Transcript from NFLPA Super Bowl XLIX Press Conference
2015 NFLPA SUPER BOWL PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
GEORGE ATALLAH: Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for being here. My name is George Atallah of the NFL Players Association. We've spent the past year dealing with a lot of issues dealing with our players, and I hope you'll hear about those today. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers, but given the focus this year, the outsized focus on some of the incidents that have taken place off the field, the unfortunate incidents that have taken place off the field, I wanted to spend some time and show you a very brief video that we put together of our players doing a lot of good off the field.
We started a program this year called the NFLPA Community MVP which seeks to highlight a lot of our players' efforts that they're helping in the community, working with young people on various initiatives and foundations that they have throughout the course of their careers. So if we can cue that up and take a couple minutes of your time to recognize those NFL players that are doing a lot of good out there.
(Video Playing)
Those are just some examples of our players stepping up and showing leadership and service in their communities. I'm now going to turn over the microphone to NFLPA President, Eric Winston, who will be able to share some more about how our players and our union are providing a service to each other to continue the legacy of this association.
ERIC WINSTON: Howdy. First of all, I'd like to say thank you for coming. I know everyone's running around like crazy right now and thank you for being here. First I want to introduce all the reps that are here right now, Mark Herzlich, Scott Wells, our two former players on our EC, Cornelius Bennett, and Mike McGrath, Matt Hasselbeck, Brian Waters, Zak DeOssie, [Benjamin Watson]. Thank you from me to our leadership. Obviously, it's not easy. One of our reps, Kevin Vickerson is here as well, Charlie Batch, former leader and still leader helping out, thank you for everything.
As a union this year, we're not going to be defined by what happened outside of it, but what happened inside of it. We had an historic year on a lot of fronts. In September we ratified a new collectively bargained drug policy, and that drug policy represented a lot of firsts. It was first HGH testing in the NFL. There was a new discipline schedule, and importantly and historically we also had neutral arbitration independently for all positive tests.
Most importantly, and probably maybe the most underreported was that our players now had the clinical support that they needed to recover from whatever was ailing them. That was something that was extremely important to us, and I think continuing going on it will be extremely important to help those guys and get them back on the field and get them back on the right track of their life. I think that's going to be something that's going to be really important going forward.
Obviously we've had the personal conduct policy. The new personal conduct policy I guess you want to call it that's been instituted by the league, and in my eyes, and every player’s eyes, violated the CBA in several ways, and we're going to be grieving this as far as we can. Very simply put, we have an agreement with the league. They have an agreement with us, and we're going to hold them to that agreement.
Many aspects of this personal conduct policy falls outside the CBA, and we're going to continue to fight it going forward because we believe in it. We believe that the agreement that we struck in 2011 is to be preserved, and what we agreed to should always be going forward until it's collectively bargained differently.
Obviously, going forward there are going to be a lot of changes. As players, our job is to set that course. What do we want this union to be going forward? We're halfway through our new CBA. It's 10 years. We're five years into it. We've got another five years, approximately, to go. As players we're the ones that set the course. We're going to have to have major decisions coming up on how we want to see this go forward. We're a bridge going into the next generation.
At our annual meeting we're going to take up a lot of issues, I think, that can make our union stronger but can benefit our guys. I know agent regulation is going to come up. The [Committee on Agent Regulations and Discipline] right now and all throughout the year has done a great job of taking up a lot of these issues and deciding on what's best for our players going forward, and the kind of guys we want our players to be around.
As a union, we have to decide who we want touching our players and now we want them and the qualifications and the men that come around our players, because that's important to us going forward. It's important to our players going forward.
Obviously, improvements in health and safety. As the president, we have to make sure it's right there. Whatever the cutting edge is and if it's an independent neurologist on the sidelines, treatment programs, we have to make sure we're right there with them. Making sure that the players are getting those treatment protocols or those players are getting the safety and protection that they deserve out on the field.
