Possible Lockout in the NFL?

By Scott Daniels, Esq., NFL Draft Bible

If you haven't realized yet, the National Football League is clearly the most dominant of the four major sports in America. Ratings prove it. Revenue proves it. The circus that surrounds the Superbowl proves it.

NFL players are signing monumental contracts and teams are raking in millions with the success of the league. While baseball is attempting to weather the steroid storm, hockey is still recovering from a lockout a few years ago. And finally, the National Basketball League is more concerned about globalization than popularizing the sport in the states.

Following what has been dubbed one of the greatest Superbowl's of all time, the NFL appears to be virtually incapable of failure, even with Spygate and the intermittent presence of a few bad apples.

Well, it seems appearance can be misleading.

The NFL may be in serious trouble.

As many of you are well aware, the body of law in the NFL is the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). It's essentially a long list of bylaws agreed upon by the owners and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). It's like a constitution for professional football.

The current CBA is slated to expire in 2011. Interestingly enough, the player's association or the owners can opt out of this agreement on or before November 8, 2008. If that happens, 2009 will be a normal season and in 2010, the league will not have a salary cap.

With no working CBA in place, a lockout or player strike would be inevitable. Apparently, the owners and the players are very far apart at this point. The main dispute, as it was before the two sides came to an agreement to extend the current CBA in 2006, revolves around revenue sharing.

The owners feel that the players are receiving more than they deserve through the current revenue sharing program and some owners have began to quietly express their discern about this. In fact, Gene Upshaw, executive director of the Player's Association, is preparing for the owners to opt out of the current agreement.

The financial ramifications of a strike or lockout are huge. The National Hockey League suffered a huge decline in popularity and lost more than just money after their strike in 2004. Thousands of loyal fans simply became disinterested.

So, once again, as we've seen so many times in sports, the players and owners are at odds over dollars. With millions of dollars comes greed. Both sides will have to make concessions, or we could face the real possibility of a strike in the NFL.

THE CLIENT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

By Scott Daniels, Esq., NFL Draft Bible

Three strikes and you're out. It doesn't refer to just baseball anymore.

Washington and California created sentencing laws based on the infamous phrase. A popular game show utilized the three strike principle for years (Family Feud). The phrase has become so much more than an explanation of a baseball rule.

Fortunately for Adam "Pacman" Jones, the NFL has not enacted a "three strikes and you're out" policy. Because if they did, Jones would have been booted from the league a long time ago.

And by "a long time ago," I mean 2006, since Jones has only been in the league for two years.

Jones is staring at a potential sixth arrest since he was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2005. His lawyer probably doesn't need another client. His agent on the other hand may need to start looking.

Jones made the news once again for allegedly hitting a woman at a strip club in Nashville. The victim claimed that Jones hit her in the face following an altercation between Jones and security on January 3, 2008.

In the criminal defense world, Jones is known as the "client that keeps on giving." The man is a magnet for legal trouble. How many strikes will Jones get before the NFL has seen enough? Could this be the final straw?

In April of 2007, Jones told Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, that he would stay out of strip clubs to avoid any more altercations. Well, even if these current allegations do not hold up, the fact still remains that Jones was in a strip club. Clearly the man has little concern over his future in the NFL.

For Pacman Jones, it may be more like "Six strikes and you're out." Commissioner Goodell will surely not be pleased with this recent news. While he has yet to officially ban a player from the NFL, Jones is certainly a perfect candidate.