Falcons president played a key role in lockout negotiations - Ingles

As part of the NFL’s negotiating team, Falcons president Rich McKay played a major role in restoring labor peace.

If someone dusted the collective bargaining agreement for fingerprints, McKay’s would be all over the documents.
“Of all of the club executives, Rich had the most sustained and substantial involvement,” said Jeff Pash, the NFL’s general counsel. “We had a lot of club people who were involved in many phases of our planning, but Rich had the most direct ongoing involvement in the negotiations.”

McKay was in Minnesota when Judge Susan Nelson made her ruling to lift the lockout in late April. He was at the table during court-ordered mediation. Of course, he was in Atlanta when the owners approved the agreement.

Over the course of the lockout, McKay couldn’t remember all of the cities where talks were held during the 132 days the nation was without football. He recalled stops in Minnesota, Boston, Baltimore, New York and Chicago. The roving national talks were by design.

“You needed to have some one-on-ones,” said McKay, while sitting in his office over looking the practice fields Saturday. “You needed to have a relaxed atmosphere where you could talk through some issues.”

Both sides were secretive about the talks to keep the $9 billion empire from suffering major financial losses.

“We needed to do it in a way where there weren’t media lights outside to see if smoke was going to come out of the tower,” said McKay, who credits commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith with creating the setting for the talks to thrive.

McKay is the chairman of the league’s powerful competition committee, but he also serves on the management council’s 10-member executive committee.

The league’s plan was to strike a deal in March before the last collective bargaining agreement expired. But when that effort failed, the owners instituted the lockout March 11. At midnight, the NFLPA decertified and filed an antitrust lawsuit, and that legal maneuver stalled negotiations.

“Anytime that you are caught up in litigation, it’s not the lawyers’ fault, but it becomes a ‘wait and see what happens in this next ruling’ deal,” McKay said. “As you are waiting, you are not working and are not getting anything accomplished. That’s when the frustration grows.”

After the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the validity of the lockout July 8, the negotiations picked up some major steam.

“Ultimately, the players wanted to drive the transaction and wanted to do the deal,” McKay said. “Once we got the light switch to go back on, we made a lot of progress.”

The owners approved the labor deal in a 31-0 vote at a hotel near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on July 22. After initially balking, all 32 player representatives approved the deal July 25. The agreement currently is going through the ratification process.

McKay was heavily involved in creating the new rookie salary system and with some of the practice rules. He hopes that the NFLPA will be open to tinkering with the rules going forward if the coaches find them too restrictive in terms of less contact and no two-a-day practices.

The owners initially wanted a wage scale, where a player received a pre-determined amount of money based on where he was selected in the draft. That would have eliminated the need for agents for the rookies. The players would not accept a wage scale.

The system that was approved started to take shape at the scouting combine in Indianapolis. Each team has a certain pool of money for their rookies, and some matters are still negotiable.

“Our objective was not to take money out of the system for the owners’ benefit,” McKay said. “It was rather to re-distribute it to the veterans and go to more of a proven player system.”

Also, the owners would have more cost certainty.

“We can make a re-distribution of a large sum of money to veteran players,” McKay said.

Rookies such as the Falcons’ Julio Jones, who signed a four-year contract worth $16.2 million after being selected sixth in the draft, will benefit down the road. Russell Okung, who was taken with the No. 6 pick in the 2010 draft by Seattle, signed a six-year contract that was worth $48.5 million, with $30 million guaranteed.

McKay and Falcons owner Arthur Blank believe that serving on NFL committees is part of their duty. Blank serves on five and chairs two. The objective is to make the game better and to help grow the business.

“You try to take your team hat off and put your league hat on,” McKay said.

Blank was apprised of McKay’s contributions.

“He did a fabulous job,” Blank said. “I think Rich basically gave up his summer to support the NFL and support the process.”

The league likely will continue to tap into its teams’ front offices for expertise.

“To have Rich available on site as things are being negotiated, with him in fact being one of the negotiators, takes it to the next level,” said Peter Ruocco, the NFL’s senior vice president of labor relations. “It’s very important. It’s something that we will always do in the future.” This article was written by Orlando Ledbetter and appeared in The Atlanta Journal Constitution.