Players to file grievance for McNair
By Terry McCormick,
[email protected]
April 10, 2006
According to Steve McNair’s agent Bus Cook, the NFL Players Association has intentions to file a grievance against the Tennessee Titans on behalf of the quarterback, who was prohibited last week from working out at the team’s training facility until his contract situation can be resolved.
“We talked with them last week about it, and they either filed it on Friday or are planning to file it Monday morning,” Cook said. “They do a good job of representing the players in matters like this.”
McNair was asked to leave the Titans practice facility last Monday by trainer Brad Brown after being informed that the team could not risk him being injured at the facility and the Titans being on the hook for his entire $9 million base salary.
The Titans have said that McNair’s high base salary and $23.46 million cap figure are far too high for them to enter the 2006 season with. Tennessee will need money later on to sign its 2006 draft class, meaning that McNair’s contract will either have to be reworked and extended or he will have to be released.
Efforts to reach Titans general manager Floyd Reese and Coach Jeff Fisher Sunday evening were unsuccessful. Last week, the Titans released a statement, that called the decision a “risk management” issue and that the timing and handling of the matter, with Reese and Fisher both in Los Angeles, “unfortunate.”
Cook said customary procedure with grievance hearings calls for an arbitrator to decide the matter.
“It’s our opinion that they are either in breach of contract or they have violated the collective bargaining agreement,” Cook said. “Any player who has a contract with a team ought to be allowed to work out in that team’s facility.”
