PFT: NFLCA chief: “I didn’t do a good job at communicating” with Redskins

[Califan007 The Constipated]

Or with the Saints, I guess lol...

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/27/nflca-chief-i-didnt-do-a-good-job-at-communicating/

NFL Coaches Association executive director Larry Kennan admits things could have been handled better before he filed his brief supporting the lifting of the lockout this week.

“I emailed all the coaches to tell them we were going to do this. However, I didn’t do a very good job of communicating with the Redskins,” Kennan told Jim Miller and Alex Marvez. on Sirius XM NFL Radio. “It kind of caught them blindsided. Before they had a chance to read the Amicus brief and see that it was strictly about being for coaches, they panicked a little bit and maybe got some outside pressure to do something.”

The Redskins strongly deny that their assistants were pressured into making a statement. The Washington Post said some assistants feared for their jobs if they were seen as being part of Kennan’s brief.

Kennan made his remarks Friday before Saints linebacker coach Joe Vitt came out strongly against the NFLCA’s brief, saying their staff sides with ownership. The Saints aren’t members of the NFLCA.

“If there were a whole bunch of teams [protesting], I’d be concerned. I’m not concerned about one,” Kennan said. “I know what happened there. They didn’t have all the facts..."

Kennan says the NFLCA isn’t taking sides. (Huh?) “We’re for coaches,” Kennan said.

Unfortunately, coaches and support staff are getting the short end of this lockout and don’t have a lot of protection.

[mossomo]

“It kind of caught them blindsided. Before they had a chance to read the Amicus brief...Kennan says the NFLCA isn’t taking sides.

That's some major spin right there. Major. From the Amicus brief itself,

The NFL - ie the OWNERS - is attempting an end-run around a unanimous Supreme Court. Just last year, an unwavering Court ruled that the NFL is fully subject to section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 (2006). Am. Needle, Inc. v. Nat’l Football League, 130 S. Ct. 2201 (2010). In seeking coercive tools to lockout the players, the NFL now comes to this Court asking for rulings that would carve loopholes into the antitrust laws and severely dilute the purpose underlying the Supreme Court’s decree. Succumbing to the NFL’s view of the law would grant the NFL teams a broad license to commit a variety of antitrust violations, rendering the Sherman Act fruitless against anticompetitive collusion the NFL might direct at nonunion employees like the NFL’s coaches.

Sure as hell sounds like the NFLCA is trying to make a case that the owners are committing antitrust violations breaking the Sherman Act. I mean hell, they end the damn thing with this: I plan to file a brief amici curiae on behalf of the NFL Coaches Association in support of the plaintiffs - ie the PLAYERS - in the above captioned case... Read that line again. Now Kennan in his own words says the NFLCA isn’t taking sides.

WTF