I think as leaders, our continued mission, I know as a young player someone always reached in and grabbed me and showed me how it's done. For us now it's time to reach back and grab those young generation guys that are going to be leading us into the next generation of this union.
I'm proud to say that each team has two great leaders on their team as reps. Matthew Slater for the New England Patriots has been a great rep, very vocal. And obviously you guys know the other one, Richard Sherman, who is always given great leadership and we thank them for their leadership going forward and with everything that's happened this year. But it goes to show you that those two strong teams have two strong reps. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I guess it's your turn now. Our executive director, "De" Smith.
DeMAURICE SMITH: Thank you very much for coming, everyone. This is historically normally the part of the presentation where I thank my parents for everything they've done for me. They couldn't make the trip this year, so I had to get that out of the way. They're watching at home. As you know, if I didn't do that, I'd have to go back home and take it from my mother which I'm not going to do.
So, thank you, thank you, mom, very much and thank you, dad. Welcome to our press conference.
You know that each and every year for the last few years that I've been fortunate enough to have this job we've not only at times engaged in spirited back and forth about questions, but we also used the time to really talk about the issues that affect our union.
We are a service union. That's what we do. We pride ourselves on not only being in a position to take care of our players of the current but also to reach back and make sure that we can take care and serve the obligations for our players who are coming up in the future. I like it. I said thank you.
So what I'd like to do today is just briefly go through a few things that Eric touched on to emphasize what it means for us to be a service union.
But where we start as a union. When I look at Cornelius Bennett, long time player in the National Football League, Mike McGrath, long time player in the National Football League. We stand on the shoulders of men who have come before us to build this union into a union that serves its members. And I know that that is something that many people did not find completely sexy to talk about on ESPN or talk about it in the press. But the men that you see before you, the men who have decided to be members of our Executive Committee, the guys who have stepped up to be leaders in their respective locker rooms, all are a part of a seamless generation of players who sacrifice everything for players that they've never met, and probably players they'll never know.
Eric and I were talking about it last night. But when this collective bargaining agreement comes up in 2021, the players who will be fighting for those rights are 15 years old right now. That's what we do. So we do spend a tremendous amount of time teaching.
Just for a few minutes today I want to talk about the four big areas we concern ourselves with: Wages, player health and safety, working conditions and benefits. We are a proud member of people that believe in service. So this collective bargaining agreement, I don't need this, do I? Of course not. This collective bargaining agreement was something that the leaders of our union decided to implement to do a number of different things. I know everybody is always concerned about the salary cap, and we have our projections about what are the salary cap are going to be.
But the salary cap, the salary that goes to our players are just one small part of what goes into a 300‑page document that was torturously negotiated by the people that you see seated before you. So when we talk about the things we want to accomplish with our salary cap, eliminating the erosion of our share of revenue, making sure that we are always in a position to mandate that our players are being taken care of, not only during the season, but during the off‑season.
Eric touched on changes to the drug policy where we took it upon ourselves to not only how a drug policy to talk about discipline, but how do we construct a drug policy that now, and in many respects for the first time, focuses on how do we get treatment for our guys instead of just trying to figure out how much we can punish them. Those are the goals of this union. We certainly don't ever make any apologies for the stand that's we take to protect our players. None of us could stand up and face guys like Biscuit or Mike if we failed in that very respect to protect each and every one of our members.
So we are for the first time in the history of the union, sometime between now and the combine, the union will be making our own salary cap projections. Why are we going to do that? The last few years you've seen various stories reported by some of you in the room, and if you want to ask a question about it, we can do that where you have reported things about the salary cap from ownership that has turned out to not be true. We believe that that not only misrepresents the economic reality of how the salary cap works, but our concern is that those inaccurate projections may have a negative consequence on some players who are trying to negotiate new contracts.
So for the first time the National Football League Players Association will be issuing our own projections between now and the combine. Do we expect them to be 100% accurate? We'll do our best. We'll provide you the guidelines and criteria of how we reached that number. But we do believe that is one way we can serve the interest of our players.
