Judge lifts NFL ban

Associated Press

Minneapolis

After seven weeks of bitter back and forth, failed talks and growing uncertainty about the 2011 season, a federal judge has ordered an immediate end to the NFL lockout.

But there are many hurdles to clear and questions to answer before pro football is actually back on track.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson gave the players an early victory Monday in their fight with the owners over how to divide the $9 billion business, granting their injunction request to lift the lockout.

The fate of next season, however, remained in limbo: The NFL responded by filing a notice of appeal questioning whether Nelson exceeded her jurisdiction, seeking relief from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. Hours later, the league filed a motion for an expedited stay, meaning it wants Nelson to put her ruling on hold to let the appeals process play out.

What happens in the next few days is murky, too.

Will players burst through the weight room doors at team facilities and start studying their playbooks? Or will they keep to the mostly individual routines they’ve developed since the start of the NFL’s first work stoppage since 1987?

“We’re in a ’Wild West’ right now. Football is back to business, but guess what? There’s no rules. There’s a lot of positive to that, but there’s also a lot of negatives,” said linebacker Ben Leber, one of the 10 plaintiffs in the still-pending antitrust lawsuit filed against the league when the union broke up last month.

DeMaurice Smith said on ESPN that the players’ organization — now a trade association and not a union — planned to give players “guidance” about what to do.

“I told my guys if they are under contract, they are allowed to go into the facility tomorrow to work out, get treatment and watch film,” Oakland Raiders tight end Zach Miller said.

Smith said players were eager to resume court-ordered mediation to resolve the fight.

“My hope is really is that there’s somebody on the other side who loves football as much as our players and fans do,” he said.

Nelson’s ruling was a stern rebuke of the NFL’s case, hardly a surprise given the court’s history with the league and her pattern of questioning during a hearing here three weeks ago in St. Paul, Minn.

In a room packed with lawyers, players and league officials, Nelson politely but persistently questioned NFL lawyer David Boies about his repeated argument that she shouldn’t have jurisdiction over a labor dispute with an unfair negotiation charge against the players pending with the National Labor Relations Board.

In her ruling, Nelson rejected that contention. She recognized the NFL Players Association’s decision to “de-unionize” as legitimate because it has “serious consequences” for the players.

Nelson even referenced her colleague, U.S. District Judge David Doty, who has frequently ruled for the players in the past. Not only did she declare that players are likely to suffer harm by the lockout, a legal requirement for granting the injunction, Nelson wrote that they’re already feeling the hurt now.

If the injunction is upheld, the NFL must resume business in some fashion.

It could invoke the 2010 rules for free agency, meaning players would need six seasons of service before becoming unrestricted free agents; previously, it was four years. The requirement for restricted free agents would be four years. There also was no salary cap in 2010, meaning teams could spend as much — or as little — as they wanted.