The NFLPA will be filing a non-injury grievance for Eric Reid against the Bengals and other parties, according to Mike Florio of PFT (Twitter links). Reid recently filed a collusion grievance against the NFL for blackballing him for his participation in anthem protests and the union is officially entering the ring in support. 
The Bengals find themselves in Reid’s crosshairs after asking him whether he plans to demonstrate during the anthem. Reid and the NFLPA believe that to be an inappropriate – and perhaps illicit – pre-employment question. The NFLPA also has filed a broader “system arbitration” based on the argument that teams are ignoring the absence of a league rule that mandates standing during the anthem, Florio hears.
Here is the complete statement from NFLPA, confirming the news:
The NFLPA has filed a non-injury grievance and a system arbitrator case on behalf of free agent safety Eric Reid. Prior to the start of the current NFL off-season, our Union directed the agents of free agent players who had participated in peaceful on-field demonstrations to collect, memorialize and report any relevant information about potential violations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement by teams. These cases were filed based upon the following:
– There is no League rule that prohibits players from demonstrating during the national anthem.
– The NFL has made it clear both publicly and to the NFLPA that they would respect the rights of players to demonstrate.
– The Collective Bargaining Agreement definitively states that League (NFL) rules supersede anyconflicting club rules.
– According to our information, a club appears to have based its decision not to sign a playerbased on the player’s statement that he would challenge the implementation of a club’s policy prohibiting demonstration, which is contrary to the League policy.
– At least one club owner has asked preemployment interview questions about a player’s intent to demonstrate. We believe these questions are improper, given League policy.
Our Union continues to monitor these developments.
It is surprising to see Reid without work at this stage of the offseason, from a football perspective. Then again, longtime starting safeties Tre Boston and Kenny Vaccaro are also unemployed as of this writing.
Last year, Reid started in 12 of his 13 games for the Niners and totaled 66 tackles and two interceptions.
66 tackles and 2 picks in an entire season? not that impressive
he’s not even top 50 in his class.
#30 Safety per Pro Football Focus. There are 62 starting spots for safety. Slightly Above-Average season last year.
In the real world if you are a disruptive force in the work place you usually get canned.
Players think they are entitled to some kind of guarantee that they can do whatever they want without penalty or repercussions.
Reality check, you have consequences
There are workplace rules that say that what the employee did is protected by LAW, and that he cannot be discriminated against or even asked about it in regards to it affecting whether or not they hire him. It’s literally in bullet points in the article for you to read exactly why the NFL teams are in the wrong here legally and morally considering they publicly said they’d respect the rights of players to kneel. Though none of us are accusing the NFL of having morals!
Eric Reid was employed, protested, then his contract ran up and now the owners are “peacefully protesting” his employment in the NFL… Reid is not entitled to a job in the NFL and neither is Kapernick (hell even Tebow or Manziel for that matter). Reid has no legal right to sue teams that do not currently employ him.
Just because you state it does not make it so.
He does have a right to sue the NFL because of its CBA, and they cannot decide together not to employ him. If they have done so without any communication between each other, the NFL will prevail on the merits. If even two have together made that decision, then Reid should win (if it can be found in discovery). Because of the CBA, this, legally speaking, is not your run-of-the-mill employment at will scenario that most people have in their jobs. The CBA has written in it that if there is collusion among owners, the CBA shall be terminated.
Political beliefs is not a protected status for pre employment discrimination protection. Race, religion, sexual orientation yes. Disrespecting the anthem no.
Thank you for actually including a reason to back up your argument. I don’t think it’s enough that political beliefs is not a protected category – there have been efforts over the years to include it in municipal human rights ordinances, by the way – but that’s at least a start.
The owners have the right to hire players that fit their character parameters. You are right Reid had every right to do what he did.
The fans, who the owners and owners who pay the player then can make it known whether or not they are offended by this action.
Rights are a two way street!
Owners MUST respect the “rights” of these athletes conversely PLAYERS MUST respect the “rights” of the owners.
Too bad if it hurts your feelings
Most of the hurt feelings appear to be on the side of the folks who claim Reid and Kaepernick are unpatriotic, backed up by threats to boycott their team or the entire NFL if their team signs one of them (usually Kaep, I admit). Super-patriotic snowflakes is what I call them.
What might you call them if they went on unsolicited tirade about Trump, Forbes, and the Koch brothers that’s not even tangentially related to the topic at hand? Someone did that below.