One thing I'd like to point out and just have a brief discussion about, what you see before you are the 2013 final numbers in the percentages of spends by those teams many of you know now the new collective bargaining agreement made one significant change in the way the salary cap is employed when it comes to our players. Under the old system there was a mandatory cap spend.
There was a mandatory cap spend, cap spend. The new deal has a mandatory cash spend. So the major change in that is under the old system, you could engage in cap accounting where the cap looked like it was actually being spent on our members but because of things like not likely to be earned bone uses that counted against the cap, actual cash dollars weren't being employed to the salaries of our players. So one major change of this new CBA was a 4‑year mandatory spend policy.
So we've highlighted in yellow the teams that have spent below that mandatory amount. Every team has to spend at least 89% of that amount in a four‑year rolling tranche. There has to be a league‑wide spend of 95%. Last year's league‑wide spend, I know [NFLPA Director of Salary Cap and Agent Administration] Mark Levin is here to always get the answer right if I did it wrong, but it hovered between 97% spend, league‑wide last year.
The reason why these numbers are important and again the reason we care as a union to talk about things other than just the salary cap those four teams are teams that have spent below the 89%. That means that at the end of the four‑year rolling tranche, those teams are going to have to spend substantially higher than 100% of the salary cap for the remaining two years in order to beat the 89% rolling tranche.
Why is that important to our players? Because we want the cash spent. These men put everything on the line each and every day. They sacrifice everything. They perform at their highest. We want the salary cap to be employed at its highest when it comes to our players.
Eric mentioned a few things about player health and safety, and I should use this time to really thank the people who do all the hard work in our office. This is one of those jobs that I think a lot of the attention falls on the president and the executive director. But the people that we have who work for this great union and who have done so for dozens and dozens and dozens of years, [NFLPA General Counsel] Tom DePaso, are really the people who have dedicated their lives to taking care of our players. So before I go any further, can I have everybody who is a member of our staff stand up? Thank you all very much. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. So one of the things that we made a decision on in this new collective bargaining agreement was to emphasize player health and safety in a way where we can once again not simply expect or ask the National Football League or the teams to treat our players with a certain level of respect, but rather to demand it.
So this year alone there have been changes in the collective bargaining agreement that are substantial. A league‑wide infectious disease policy. You'll remember a lot of the issues that came out of the MRSA investigation in Tampa led us to insist on new standards that are league‑wide for infectious diseases. EMRs, that stands for electronic medical records, by the time the season starts this year every player, every player in the National Football League will be able to instantaneously access their medical records at any time. Under the old system, players like Mike and players like Cornelius were afraid to ask for their medical records. Why? If you asked for your medical records, you were asking to be cut from the team.
We insist on our players' ability to not only work in a great system, but to have access to the greatest doctors in the world, but also to be empowered to utilize and employ their own methods to track their medical safety. So those EMRs are things that Tom DePaso and others worked hard to do. Proud to be kicking that off at the end of the pilot project, and looking forward to the new year.
We had modified return‑to‑play protocols. Over the last few years, you know that the players insisted on having neutral concussion experts to evaluate players before they return to field. We've had increased level of adherence to that. Is it 100%? Absolutely not. We had a significant issue with one of the players with the San Diego Chargers this year where it was clear to virtually everybody except for those people who were on the sideline that a player was suffering from either a serious neck injury or serious head injury. We modified those protocols now so that if a doctor or any other medical professional believes that a player has either suffered a head or a neck or any injury that could place him in jeopardy, there is an obligation to abide by the return‑to‑play protocols.
Our injury protection guarantees will increase under the collective bargaining agreement for the next four years. And lastly, thanks to [NFLPA Legal Counsel] Sean Sansiveri, for the first time in the history of the National Football League, we now credential every medical professional. Why is that important? Well, we found before this you had some team doctors and some medical professionals that were not trained in sports medicine. Big surprise? Not, unfortunately, to us. So we made a decision under the CBA and modified that that every medical professional now is actually credentialed.
