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COLUMNIST
Ray Rice

Analysis: Personal conduct policy key battle front for NFL, NFLPA

Tom Pelissero
USA TODAY Sports
Nov 5, 2014; New York, NY, USA; Suspended NFL running back Ray Rice arrives with his wife, Janay Rice for his appeal hearing on his indefinite suspension from the NFL.

If NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell won't afford all players the same process that led to Ray Rice's reinstatement, nor give them the right to sign off on the process under a new personal conduct policy, the players' union believes it should be Goodell who explains why – in person.

"We go out to all our locker rooms and talk to our guys and tell them the decisions that we've made on their behalf," NFL Players Association president Eric Winston told USA TODAY Sports by phone Friday, shortly after the Rice decision was revealed. "If the Commissioner wants to (make those decisions), then he needs to come to all 32 locker rooms and do the same thing."

The NFLPA was making a very public push for neutral arbitration on all personal conduct matters long before Friday, when former federal judge Barbara S. Jones issued a 17-page ruling condemning Goodell's decision to extend Rice's original two-game suspension to an indefinite ban as "arbitrary" and an abuse of his discretion under the collective bargaining agreement.

It's the second high-profile loss in less than two years for Goodell, whose suspension of four players in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal were vacated by predecessor Paul Tagliabue in December 2012. The union is fighting him on the league's handling of the Adrian Peterson case as well, with an appeals hearing scheduled next week as tensions continue to mount.

Goodell has admitted to mistakes in the Rice case and vowed to revise the personal conduct policy, with all options on the table. But Goodell said last month owners want him to maintain authority over issues involving the game's integrity. Rice's appeal was heard by Jones only because Goodell recused himself, since he was likely to be on the witness list.

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"It's starting to become a pattern now," Winston said. "We're having a lot of this overreaching, lack of due process, and so now (the league says), 'Let's make changes. Well, we only want to make the changes we want to make.'"

In a statement Friday night, league spokesman Brian McCarthy said Jones' decision "underscores the urgency of our work to develop and implement a clear, fair and comprehensive new personal conduct policy. We expect this policy to be completed and announced in the weeks ahead. Our focus is on consistently enforcing an improved policy going forward."

That won't be good enough for the NFLPA, which believes any changes should be collectively bargained – something the league continued to refuse at a meeting Tuesday – and has said it will consider all options for fighting anything the NFL tries to implement on its own.

Players ratified the 2011 collective-bargaining agreement, which maintained the Commissioner's authority to hear appeals of discipline for personal conduct or designate someone else to, as Goodell did in the case of Peterson's appeal. According to players involved in the 2011 negotiations, Commissioner's authority in the discipline process never was on the table.

"If they want the buy-in of the players, sit down at the table with us and bargain," Winston said. "If not, then they're going to unilaterally do this, they're going to keep messing up the game and we're going to keep talking about these things, unfortunately, instead of a big matchup on Sunday."

Now there's another round of speculation about Rice's future. Peterson's appeal will be heard Tuesday by appeals officer Harold Henderson, a former league executive whose involvement the union has decried as anything but neutral.

And as hard as the league tries to show it's fixing the issues that led to mistakes in the Rice case, the union is certain to push back just as hard – even if Goodell were willing to try to explain his thinking directly to players.

"Every player has rights," Winston said. "We're not against discipline, and we've never been against discipline. But that discipline needs to be carried out in the proper fashion, within the rights both sides have negotiated.

"I'm not happy about this. There's not a winner here. The judge said we were right, but we didn't win. There's been way too many of these."

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