FanHouse Demaurice Smith

DeMaurice Smith didn't get what he was hoping for Tuesday, but the head of the NFL players' union did walk away from his latest meeting with NFL owners with some good reasons to feel encouraged about the state of the negotiations.

Smith has said publicly that he's waiting for the owners to submit to the union a proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement, since it was the owners who opted out of the last one. That didn't happen Tuesday, as the only issues discussed in a five-hour meeting were "non-core" issues such as the drug policy and potential changes to the commissioner-controlled player discipline system.

But NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was actually at this meeting (he wasn't at the last one, in July), and the fact that anything at all was discussed made it the most encouraging session of the three the sides have held so far. In addition, they did resolve to meet again soon -- most likely in mid-October -- and continue Tuesday's discussions.

The NFL still hasn't given up on the idea that it will eventually be able to suspend Minnesota Vikings defensive linemen Kevin Williams and Pat Williams for violating its drug policy in the StarCaps case. There remains the chance the league will further appeal the decision by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a federal judge's decision that the players could not be suspended. But on a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon, NFL union head DeMaurice Smith said the union and the NFL have had discussions about the drug policy in light of the StarCaps case, and he thinks there's a chance this could result in changes to the policy.

"I believe there is a resolution to this matter that can be collectively bargained," Smith said. "I do not think the only solution is continued litigation."

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Over the past several months, NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith has accused NFL owners of planning to lock out players in 2011 and has publicly criticized commissioner Roger Goodell for failing to attend the last round of collective bargaining negotiations. But on the day before the next negotiating session between players and owners -- the third such session overall and the first since mid-July -- Smith struck a less combative tone and expressed hope that Tuesday's meeting would help move the sides toward an agreement.

"I'm looking forward to hopefully hearing the first proposal from the league tomorrow," Smith said Monday afternoon in a conference call. "I would like nothing more than to have a deal before we move into an uncapped year."

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- NFL players' union head DeMaurice Smith was here today to talk to brief Giants players on the state of collective bargaining negotiations with the owners. On his way out, he stopped to talk to two reporters -- one from FanHouse and one from the New York Times. And it's pretty safe to say he isn't happy about the picture that commissioner Roger Goodell painted when Goodell spoke with reporters last week.

"When they're ready to give us a proposal, and they're ready to sit down and negotiate, we'll do it," Smith said. "I've been ready to do that since the day I was elected. I was at the last negotiating meeting and he wasn't. That's not to say I didn't enjoy watching a man read a memo. But why don't we get to the point where we're actually negotiating instead of just talking in the press?"

NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced his final Michael Vick decision to a group of about 20 reporters in a conference room at the league offices in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon. FanHouse attended the session, which lasted about an hour and a half and covered a wide range of topics that began with Vick and also touched on the Cowboys' video board, the blackout/ticket-sales issues in Jacksonville, the upcoming labor negotiations and several other topics.

But the news of the day was Vick, and Goodell's explanation of his reasoning for reinstating Vick effective Week 3 was interesting. The commissioner said, as he has said before, that he's "looking for a success story" with Vick, and that the goal is to make sure the troubled QB becomes a good and productive member of society off the field moving forward. Keeping Vick out for the first two games of the regular season seemed less like a punitive measure on Goodell's part, rather than one designed to take into account the number of different things Vick has going on in his life right now.

Michael Crabtree is right and he's wrong. He's right that he should have been picked before Darrius Heyward-Bey. He's right that he's a better receiver than Heyward-Bey is, and if that's the standard you want to apply, then he's right that he should be paid more. Where he's wrong is in expecting life to be fair, and in delaying the start of his NFL career to prove a pride-based point. He got a tough break, but it's not the toughest break ever. Tenth-pick money is lots, and if Crabtree's as good as he and the rest of us think he is, he'll get the chance to prove it (and to profit from that chance).

The big-picture problem with the Crabtree situation is that it has led to renewed calls for the NFL to seek a rookie wage scale -- to push for a provision in the next collective bargaining agreement that would establish rigid and restrictive guidelines for rookie salaries based on where the players are drafted. This is an easy and simplistic solution for which to press. (Everybody can agree it seems foolish that Matthew Stafford makes more money than Tom Brady.) But the facts are that it's too easy, too simplistic and, given the current structure, totally unnecessary.

Suspended quarterback Michael Vick reportedly met Wednesday with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss what is anticipated to be a conditional reinstatement into the league, possibly as soon as next week.

One NFL source told FanHouse on Thursday that if Vick satisfies the commissioner's requirements for reinstatement, it's expected that he will receive at least a four-game suspension to start the 2009 season, but that Goodell may allow Vick to join a team in training camp.

The catch: no NFL team has expressed any interest in signing the newly-freed Vick to a contract.

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To give you a sense of the different approaches the NFL and its players' union are taking to the coming collective bargaining negotiations, ponder these two facts: On Wednesday, union chief DeMaurice Smith took 20 players -- 17 active, three retired -- with him to Capitol Hill for a full day of meetings in an effort to rally congressional leaders to their side. The day before, when the players and owners met in Washington for their second negotiating session, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasn't even there.

"I can't speak for anybody else, but you can draw your own conclusions," Baltimore Ravens cornerback and union executive committee member Domonique Foxworth told FanHouse in a Wednesday evening phone interview. "Obviously, we would prefer that the man who's in charge be there if it's a meeting where decisions could be made."

NFL owners and players met Tuesday in Washington for three hours for their second round of collective bargaining negotiations. Nothing was accomplished (the union was upset, actually, that commissioner Roger Goodell was not in attendance), and no date is set for the next round of negotiations. But just as he did the day after the first negotiating session, union chief DeMaurice Smith is heading Wednesday to Capitol Hill.

Smith will bring 17 active players from 15 different NFL teams, including Kansas City's Mike Vrabel, Tennessee's Kevin Mawae and Baltimore's Domonique Foxworth, plus three retired players with him for meetings with congressional leaders. The point of the meetings is to stay on the attack. As he first told FanHouse last month, Smith believes the owners are planning to lock out the players in 2011, and both sides are working against a March deadline after which the 2010 season would be played without a salary cap and a 2011 lockout would be more difficult to prevent. So Smith is remaining in contact with Congress because it can help him with two specific threats against the league.

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.