Player rights, I know there is and probably will be a number of discussions about Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson. Again, we make no apologies whatsoever about representing our players if we believe that their discipline has been imposed in a way that is inconsistent with our collective bargaining agreement. But that is just one part of what we do each and every day our Legal Department, Player Affairs Department had over 31 injury grievances this year, 32 non‑injury grievances.
Eric mentioned that we continue to engage the league, whether it will be through litigation or through collective bargaining about the personal conduct policy, and that will be ongoing. We have concluded the Fulbright or they have concluded the Fulbright report into what we believe were the shortcomings of the National Football League and the Ravens with respect to the Ray Rice incident. That report is going to be delivered to the Executive Committee later on today and then they'll make a decision about further dissemination.
But that's what we do as a union. Again, we make no apologies for it. A few of the things about the new drug policy, and again, I'm thankful that Eric touched on it. This is a joint drug policy, a joint drug policy. We negotiate the drug policy, and this is as much the players’ drug policy as it is the National Football League's drug policy. Why is that important? Because the men you see seated before you want a clean game, but we also want a policy and procedure that is fair. It took us three years with the old collective bargaining agreement to reach a policy with the National Football League. Yes, we signed the collective bargaining agreement in 2011. We finished the drug policy in 2014. Why was that important? We wanted an HGH testing system that was fair. We wanted to give our players the ability and the right to challenge any conclusion or any test in front of a neutral arbitrator. And those are the things that the league frankly fought us on for three years.
But it was the perseverance of our Executive Committee and leadership of our reps where we decided if we weren't going to have the drug policy we wanted, we were going to wait. I'm happy to say that's something we resolved. It is in the best interest of the players, and I know it's in the best interest of the league, but this is the messy part of collective bargaining. And for every lawyer who understands it, and every lawyer who wants to be a part of it, collective bargaining is rarely pretty. It's almost never fun. But it's a thing we insist on, and, again, we make no apologies.
Lastly, player welfare. One of the things that truly gets very little attention when it comes to what it means to be a player in the National Football League, and what this collective bargaining agreement means for our players as very few people talk about benefits. One of several major changes under the new collective bargaining agreement substantially increased the benefits to our players. So whether it is the ability to go back to school free of charge, the ability to get a second medical opinion, the benefits that increased not only for our current players, but our former players. For example, this collective bargaining agreement last year, we increased the pension benefits to over 1700 players, but who played between 1993 and 1996. So why do we focus on that era of players? The players that I watched growing up, the Art Monks, the Charles Manns of the world. Why do we focus on that group of players to increase the benefits over and above the legacy payment that we had before? Because many of those players in 1993 suffered from salaries that were dramatically suppressed because of the lack of free agency, the lack of free agency. So because those players couldn't put their services on open market, they were in a world where their salaries were depressed. As a result that their salaries were depressed, their pensions were depressed.
So once again, this is a group of players who nonetheless reached back to take care of players that they had never met. Players that they had never known to increase their pension benefit, and again, that is what this union does, benefits going forward for the rest of the year, line of duty increases. Can you see the increases there.
The last thing is something that I know our current players are incredibly proud of, and once again to [NFLPA Director of Benefits] Bethany [Marshall] and [NFLPA Senior Director of Benefits] Miki [Yaras-Davis] and the staff, we have seen a substantial increase in both the number of our players who participate fully in their 401K programs and equally important, the matching that comes from management for those programs.
So it is with that that I'm going to stop talking about sort of presentations and turn it over to questions. But this is what our union is about. It's been a tremendous six years, and I'm happy for the staff and what they've done.
Probably should say a little bit of a thanks to my wife who is not here yet, but nobody bears more of the brunt of this job than her.
But on behalf of the players of the National Football League, I want to thank you for coming today. Thank you to our leadership for being such great leaders, and at this point I'll take any questions. I would be remiss not to mention Teri Patterson who is also here with us. Teri is Deputy [Managing Director] of our union, but also I appointed her the head of our Domestic Violence Commission.
