Lost in the drip-drip-drip of news related to the NFL Players Association and executive director Lloyd Howell is the fact that, as of last week, the NFLPA exercised (belatedly) its prerogative to appeal the ruling in the collusion grievance.
So what happens next?
Article 15, Section 8 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement sets forth the procedure for appealing rulings in so-called “system” arbitrations, which include collusion grievances.
Without getting too deep into the mumbo and/or jumbo, the appeal should move a lot more quickly than the underlying grievance did. The rule contemplates a relatively quick briefing schedule, a relatively quick turnaround for a hearing, and a relatively quick turnaround for a ruling. Although the two sides can, in theory, agree among themselves to delay the process (as they did when pressing pause on the entire post-ruling process for more than five months), if the NFLPA wants to move this along, it will.
The problem becomes transparency. Or the lack of it. The NFL and NFLPA already hid two grievance rulings from the media and, in turn, the fans. So, don’t expect updates as to the status of the appeal process or the eventual ruling or even if there ever was a ruling.
They still could settle the appeal. We’ve heard that the NFL previously offered to surrender its claim (weak, in our view) for more than $12 million in attorneys’ fees and costs in exchange for a waiver of the NFLPA’s appeal rights. If the union should agree to that (it shouldn’t), we may never find out.
Or what if some other concession is made by the league? Could the NFL persuade the NFLPA to walk away from the appeal?
The NFL would be wise to try. The CBA provides no amount of deference for the ruling made by the system arbitrator. With a three-person panel handling the appeal, it could be as simple as two of the three members of the panel reviewing the evidence and reading the briefs and concluding that, despite the denial from the owners that they colluded as to guaranteed money, the finding that the league’s Management Council (with the blessing of the Commissioner) urged the owners to collude coupled with the circumstantial evidence of actual collusion that they DID indeed collude.
If two of the three members of the appeals panel come to that conclusion, the NFL would lose. And then the question would become how much would the league have to pay?
It’s possible that the case would then be sent back to the system arbitrator for further proceedings on the issue of damages. And if it ever got to that, the NFLPA would have the NFL by the tail. And the legs. And the balls.