Bye Bye TO

[ice grillin you]

You want players to come out and say they want McNabb back or something?

i dont want anything...except for TO gone....mission accomplished

one day people will realize that not every post i make has a hidden agenda

[bobbyinlondon]

Owens may face road Bloch in arbitration case
 
Rob Becker / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 5 minutes ago    



Terrell Owens will never play for the Philadelphia Eagles again. And he won't play for anyone else this year.


That's because he and the players' union will be asking arbitrator Richard Bloch on Friday to stand contract law on its head and to ignore the type of behavior that was referred to in Philadelphia 229 years ago as "a long train of abuses."
There are two parts to Owens' suspension, and we need to look at them separately before getting to their combined effect — the four-game suspension without pay, and the five games remaining in the Eagles' season thereafter, during which, according to Philly coach Andy Reid, Owens will be paid his salary to stay home.

Rob Becker is Fox Sports Net's legal analyst, a litigator in New York City, and a regular contributor to FOXSports.com.

Let's take the second part first. Owens has a contract with the Eagles under which he performs services for the team and, in exchange, they pay him money. Under that contract, they owe him money as long as he is willing to render his services and he can take legal action if they don't pay him. But what they don't owe him is the opportunity to perform services for them — the obligation to perform services is the one he has to them and, in effect, during those last five games they will be waiving their right to receive his services. But as long as they will be paying him during those five games, he has nothing to complain about.

The NFL Players Association argues that under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, suspensions are limited to four games, and the Eagles are violating the CBA by suspending him for nine games. The team doesn't agree that the latter five games are a "suspension," but we need not carry over that semantic argument.

Rather, we should look at the CBA itself. Article VIII of the CBA covers "Club Discipline," and Section 1(a) of that article sets forth a "maximum discipline schedule" for various infractions. There are 13 listed, the last of which is "Conduct detrimental to Club." The first 12 simply state maximum fines. For "Conduct detrimental to Club," the schedule reads: "maximum fine of an amount equal to one week's salary and/or suspension without pay for a period not to exceed four (4) weeks."

In the context of this schedule of 13 infractions, I think it's clear that the rule for detrimental conduct is only purporting to address the limit on how big a financial penalty a team can assess a player, not how long they can keep him out of uniform. The Conduct detrimental to Club penalty only refers to "suspension without pay," and that's not surprising, because it's hard to believe that the NFL would have gone along with a rule that allows NFL players, unlike other workers, to force their employers to accept their services even if the team is not denying them their salary. Yet the union is arguing that that's what the rule means.

There is precedent for the Eagles' action anyway. Keyshawn Johnson was sent home with pay for the last six games of the 2003 season by the Buccaneers. The union tries to differentiate Johnson's case in two ways: First, they say Johnson didn't want the union to file a grievance. But the union can file a grievance even if a player doesn't want them to.


Some fans in Philly have already rendered their verdict regarding the fate of controversial receiver Terrell Owens. (Miles Kennedy / Associated Press)

Second, Gene Upshaw, Executive Director of the NFLPA, has said of the Johnson situation: "There was no suspension there. A team has the right to inactivate a player for whatever reason it wants." But surely a team's right to tell a player to stay home with pay can't depend on whether they suspend him without pay first. Yet Upshaw is saying the Eagles can't send Owens home with pay because — unlike the Johnson situation — they suspended him without pay first. So how can he say that a team can de-activate a player for whatever reason it wants? Apparently, according to Upshaw, there are limits.

But let's put Johnson aside. There is another argument that the union could make. They could say the five-game suspension with pay denies Owens the chance to earn the incentive bonuses set forth in his contract, so it really does have a financial effect on him in addition to the four games without pay. In a sense, they would be arguing that the club was breaching its contractual duty of good faith by preventing Owens from achieving the goals that would obligate them to pay him more.