I'm sure there will be questions about that, and she's here and I'm here to answer any of those. Now, anybody who wants to throw in the questions, I'll leave it to Jilane.
Q. With the Deflate‑Gate scandal ‑‑
DeMAURICE SMITH: I hadn't heard anything about it.
Q. It's breaking news. How close are you guys monitoring it? And Tom Brady mentioned that he and I don't think any of the players have been interviewed yet. Is that because they haven't had a union rep on hand?
DeMAURICE SMITH: No, every interview of every player by the National Football League will always be with a union lawyer. The league made a decision to interview players after the Super Bowl. Your other question was whether we're monitoring it? Yes. Any instance where that arises where the league makes a request to interview our players, we're going to be there. That's a rule we instituted a few years ago. Even if a player makes a decision he wants to talk to the National Football League without a union lawyer, we insist a lawyer has to be there. You mentioned Deflate‑Gate, you probably heard of bounty gate.
But we made a number of those decisions to what we felt were the shortcomings to the way the league handled bounty.
Q. Richard Sherman made a comment today about how student‑athletes have to balance a number of different factors, and since college football players in high revenue programs are very close to coming into your league and being represented by you, I wanted to get your sense of your feelings about compensation for players in high‑profile, high revenue, collegiate athletics, and whether you think these players should be unionized?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Yeah, let me answer the last one first. Should they be unionized, yes. We have been in our Executive Committee and board had a resolution since 2012, I believe, to support the unionization of college athletes. Ramogi Huma's organization. We've been incredibly supportive of he and Kain Colter who were in our offices several weeks ago to brainstorm about the idea.
On the issue of compensation, I'll be dead honest with you. This is just me personally now. I've gone around and around about the issue of compensation. I have, but on the issues on other issues, I honestly believe they're not subject to debate. Should a college athlete have to pay for any medical expenses for injuries he suffers while he he's playing a college sport? I think the answer is no.
Should any college athlete who is on scholarship at one of these teams be living below the poverty line? No. When we all saw at the end of the NCAA Tournament a few years ago, and I believe it was [Shabazz [Napier] who had comments after the game where he talked about players on his team who go to bed hungry, should anyone at a major Division 1 university be going hungry? No. It does seem to me that many of those athletes spend more time in their facilities subject to the whims of their coach than many of our pro players.
Should there be regulations or limits on student‑athletes and how long they can be at the facility? I believe that answer is yes. I also believe that if many of those four‑year scholarship players find themselves in a situation where at the end of their eligibility for whatever reason they've not been able to graduate, do I think it's a great idea for those universities to provide them a grace period to finish their studies? Yes.
So I don't believe that this is issue is one that is myopic or should be myopically focused on compensation or not. I do believe those four or five things are things that it seems like if you sent your son or daughter to one of those schools, who in this room wouldn't insist on most of those things?
ERIC WINSTON: Over three years ago we passed a resolution as a group, as a union to make sure we instructed De and our staff to do everything we could to help those guys. So whether it's legal services, advice, whatever it might be to help those. I think it's more about those guys being heard and their rights. It's not about necessarily money.
I had a conversation with Kain Kolter, and he was talking about the Northwestern guys that didn't red‑shirt. So they were good enough to play right off the bat. They played four years, and then they wanted to go to Kellogg or they wanted to go to grad school, and they had to pay both years. But the guys that red‑shirted, would get done in four years, had another year. So they got one year paid for of grad school and only had to flip the bill for one year. And you're talking about $40,000 or whatever to go to Kellogg, and that's a huge thing, whatever it might be. That's what we're talking about.
Obviously, money is part of it. Should the stipend be whatever, but we're talking about health and safety. We're talking about guys trying to get a graduate degree so they can become whatever they want to become. We're talking about guys being given the ability to make sure that they're getting their studies done and their homework done and they're not forced to be kept there. We're talking about guys that shouldn't have to be hitting twice a day. That shouldn't have to be hitting every day of the week leading up to a game.
