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The NFL collective bargaining agreement clearly states how player negotiations must take place. Owners, general managers, and team personnel must hash out contract details with a player's agent, if they have one. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones openly admitted that he tried to negotiate directly with star linebacker Micah Parsons amid the latest contract drama. NFL insider Mike Florio is shocked that the NFL and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) haven't done anything about it.
“Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has no qualms about negotiating directly with players who are represented by agents, ignoring the letter and/or the spirit of the Collective Bargaining Agreement,” Floris writes on Pro Football Talk. “So where are the NFL and the NFL Players Association on this? The union has methods to challenge Jones’s actions. The union hasn’t. The league can take action, too. It hasn’t.”
These rules are put in place because a negotiation between a billionaire businessman and a young NFL player like Parsons is just about as fair as an Oklahoma drill between the 82-year-old Jones and the four-time Pro Bowler Parsons would be.
NFL players have business-savvy agents represent them for a reason. It's so they can focus on what they do best, football, and someone skilled in negotiation can represent them against owners and executives whose biggest skill is their business acumen.
The fact that the NFL hasn't punished Jerry Jones for flagrantly flouting the collective bargaining agreement isn't surprising. Commissioner Roger Goodell ultimately works for the owners, so he's not really in the business of biting the hand that feeds him to the tune of $64 million a year.
However, the NFLPA not going after Jones is nothing short of complete incompetence and a failure to do its biggest job, which is to protect the players from overreaching owners.
That said, it is unfortunately not surprising. The NFLPA is in turmoil now, reeling from a scandal unearthed by Florio and Pablo Torre. Former Executive Director Lloyd Howell Jr. allegedly had financial ties to the league and is now being investigated for financial mismanagement and having an undisclosed conflict of interest. This all stems from Florio and Torre's reporting on the NFL and NFLPA working together to keep a collusion settlement secret from the players and the public.
