same thing,and perfectly legal.

Would agree that Smith decertifying was foolish, because negotiations to that point had gone his way, and the closer they get to a settlement, the quicker Jerry Jones, Woody, Kraft, Lurie, Mara et al tell Richardson, Brown, Wilson and Bidwill to step out and get a cup of coffee while they settle this. But the owners are the primary problem because a chunk of them simply want to make monre money and wills tupidly lose a season or part of a season to do it. In the process they are damaging their business. And that's way stupider than anything Smith has done.

[slats]

D Smith and the nflpa forced the lockout by decertifying. The owners had no choice at that point otherwise there would have been a mountain of anti trust lawsuits.

This is 100% wrong. Can't discuss much of the rest with you if you actually believe this.

The owners were planning a lockout for well over a year (and probably longer than that). The union starting making plans to decertify in an attempt to make locking them out illegal - in that if they weren't a union, the owners would be locking out individual workers. That's the whole concept behind the "sham" of decertifying: preventing the impending lockout.

The league is now in court (suing?) making sure it's workers can't come back to work, while the players collectively are trying to end the lockout.

The lockout does not help the league in anti-trust actions at all. Probably hurts them more than it helps.