What a crybaby! Play for a team that let’s you protest. Whomever is signing your check, you go by their rules. Johnny can’t chew gum in Mr. Smith’s class so Johnny files a grievance against Mr. Smith.
So bosses should be able to treat workers like children? Screw the idea that employers should be able to behave like dictators or kings. That’s exactly why workers need unions.
Management has a very broad authority to formulate company policies. Most halfway reputable companies have a wide array of policies regulating what employees are expected to do on the clock and even lots of things off the clock that might pertain to job performance. As long as the policies are formulated in the right way and enforced in a fair and consistent manner the only real debate between management and labor is the merits of policies and the manner in which discipline is handed out. All of that goes out the window though if Goodell and co. are in charge. The league is all over the map on this kind of stuff which is why they have to fight so much for everything.
The NFL is just uniquely awful at doing things correctly. Most companies don’t have their employee discipline routinely end up in federal court. NFLPA is still the lousiest union in pro sports but they’re obviously right to grieve the hell out of some of the idiotic things Goodell has gotten himself in to.
If he was a ISIS supporter , and he made it clear , and the owners ask him a similar question . Would it be collusion too? And how would you accept his protest ?
Ah yes, the good old ISIS comparison. Because that’s a relevant equivalency. Kneeling on behalf of police brutality is basically the same thing as the most well-known terrorist group on the planet.
The only thing those two things have in common is that they are byproducts of American militarism.
Protesting his belief that there is targeted police brutality against blacks. Which is completely false and backed by actual statistics. The truth sucks doesn’t it. So while ISIS isn’t the best comparison, how about the KKK? Kneeling in support of white supremacy? Wouldn’t that be closer?
Good ol comparison? Lol that’s the 1st time I’ve seen anyone make that comparison to be fair… but still sort of a leap there.
In answer to dorfmac’s first question – “and the owners ask him a similar question . Would it be collusion too?” – the simple answer is no. BUT, Reid is not basing his case on simply being asked the one question by the one owner, Mike Brown. And the NFLPA grievance is not over collusion, it is saying that Brown’s question was inappropriate for the reasons listed above. What Brown did – and I think the Seahawks did when they asked Kaepernick a similar question – was leave himself open for a non-collusion grievance, which is what the NFLPA is obliging him with.
What would be interesting to know is if Brown consulted with his lawyers, in particular his employment/labor law lawyers, on if there was a way to ask the question he wanted to ask without getting hit with a grievance by the union.
first time i’ve seen it here too, but the reality is whenever someone makes an outlandish comparison it’s always ISIS or Hitler or something else that is completely irrelevant and in no way similar.
Comparing a protest on perceived racial injustice vs supporting a terrorist organization seems logical…
YES THEY WOULD. And I’ll tell you why, because if they came out and said they respect the rights of their players to support ISIS, it would be hypocritical to then make that the basis of whether or not hire someone. And if they never made a rule that banned players from supporting ISIS, then denied TWO people jobs because of their support of ISIS, those two guys would legally have a means to fight it.
cmon man ISIS .. really? I get where you were going with it but thats a real stretch and just turns everyone off.
Reid may have a potential case but its going to be tough as political affiliation and political groups are not defined as a protected group per EEOC.
Also I think he might have screwed himself with saying that he will not do any political activities during the anthem just a few weeks before and then when asked about it straight up said no as the owners could say it was a credibility question. Just my thoughts.
I will admit I am not a fan of those that kneel during the flag but i do support the cause. I think as he even said in the quote it muddles the message and gets misinterpret.
quote for reference ““From the beginning, Colin [Kaepernick] has been flexible,” Reid said (via Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area). “He started by sitting. He changed it up. We decided to kneel. And we understand that you got to change with the times. So I’m not saying I’m going to stop being active, because I won’t. I’m just going to consider different ways to be active, different ways to bring awareness to the issues of this country to improve on. I don’t think it’ll be in the form of protesting during the anthem. And I said ‘during’ because it’s crazy to me that the narrative got changed to we were protesting the anthem, because that wasn’t the case. But I think we’re going to take a different approach to how to be active.””
The suit is for collusion, not discrimination. Collusion terminates the CBA. If he can meet the plausible pleading standard, he will get full discovery. If the owners talked to each other about not signing him, they have a huge, huge, huge problem.
