NEW ORLEANS—The NFL says it's willing to sit down with the decertified NFL Players Association at any time.
However, the league doesn't seem as inclined to meet NFLPA executive committee member Mike Vrabel's suggestion that the lawyers be thrown out of the room.
Specifically, the Kansas City Chiefs' linebacker wants NFL outside counsel Bob Batterman and lead negotiator Jeff Pash to not be present. They want to take face to face with NFL owners, including Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
“I think the point that Mike Vrabel made, even though it maybe wasn’t too flattering to me, was a fair one," Pash said today at the NFL owners meetings. "The people who are writing the checks and the people who are cashing the checks should be at the table together. Let’s have decision-makers at the table together.”
“Our team, including owners, including the owners who he asked for, would be prepared to meet with the union’s executive committee, Mike Vrabel and Drew Brees and Kevin Mawae and Tony Richardson and whatever other members of the executive committee they want to have there, and do that any time."
Pash said that there's very limited conversations since the mediation ended with the union decertifying, filing an antitrust lawsuit and the league locking out the players.
"It's neither cut off completely or phone conversations," Pash said. "There has been correspondence and there has been e-mail correspondence, but nothing of substance."
Following the press conference, Pash said the NFL is taking risks financially.
"We are taking risks," Pash said. "It's all well and good to project revenues. The offer we made we're taking risks. We're commiting to those player costs for the next four years. There are a lot of businesses that fell well short. There are things like recessions, oil price strikes, wars that happen that cause your revenue projections to fall well short of reality. And we were prepared to take the risk."
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