(
)
Confusion continued to reign yesterday in the NFL’s labor battle.
One day after a federal judge appeared to end the lockout by granting the players an injunction, the league tried — unsuccessfully, in some cases — to proceed as if nothing had happened while seeking a clarification on the ruling and a stay.
U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson, whose stinging, 89-page ruling late Monday sent the owners reeling, agreed yesterday to give the league until 6 p.m. today to resubmit its request that she clarify the ramifications of her decision.
Nelson also gave the players until 10 a.m. today to respond to the owners’ request for an immediate stay of the injunction that would keep the lockout in place. The owners have vowed to go over her head and seek a stay from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals if Nelson refuses their request.
The owners also are holding out thin hope that the appeals court will overturn Nelson’s ruling entirely, although that wouldn’t happen until June or July.
About the only thing clear amid all this was … well, not much.
Citing the absence of guidance from Nelson, the NFL took the risk of angering her further by refusing to start the 2011 league year — in other words, open free agency, trade players or perform any other transactions.
The league’s lead attorney, Jeff Pash, said in a conference call yesterday that the owners don’t want to start a league year then stop it two or three days later if they get a stay from Nelson or the appeals court.
If Nelson doesn’t issue the stay, the NFL would then want clarification on what rules would govern the new league year. That would be significant, because the league operated without a salary cap last season while requiring players to have six years of experience — not four — to become unrestricted free agents.
“What we would like to avoid, I think for everyone’s benefit, is a situation where you are trying as they say to unscramble an egg,” Pash said.
But while the league stood firm in the face of Nelson’s decision to side initially with Osi Umenyiora and the nine other players suing the NFL for antitrust violation, the players did their best to force the issue. At the urging of their decertified union, players for numerous teams attempted to press the issue yesterday morning by showing up at their club’s facilities to participate in the offseason conditioning program. The reception those players got varied. Many were allowed into the building on orders from the league but barred from the weight room by the Jets and other clubs, but at least one team — the Jaguars — banned their players from the building entirely.
The Giants, on the other hand, seemed to thumb their nose at the league by giving players unfettered access to their building. They were believed to be the only team to do so.
Pash said on the conference call that the league “did not know of any club where a player came and was not permitted in.” When told that the Jaguars had turned away defensive lineman Jeremy Mincey at the door, Pash appeared caught off guard and changed the subject.
The NFL Players Association also tried to ratchet up pressure on the league by urging agents for players who are free agents to call teams in an effort to get contract talks going. Several agents told The Post that they put in calls to teams regarding free agents, but not one of those calls was returned.
“Our position is the lockout is over, free agency should begin, signings should begin, offseason workouts should begin, everything should be going on,” agent Drew Rosenhaus told The Associated Press. “The longer the NFL doesn’t do that and drags this out, the more there are concerns of collusion and violations of antitrust [law].”