So we're talking about, I think, when you start talking about the college system, a lot more than should a guy get $2,000, $4,000 or $6,000. We're talking about their education, their rights and their health and safety. And I think that sometimes gets drowned out by what should they get paid?
DeMAURICE SMITH: It seems to me it's just like every union. It's the right to be heard, and the right to have someone to actually respond to your voice. We have had a system in the NCAA for decades, and if anybody hasn't read Taylor Branch's fantastic piece on the shame of college sports, you should. But very little has ever happened in this country with respect to worker's rights without the ability of a group of people to collectively come together and organize.
Q. You were talking about all the problems going on this year with domestic violence problems?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Not always. I focused on some good stuff, right?
Q. Yes. Even Deflate‑Gate, do you think the NFL is maybe running into a credibility crisis or just some kind of crisis in general as we move out of this season?
DeMAURICE SMITH: I believe any organization rises and falls on the level of respect that it either gets or loses when any organization runs into or sort of runs head first into this issue of where people believe it's not fair or people believe that the process of fairness hasn't been engaged in, or whether it takes hypocritical stances. That is something that challenges the credibility of any organization. We've been abundantly clear, and again, without apology about our position and with respect to both Mr. Rice, and Mr. Petersen, and the process that should be employed when it comes to the personal conduct policy.
But I think both of us, both the National Football League and the players, I think there is something that we can do and have always been able to do together that usually ends up being better than the result we end up with after we fight.
Q. You all said that you were going to be doing an investigation kind of side by side with the Mueller report. What's the status of that investigation? Have you gotten any cooperation with the NFL getting to the heart of that?
DeMAURICE SMITH: I mentioned it. The Fulbright report is the report that we mentioned. That report is concluded. It will be going to the Executive Committee because they are our senior leadership they'll discuss, we'll discuss what the next steps are after that.
Q. Are there any details?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Yeah, there are plenty of details. I'm just not going to give them to you.
Q. Under the new policy on personal conduct, if a player commits some kind of crime that happened before this policy went into effect but it didn't surface, would he be punished under this policy or under the previous rules?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Are you asking me what should happen or what the league will do?
Q. Well, what should, and what you think the league will do?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Which one?
Q. Both on that.
DeMAURICE SMITH: If you're asking me what I think the league will do, I don't know. And if you're asking me what I believe my position would be, you're asking for us to talk about a policy that we believe was imposed inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement.
Q. Okay, do you have a copy of those numbers from 2013?
DeMAURICE SMITH: I'm sorry.
Q. Can we get a copy of the full report from the numbers?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Yeah, we'll figure that out.
Q. Do you anticipate that the league ‑‑
DeMAURICE SMITH: That was three questions.
Q. Well, it's part of it. The 95% minimum spent over a four‑year period, do you expect the league is going to reach that?
DeMAURICE SMITH: They have to. It's mandated by the collective bargaining agreement.
Q. You were obviously frustrated by what you called the league's unwillingness to engage in collective bargaining on the new personal conduct policy. Now that you've filed the grievance, do you think there is any chance that that dynamic changes and the league becomes more willing to talk to you as a means of settlement? Or do you assume that grievance will go all the way?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Well, one thing I think the members of the Executive Committee really know is the league always seems willing to engage with us what they want to. It's up to them.
Q. Looking back at the last CBA that was agreed to, do you regret not pushing for neutral arbitration?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Who said we didn't push for it?
Q. Holding out for it?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Well, we were locked out, locked out. So when this leadership made decisions on what we were going to fight over and fight about those were decisions by our board and by our Executive Committee. Did we get everything we wanted under the collective bargaining agreement? No, we didn't. Did the league get everything they wanted from the collective bargaining agreement? No, they didn't.
So there are certainly no regrets when a group of football players hung together in a scenario where most of you predicted that they would fold like a wet paper bag. Our leadership fought and achieved monumental changes in this collective bargaining agreement. Do you regret not getting everything you want? Well, I think if you go through life like that, then you're just living in a world of a bunch of regrets.
