Giants' Mara: 'Time to get back to football'

Giants president and co-owner John Mara, who has been heavily involved in negotiations aimed at resolving the league's thorny labor problems, urged the two sides to get back to the bargaining table and end the litigation that he believes threatens the league's future.

"NFL fans are not hearing much about football these days. Instead, they are hearing about litigation, mediation, the lockout, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, injunctions, appeals, and stays," Mara wrote in the article posted on both Giants.com and NFL.com. "Fortunately, there is time to get back on track. We need to resolve our differences with the players at the bargaining table, start the 2011 season on time, and set a positive course for the future of our great game."

Mara said the NFL's 2006 collective bargaining agreement was "not balanced" and needed to be re-jiggered to reflect the economic realities of today's economy and league revenues. "A fair adjustment must be negotiated in a new CBA," he wrote.

Mara said that the owners were willing to commit almost "$20 billion to player costs over the next four years with a 14 percent increase from 2011 to 2014. We addressed other important player concerns in our March 11 offer. It was made in an effort to continue negotiations and reach agreement. Instead, the NFL Players Association walked away from mediation. It put a litigation strategy in play and filed a lawsuit declaring virtually all league rules relating to player employment as being violations of antitrust law."

Mara said that the NFL Players Association attorneys, Jim Quinn and Jeffrey Kessler, threatened the league's future with the antitrust lawsuit that was filed against the league in March.

“There’s nothing good at the bargaining table,” said NFLPA lawyer Jim Quinn at the April 6 Minnesotadistrict court hearing. “We did it for 2 ½ years. It didn’t work out.

"The NFLPA’s other key outside litigator, Jeff Kessler, said at a conference on March 30 that the NFL Draft is illegal and does not promote competitive balance. In his vision, NFL clubs would have to come up with a system on their own and defend it against inevitable antitrust attacks. 'We have every reason to believe that if they are forced to impose a system, it is not going to be one that complies with the antitrust laws,' Mr. Kessler said."

Mara believes that the attorneys "want to wipe away fundamental elements of the NFL’s appeal to fans, including the draft, the Salary Cap, ‘franchise player’ designation, ‘transition player’ designation, and/or other player restrictions,” according to their lawsuit.

"This strategy is no doubt designed to gain economic leverage in negotiations. But it has delayed the process of reaching an agreement and, more importantly, it threatens players, teams, and fans with very negative consequences. Without a CBA, we could be forced, as Mr. Kessler says, to come up with our own system that we think complies with antitrust law, knowing that each and every aspect of it is potentially the subject of years of litigation and uncertainty."

Mara said the potential outcome of a system imposed by the NFL without a CBA could lead to a "haves" and "have-nots" situation for players.

"The likely changes would be great for NFLPA lawyers, but not for players, teams, or, most importantly, fans," he wrote. "For example, there could be no league-wide minimum player salaries, with many players making less than they do today, or no minimum team player costs, with many clubs cutting payrolls the way some teams do in other sports. Other bedrock components of the NFL’s competitiveness, such as the draft, would be called into question and assailed as antitrust violations. A steroid testing program is a must, so we would have to consider an independent administrator such as WADA. There could be varying player benefit plans from team to team, and limits on the ability to enforce other league-wide rules that benefit players, especially rank-and-file players that do not go to the Pro Bowl."

Mara said that even a settlement of the current lawsuit could be challenged by other players.

"We could end up with an unregulated system in which a disproportionate amount of money goes to “stars” and where teams in small markets struggle for survival," he said. "The very concept of a league with 32 competitive teams would be rendered virtually inoperable."

Mara then recalled his experience as a labor attorney with the New York City law firm Shea and Gould, and noted how he had become convinced of the effectiveness of negotiations. "Collective bargaining works," he wrote. "Both sides in a labor negotiation have rights under law that guides the parties to compromise and agreement. I observed how it played out in the NFL when my father, Wellington Mara, led the NFL’s labor committee decades ago. The NFL’s goal then and now was never a work stoppage. We locked out the players this year only after they walked away from negotiations and sued. A strike or lockout is a last resort to force a resolution. Our end-game has always been a balanced collective bargaining agreement that helps us grow and improve the game. The solution lies at the bargaining table."

Mara concluded: "The current ball of confusion needs to become a football season, pronto; the kind of football season that NFL fans have grown to love and that has made our sport so popular."