Great read from @ColeKmet - so happy we have him on the squad.
“Me and this football team, we go way back.”
If you’re a @ChicagoBears fan, you’re going to want to read @ColeKmet’s letter. theplayerstribune.com/cole-k…
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Your videos are some of my favorite Bears content….keep at it and success will come. Believe in yourself and your dreams.
Great post that lays it out for us non-attorneys very well.
This feels awfully quixotic and as if we have been here before. Wait, we have been here before: Clarett v. NFL, 369 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2004).
Sorsby's lawyer calls the refusal a violation of "the CBA and the law," but the law is the problem. Two decades ago a far more gifted player made the same argument and discovered why it fails. Maurice Clarett, Ohio State's freshman sensation, sued to enter the draft before the NFL's three-season rule allowed it, calling that rule an illegal restraint of trade. He won in the district court and lost on appeal. The opinion against him was written by the future Justice Sonia Sotomayor: because the draft's eligibility rules are a product of collective bargaining, she held, the antitrust laws do not reach them. The league and the players' union may agree that a man "will not be hired or considered for employment for nearly any reason whatsoever," so long as they break no labor or anti-discrimination law. 9K bets, many of them on his own team, would seem to clear that modest bar.
After re-reading Clarett, I don't think he will like where this is going to end. The CBA gives the league sole discretion over whether to hold a supplemental draft at all, and no one can be shut out of a draft that does not exist. Nor has the union any reason to spend its capital prying one open for a nonmember who bet on his own team, least of all when seating him would cost a current member a draft pick.
The exemption that walls Sorsby out is one the players built and have defended for decades. (Ironically, Jeffrey Kessler — the gifted lawyer now fighting on Sorsby's behalf — represented the NFLPA as amicus in Clarett, defending the very exemption that now blocks his client.) This is not the law failing Sorsby. It is the law doing exactly what the players built it to do: protect their own "to the detriment of new employees and the exclusion of outsiders," as the court put it.
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Shouldn’t engage that dipshit troll - let him speak to the morons that think he was actually ever an nfl scout.
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Well said @cbefred
I’ve been thinking a lot about Stacy King over the last 24 hours, and one quote keeps coming to mind. It’s one Dave Dameshek has used for years:
“The measure of a man is how he treats people who can do him absolutely no good.”
A lot of people are great to their employees, coworkers, family members, and others who have some impact on their lives or financial well-being. But when it comes to the everyday people—the fans, the cab drivers, the beat writers, the interns, the random people who stop them in public—they can be complete jerks.
Stacy King wasn’t one of those people.
By all accounts, he treated people who could do absolutely nothing for him with kindness, respect, and genuine warmth. He took pictures. He smiled. He made people feel important. For a minute or two, he made them feel like they were the center of his universe.
That’s a far greater accomplishment than most people realize.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Stacy in person, but I do remember one night when my phone absolutely exploded. I got dozens of texts and DMs telling me that Stacy had mentioned me on the Bulls broadcast. A guy I’d never met, who certainly didn’t owe me anything, took a moment to recognize my generally positive calls w/ @WaddleandSilvy.
I was stunned.
Every single person I’ve ever known who met Stacy has told the same story: he was gracious, generous with his time, and made them feel valued.
And beyond the person he was, Stacy was a huge part of the Bulls experience for an entire generation of fans.
He was entertaining. He was funny. He was memorable.
Even when I disagreed with him—as I often did with his desire to get the ball to Vooch in the post—he always made the broadcast better. He made games more enjoyable. His calls, catchphrases, enthusiasm, and personality became part of the soundtrack of our lives as Bulls fans.
He gave us countless great memories and unforgettable moments.
Stacy King made my life, and the lives of so many Bulls fans, a little more enjoyable. That’s a remarkable legacy.
His calls will never be forgotten. And neither will he.
What a class act. What a genuinely good man. RIP Stacey.
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What temp and how long do you smoke it?
Have you ever had Trisket before? It’s a tri tip smoked like a brisket?
#bbq #brisket #trisket #backyardbbq #bbqfriend
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I was about to say the same thing….thats the worst trade in Bears history and arguably in NFL history.
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This is great analysis Nick and something the internet draftniks don’t seem to get. Thanks for sharing this information.
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Of course - your pods were a nice listen this morning! I really enjoyed how you both spent time focusing on what these new young men joining the squad can bring to the table rather than spending the entire time complaining about what the team didn’t do.
@gridironborn @arisports thanks to you both for the balanced podcast coverage of the Bears day 2 selections. I appreciate you not doing the doom & gloom routine that the internet Bears “experts” always do at this time of year.
I’m curious to hear @olin_kreutz thoughts on the pick, too long since the team invested draft capital into the anchor of the OL.
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@ChicagoBears fan twitter at draft time is so so aggravating….bunch of wanna-be keyboard Kipers out there. SMH
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