I think this argument has some validity, but it won't carry the day, because the Eagles would counter that Owens was never guaranteed the chance to get to his incentive goals. They would point out that they have the right to play a different wide receiver because they think he's more skillful than Owens and therefore gives the team a better chance to win. Similarly, they can decide to play a different wide receiver because he's not disruptive and for that reason gives the team a better chance to win. If Bloch were to accept the incentive clause argument, he would be interfering with Coach Reid's right to make decisions that he believes — rightly or wrongly — to be in the Eagles' best interest as a team. And besides, Upshaw has admitted that the union can't force the Eagles to play Owens.

If the union or Owens were alleging that the Eagles were not playing Owens for the purpose of making sure he didn't achieve his incentive goals, then Bloch would surely rule for Owens with regard to the last five games, because the Eagles would be intentionally assessing a financial penalty in excess of the allowable maximum. But Jeff Kessler, the union's outside counsel, confirmed to me on Monday that even the union is not alleging that the Eagles plan to keep Owens home because they want to avoid paying him incentive bonuses.




.

[bobbyinlondon]

Part 2 to the above article:

Now let's look at the four-game suspension without pay. Rich Berthelsen, the NFLPA's general counsel, has made several arguments. First, he notes that on November 5, the day before the first game of the suspension, the Eagles stated only that Owens would be suspended for that game. Then on the day after that game, they announced the suspension without pay would be for four games.

Berthelsen has been quoted as saying: "What the Eagles did is like a judge sentencing a defendant on a Friday for a month, and then he comes back on Monday and says, 'No, let's make that four months.' "

That analogy is inapt. When the Eagles announced on that Saturday that Owens would miss the next day's game, they said his future status would be addressed the following week. Given the last-minute nature of the announcement, it's clear that they were, in effect, saying Owens would be suspended for at least one game and they'd determine the full length of the suspension after they'd had more time to think about it.

This is really like a judge initially saying, "I don't have enough time or information right now to determine whether to issue an injunction on a permanent basis, so I'll issue a temporary restraining order," and then, after having more time to look at the facts, deciding that the injunction would indeed be permanent. This is certainly nothing like double jeopardy, as the union seems to be suggesting.

Next, the NFLPA has stressed that discipline must be progressive — that the Eagles can't refrain from disciplining Owens for his previous infractions and then suddenly suspend him without pay for the full four games.

But this argument ignores the fact that the Eagles sent Owens home for a week during training camp because of his behavior. This suspension wasn't without pay for the simple reason that players aren't paid during the preseason, but it's still a first step on the road of progressive discipline.

Finally, the union will argue that the four-game suspension without pay is inconsistent with the discipline assessed to other NFL players. But, first of all, Section 3 of Article VIII of the CBA, on "Uniformity," only mandates that a disciplinary penalty assessed by a team be consistent with other penalties assessed by that team, not with penalties assessed by other teams.

And it seems safe to say that no Eagle has ever engaged in what the Declaration of Independence — in a somewhat different context — called "a long train of abuses." The cars in this train allegedly include: Owens telling Reid to shut up, Owens telling offensive coordinator Brad Childress not to speak to him unless he spoke to Childress first, and Owens saying he will not give his full effort. So it appears the Eagles are free to exercise their discretion and penalize Owens the maximum four games without pay. In the real world where you and I live, you could get fired for doing any one of those things.

But, assuming the team can suspend Owens with pay for as long as they want, what happens if the arbitrator rules the suspension without pay is too long and Owens should have been suspended without pay for, say, two games? That just means the two-game suspension without pay will be followed by a seven-game suspension with pay. All we're talking about is money. Either way, Owens stays home.

