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NFL Players to Seek Role in Discipline Matters as CBA Negotiations Resume

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell currently has complete control over the league's discipline policies. The players would like that to change.After a delay of more than a month, the NFL and its players will meet Tuesday for their second collective bargaining session. There are many issues to discuss as the sides work to avoid an uncapped 2010 season and a 2011 lockout of players by the owners. But according to sources close to the situation, one issue the players plan to raise during these negotiations is their desire to have some say in an NFL discipline policy currently controlled 100 percent by commissioner Roger Goodell.

FanHouse's Stephanie Stradley wrote in-depth about this issue a couple of weeks ago, and it's an issue that came up earlier this month when players union head DeMaurice Smith met with player reps from the 32 teams to plot strategy in advance of the next round of negotiations. According to a source familiar with that meeting, players are very upset over the idea of the commissioner as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the league's personal conduct policy, and have expressed to union leadership a desire to seek some changes to the system.

What the union hasn't decided, however, is what form those changes should take.

Union Chief DeMaurice Smith Addresses NFL Owners

NFL Players Union head DeMaurice Smith met with NFL owners at the league meetings in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday morning.FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- We didn't get a lot of time with new NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith as he raced from his meeting with NFL owners to catch a plane. But while he took questions in the elevator, the lobby and the Ritz-Carlton driveway, Smith reiterated his belief that the key to a successful CBA negotiation will be the NFL owners' willingness to disclose more financial information to the players.

"Can we start talking? Yes. But the first thing I would like to talk about is the process of negotiation," Smith said. "It seems to me that the right place to start is a place where the players understand why the owners opted out of the current agreement."

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