T.O. an Eagle?

[Sincere]

How can they let this crybaby get what he wants. It was his and his agents f-up. He should have to eat it. But, he goes and whines and cry's a little so he gets what he wants? BS. Just another rich a-hole athlete.

[Boris]

The fact of the matter is that courts (and arbitrators) will bend over backwards to save people from mistakes. Unfortunatly for me I've been involved with some litigation recently and T.O. is not only one who recieves special treatment.

Also, as a judge it's kind of difficult to make T.O. pay the price for his agent's mistake. Those guys have to pass a rigorous exam to become an NFL agent so the players should be able to trust them to not make these kind of mistakes. This whole mess was not T.O.'s fault and I think the arbitrator made it clear that the NFL would have hard time making T.O. eat that money.

Also, in the NFL no contracts are guaranteed so it's very important to get that big up front signing bonus.

[J.R.]

TO's contract was signed in 1999 and stipulated that he had up until the final day of the 2003 "NFL Year" to declare for free agency. This contract was reached under the collective bargaining agreement in effect in 1999 which is the legal agreement that governs union/league relations and established March 2 as the end of the "NFL Year". Pursuant to a subsuquent amendment to the collective bargaining agreement of the "NFL Year" was changed to fall earlier in the year (February 21).

The NFL argued TO's deadline to declare for free agency was the end of the NFL year as defined by the recent amendment to the collective bargaining agreement (Feb 21).

Jeffrey Kessler and the Union contended that as TO's contract was signed under the prior collective bargaining agreement his date to declare free agency was still March 2 and the recent amendment (Feb 21) was not applicable to TO's contract. However, the union did send notification to TO's agent earlier this year that TO's contract had to be amended by Feb. 21, 2004, which is the end of the NFL year according to the amendment to the collective bargaining agreement, so I found their argument before the arbiter to be a great job of trying to lawyer TO's agent out of a big mess.

This new wrinkle created a chink in the NFL's case which had appeared solid up until that point. While TO might not have won, there was an option of an appeal of the arbiter's ruling to federal court and it was fairly apparent that TO would appeal an adverse judgement. This would presumably create bad publicity as well as threaten a change to the solid working relationship the NFL has with its union.

I personally think TO negotiated his contract as a member of a union pursaunt to a collective bargaining agreement which was collectively amended by the league and the union of which TO is a member. So TO's contract should have encorporated any amendments to the collective bargaining agreement as the collective bargaining agreement governs all player contracts. But then again I grew up in Baltimore so maybe I'm biased.

I think the NFL caved in a hurried craze at the last minute after TO and the union had come up with an unexpect and plausible, if not credible legal argument that could tie the NFL up in court for a while. Bad publicity, bad for labor relations. Just like a little brat who cries until daddy buys her what she wants, TO gets to go to Philly because everybody is afraid he won't shut up until all hope is lost and then he'll moan and wail some more (even though Ray Lewis might have had soeemthing to say about that).

Will Philly make a 4th straight NFC title game? I dunno but I'd rather have to worry about that than whether Jamal Lewis stays outta jail. But at least I can look forward to watching the Ravens defense go to Philly this fall.