So even if the arbitrator ends up deciding four games without pay is too much, if you want to see Owens whip out a Sharpie again, you'll have to wait till next year

[Rome]

Yeah, you'd rather trust the voices in your head instead of using common sense.

more players have gone on record as wanting TO back than have in defending mcnabb...this is especially telling in that the easy thing to do would be to support mcnabb as supporting him would ingraciate oneself to the coach and FO

common sense tells me that there are many more players who are pro TO but are afraid to say so

thing is we are on the same side here...both of us depsie TO and like donovan...but you believe if you were to admit that the team is on TO's side that somehow makes you a donovan hater...when in reality it makes you honest

Except that I don't believe the "team" is on T.O.'s side.  A few vocal players have come out in support of him because they want to win at any and all costs.  Well, sorry but the Eagles as an organization don't play it that way.

They want to win, sure, but they want to win with class, dignity and as a "team."  T.O. has singlehandedly turned the concept of "team" into a motherfarging joke and Reid & Co. are doing whatever they can to erase his influence.

If Trotter and Lito want to play with Owens, fine, I don't blame them.  They can wait around until their contracts run the farg out and then follow him like sheep wherever he ends up.  The bottom line here is, it won't be in Philly.

[WEST is GOD]

There is no negative in coming back. Everyone here wants him to stay gone simply because they are tired of him. I want the team to be the best it can be. TO coming back helps the team. It's not like he can disrupt the chemistry. We haven't won without him yet.

[WEST is GOD]

Glen Macnow just said he heard that a settlement between the Eagles and TO might be made by tonight.

He said the rumor is TO would be paid for the taterskins game, not paid for the Cowboys game, be suspended for the Giants game, and then he could come back and play out the rest of the season with the team.

[PhillyGirl]

Glen Macnow just said he heard that a settlement between the Eagles and TO might be made by tonight.

He said the rumor is TO would be paid for the taterskins game, not paid for the Cowboys game, be suspended for the Giants game, and then he could come back and play out the rest of the season with the team.

YOu're farging delusional if you believe this.

[MDS]

hes never coming back. why cant you understand that. they gave his locker to spach. they took his stupid page of the website. they took his pictures down at the facility. he is gone. done. never coming back. stop.

[WEST is GOD]

Yesterday I would've agreed and I still probably do agree, but after that ESPN report where a bunch of players are lobbying for TO to come back there's still a chance. If enough people do it he'll be back because the majority always wins.

Just posting what I heard though.

[MDS]

andy is a stubborn control freak. he is not going back on his word.

[General_Failure]

Well I heard that you're leavin' (leavin')
Gonna leave me far behind (so far behind)
'Cause you found a brand new lover
You decided that I'm not your kind (aahh..)

So I pulled (I pulled) your name out (name out) of my Rolodex (oohh..)
And I tore all your pictures in two
And I burned down the malt shop where we used to go
Just because it reminds me of you (dippity dippity doo)

That's right (that's right) you ain't gonna see me cryin'
I'm glad (I'm glad) that you found somebody new
'Cause I'd rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass
Than spend one more minute with you

I guess I might seem kinda bitter
You got me feeling down in the dumps
'Cause I'm stranded all alone in the gas station of love
And I have to use the self-service pumps

Oh, so honey, let me help you with that suitcase
You ain't (you ain't) gonna break my heart in two
'Cause I'd rather get a hundred thousand paper cuts on my face
Than spend one more minute with you

I'd rather rip out my intestines with a fork
Than watch you going out with other men
I'd rather slam my fingers in a door (yah)
Again and again and again and again and again

Oh, can't you see what I'm tryin' to say, Darlin...

I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches (leeches)
Shove an icepick under a toenail or two
I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue
Than spend one more minute with you

Yes, I'd rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks
Or stick my nostrils together with crazy glue
I'd rather dive into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades
Than spend one more minute with you

I'd rather rip my heart out of my ribcage with my bare hands
and then throw it on the floor and stomp on it 'till I die
Than spend one more minute with you

[MDS]

what?

[General_Failure]

God damn kids. Learn your classic music.

[Rome]

God damn kids. Learn your classic music.

Those lyrics are "weird."

Tee hee.

[MDS]

God damn kids. Learn your classic music.

id rather smoke the marijuana like a cigarette and listen to my "fity" cent and usher.