NFL asks judge to keep lockout in place

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MINNEAPOLIS -- The NFL asked a federal judge Monday to keep its lockout in place, saying there

are no legal grounds to stop it while accusing the players of trying to manipulate the law

with a bogus antitrust lawsuit.
The NFL filed its arguments in federal court in St. Paul, Minn., where U.S. District Judge

Susan Richard Nelson has scheduled an April 6 hearing on the players' bid to stop the lockout.
The NFL said any decision on a lockout should wait until the National Labor Relations Board

rules on an unfair labor practice charge against the now-dissolved players' union that

contends the players failed to negotiate in good faith. The charge, filed Feb. 14, was amended

on March 11 to include reference to the union's decertification.The NLRB said the case is

still under investigation and had no further comment.cheap nike air max shoes
The legal salvo is just the latest in the fight between the league and players, who failed to

forge a new collective bargaining agreement on March 11. That same day, Tom Brady, Drew Brees,

Peyton Manning and six other current NFL players filed the antitrust suit and injunction

request in federal court here, and the NFL owners locked out the players, putting the 2011

season in jeopardy.
The NFL made three main points in Monday's filing. It said the injunction issue shouldn't be

in federal court at all, the decertification of the union was a sham and the players' claim of

"irreparable harm" has no merit.
Stopping the lockout, the NFL argued, would open all 32 teams up to additional antitrust

claims even for working together to solve the labor fight. Antitrust claims carry triple

damages for any harm proven, meaning hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
In arguing that Congress has barred judges from halting lockouts, the league cited the Norris

-LaGuardia Act -- Depression-era legislation passed with the intent of limiting employers'

ability to crack down on unions, including their ability to seek court orders halting strikes.

The NFL contends the law also protects an employer's right to impose a lockout in a labor

dispute.
The league said the NFLPA dissolved eight hours before the labor agreement expired simply to

avoid a six-month delay in filing its multimillion-dollar antitrust lawsuit -- a delay spelled

out in the CBA.Nike air Shox Shoes outlet
Decertification, the league says, proved the players did not want to negotiate in good faith

and is a step used whenever it serves the union's purposes at the bargaining table.
The 57-page court filing includes statements from the players themselves that the league says

backs its argument.
"We decertified so that we could fight them from locking us out and go back to work," Jeff

Saturday, the NFLPA vice president, said the day after the March 11 decertification, according"He was a good baseball player and everyone admired his hitting ability," juror No. 94 said,

adding that would not cause the defendant to be treated differently. The woman was not

selected.
Illston estimated the trial will take about four weeks.
When juror No. 94 said she had a trip scheduled to start April 25, Illston checked her

calendar, looked up and said, in a somewhat surprised voice, "Well, you know, so do I."

to the court filing. "And we feel like ... we can still negotiate this anytime you

want."According to the filing, NFLPA president Kevin Mawae said in a Sept. 29 interview that

decertification was an "ace in our sleeve" that worked in the late 1980s in favor of the

players.
"It's been a part of the union strategy since I've been in the league," Mawae said.
The league also cited comments from Baltimore Ravens receiver Derrick Mason nine days before

the union was dissolved.
"So are we a union? Per se, no. But we're still going to act as if we are one," Mason, an

NFLPA player representative, said on March 2, according to the court filing.
The NFLPA did not respond specifically to Monday's filing, but spokesman George Atallah said:

"The NFL's actions don't match their words. They say they want a fair deal, but instead they

locked out the players and now are trying to preserve that lockout through litigation."
The league, meanwhile, accused the union of an illegal "heads I win, tails you lose" strategy,

claiming the players want the NFL subject to antitrust claims "if it ceases or refuses to

continue football operations" yet also "subject to antitrust liability if it does not" in a

"flip of a switch" approach.
The players' antitrust suit -- forever to be known as Brady et al vs. National Football League

et al -- attacked the league's policies on rookie salaries and free-agent restrictions such as

franchise-player tags.
Peter Ruocco, the NFL's senior vice president of labor relations, wrote rebuttals to those

contentions as part of Monday's court filing.
He argued that franchise tags are lucrative options for players, noting that Manning signed a

multiyear contract worth nearly $100 million after being designated a franchise player in

2004.discount Nike Air Force shoes
As for the league-wide limit on rookie salaries, in which teams are permitted a certain pool

to spend on players they draft, Ruocco noted that rookies last season, as a whole, signed

contracts totaling $658.9 million in guarantees.
Ruocco also wrote that missing offseason workouts does not do "irreparable harm" to players,

as they allege of the lockout. He noted that players work out on their own regardless.
NFL players would "undoubtedly argue" that free agency should begin promptly if the lockout

were to be lifted, Ruocco added. That, he said, would create "considerable uncertainty" about

the rights and abilities of teams wishing to re-sign their players and have a "detrimental

effect" on the league's competitive balance.
That scenario would be "difficult, if not impossible, to unscramble the egg and return those

players" to their original teams if the NFL were to win this case.