Burress wins grievance against Giants

[Titanico]

The Giants may have released Plaxico Burress on Friday, but they’ll still be paying the troubled wideout some of the money owed to him from a $35 million contract signed prior to the start of the 2008 season.

According to various reports, the Newark Star-Ledger says a judge has ruled in Burress’ favor in a dispute over $1 million of a $4.25 million signing bonus.

More from the note at NFL.com (http://blogs.nfl.com/2009/04/06/report-burress-wins-grievance-against-giants/)

[Sect309Fan]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d80fa20db&template=with-video-with-comments&confirm=true

The NFL, in a statement released by league spokesman Greg Aiello, disagreed with the ruling, saying it incorrectly interprets the league's collective bargaining agreement. Both players' contracts state that a portion of their bonuses would be repaid "if the player was unable to perform due to his own misconduct," the statement said.

The league said the ruling "underscores a serious flaw in the current system."

"It continues an unfortunate trend of permitting players who are suspended due to serious misconduct to nonetheless retain large bonus payments from their NFL teams," the statement said. "To permit players in these circumstances to retain the entirety of their bonus, representing millions of dollars, is unfair to both the clubs and other players, especially under the current salary-cap system."

The league has no plans to appeal, Aiello said.

New NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith also responded to the decision.

"This decision is a real win for the players. It means that clubs can't impose additional discipline by claiming back signing or roster bonus monies after a suspension, either by a club or the league. The CBA clause they argued from in this case was not intended to apply to suspensions, but instead to cases where a player is holding out from training camp or otherwise refusing to perform. We are very pleased that Mr. Burbank agreed with our position."

Berthelsen said Burbank's decision is in line with the agreement the union negotiated with the league in 2006.

"Our point in the CBA extension is there's no forfeiture of money already paid to the player," Berthelsen said. "A player is subject to forfeiture by some act or conduct. So you have to behave yourself in order to keep the guarantee."

Berthelsen said the only time a team can withhold money earned is if a player withholds his services.

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This is pretty interesting. "Misconduct" is interpreted as "holding out" and not "criminal charge" according to these rulings. When they come up with a new CBA, I am not sure that the NFL will be able to change this, even if they do think it is flawed. The NFL is going to have a hard enough time gaining a rookie salary cap and other items that they will likley have to let this issue go.

[Yvette]

It's going to be very interesting watching the new CBA unfold. Hopefully it doesn't disintegrate in the process!