Yes. In this ISIS scenario, if NFL owners colluded, they would lose the suit. If they didn’t, they would win it.
Reid has a case.
Those comparing it to ISIS support are dumb.
And won’t it be nice when teams either don’t come out for the anthem, or simply no longer play the stupid thing!
Reid has no case. None. Zero.
If anything if Reid wants to say he has talent and better than players on other teams it furthers the leagues and teams stance that even if you have talent we won’t hire you if we feel you will be a disruption or distraction on this matter.
And yet the league has NOT made the argument that kneeling during the anthem IS a disruption or a distraction.
He probably does have a case. The suit is for collusion. If the owners have ever talked together about not hiring him, they have a winning case. It’s not about whether he can stand or not, or whether they hired him or not. If the owners banded together in any away against these players, they’ve violated the CBA, not a law.
Should he Reid would have a winning case if the owners have talked together.
Should say… really need an edit option on the app
The fact of the matter is, the NFL and NFLPA deserve to have all of their chickens come home to roost. And they both have a LOT of chickens.
Of course they did. Duh.
Oh, and who cares?
I just want to be clear… It’s not okay for the teams to ask him if he plans to protest. But it IS okay to ask Kids at the combine about their sexual orientation, whether or not their mom is a whore… those are okay questions. Just trying to get the ground rules ironed out.
there are reports he lied about that and the NFL talked to the teams so no it’s not okay
I just want to be clear… It’s not okay for the teams to ask him if he plans to protest. But it IS okay to ask Kids at the combine about their sexual orientation, whether or not their mom “sells her self”… those are okay questions. Just trying to get the ground rules ironed out.
“awaiting moderation” let’s see if I figured out the trigger word I replaced.
The league should recognize that every NFL player has the right to be a grandstanding bourgeois millionaire with a martyrdom complex who can’t string together two coherent sentences in a conversation about police use of force. They, being the lucky few who can make a living playing a game for incomprehensible sums of money, have every right to surround themselves with all of the trappings of fame and success and protest in front of 70,000 people in a billion dollar taxpayer funded playground, and in front of a television audience of millions, just how unjust this country is.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were talking about Donald Trump here. Or was that a shot at Steve Forbes, or the Koch Brothers, who were BORN to their fabulous wealth, as opposed to working for it AND putting their body on the line like every player in the NFL? Lord knows Trump, Forbes and the Kochs have the martyrdom complexes, even if the Kochs generally avoid the grandstanding.
Gods, one would think that with what we now know about the effects of concussions, the old “they just play a game” argument would have been retired, but no, some people are still the pieces of s*** they always were, either out of (a) a sense of smug superiority towards anyone who works with their hands and body instead of their “brain,” or (b) envy, because someone else is better at the “game” than they ever were.
Do you feel better now?
after thoroughly dominating you, i think it’s safe that cka feels pretty great…
When exactly did this supposed domination take place? If I had written a post saying that I think Trump, Forbes, and the Koch brothers are awesome you might be on to something. I didn’t say anything about any of them. I wrote a post bemoaning the fact that NFL players get going with their televised protests and act surprised when they take heat for it. In the simplest terms, their salaries are paid out of revenue generated as a result of distributing an entertainment product to average, ordinary people. When they do things that tick off those average people they’re going to feel the effects. The whole point of protesting is sticking your neck out on the line for an issue, which is fine. But… complaining about not the issue itself but their own personal financial effects of sticking their necks out? That’s the difference between a heartfelt social justice advocate and an entitled brat.
If anyone wants to have a substantive conversation about what is, isn’t, or should be justifiable use of force, great, that’s a legitimate topic to explore. But I get it, it’s 2018, instead of trying to come up with one or two thoughtful, cogent points about a particular issue, let’s just go on wild eyed rants about how civilization will definitely cease to exist because of whoever the sitting president happens be at the moment.
Yep they do
If you want to kneel go to another country .. I’m tired of this righteous BS. No one is begging anyone to play.. it’s a privilege to play in the NFL … he just kneeled his way to the unemployment office and I’m laughing my azz off. Cheers!! What a dumb person.
“If you want to kneel go to another country .. I’m tired of this righteous BS”
Ironic.
I wonder if he knew the price tag of kneeling if he would still kneel. I would guess not. I’m certain Colin K would not kneel again. Thinks are different when it affects your bank account
Communist SOB
i don’t think you know what communism is…