We took care of the players who came before us. We made this game safer for the players who currently play we protected our shares of revenue. Our mandatory spends are historic. Our first two changes historically under the commissioner discipline policy where we achieved neutral arbitration. The first time that ever happened in the history of the National Football League happened with this group of players. So no regrets.
Q. Yesterday Earl Thomas said that his sprained shoulder was a lot better. Almost a 10 out of 10. Then this morning he tweeted that he had an HGH test. I wanted to know if the union believes that's how the process should work. He found it a little fishy. It was a cause and effect. And the second part of the question is for some players ‑‑
DeMAURICE SMITH: Can we go back to your first one? What is the connection between the shoulder injury and HGH test?
Q. That's what he wanted to know. The question I have does the union HGH testing ‑‑
DeMAURICE SMITH: Oh, I understand what you're saying. The union has a joint drug policy that is supposed to work in a way where HGH testing as well as any other testing for banned substances happens randomly. If we ever believe after any sort of audit or review of a year that we believe that those things are not being employed in the right way, we've done it before, we'll insist on changes.
Q. That was my next question. There are some players who perceive they have a two interception game, for instance, they're going to be tested the following week. Is that a perception the union has as a whole?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Well, there are 2000 players that are members of our union. So we never really answer questions about whether that is the perception. We'll take a look at the end of the year and take a look at any audit that we want to have to look into the randomness of the testing. If we believe those procedures have been employed in an improper way, like I said we've handled those issues before and we'll do it again.
Q. Earlier today the NFL said concussions are down this year by 25%, and there are no more injuries coming out of Thursday night games and on Sunday night games. Do you believe those statistics are accurate and if not, why not?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Yeah, well, it's like anything else. I went through the injury report and [NFLPA Medical Director] Thom Mayer and Sean Sansiveri are here to answer any questions. Two things have changed dramatically. Three things have changed dramatically over the last few years. One, we've become far more vigilant in the way we diagnose both concussive and sub‑concussive events. The injury data system has changed over the year and the process by which injuries are acted for. And I think third, over the last five years we've done a better job of paying attention to the issue of soft tissue as well as other injuries.
So it's with those three things that I always evaluate the new injury data system. So just to make it simple, last year we saw ‑‑ I'm sorry, two years ago we saw an increase in the number of concussions. Does that mean our players are having more concussions? I don't know. I know we're counting them and being more vigilant about recognizing them.
So just like you said whether I believe the NFL or not, it's not my job. I don't have that luxury of believing them or not believing them. Every year we sit down near the combine and tear through the data. Thom Mayer and Sean Sansiveri, as well as our advocates spend a tremendous amount of time with the medical committees, and our job is really not to clap or breathe a sigh of relief if we see anything go down. The mission of our union is how do we take a sport that is for many, many times not safe and try to make it as safe as possible?
Q. (No microphone)?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Same issue. So you know, the one thing I know you can't do or I can't do, I never look at just that Thursday night incident report because it seems to me what's laden in that is in what manner are teams training differently or preparing differently because of the Thursday night games? And what impact will that have on what type of injuries or injuries are reported? So what we try to do instead of looking at the number and saying, hey, it's gone up or gone down, I rely on Sean and certainly push Thom Mayer to the mat about whether we truly understand what the numbers mean.
Q. To kind of go into that, since there was a certain total system failure the league is talking about putting independent neurologists on the sideline. Has that actually finally happened? Are you as a union satisfied by the process that has players going into locker rooms, and coming back out being decreed healthy or not? Are you monitoring that and how?
DeMAURICE SMITH: First question, is that occurring? Yes. If you remember three years ago one of the biggest fights we've had ‑‑ it seems they're all big fights, so I take that back. One of the many big fights that we had was over this issue of we called them Sideline Concussion Experts or independent doctors. Something we insisted on, something that the league fought for two or three years, something that now they all do. So we are confident that that's occurring.
Do we remain vigilant about instances where we believe that that process is not being followed? Yes. For example, in the Chargers incident, some of you will remember a few years ago we had several players on one weekend, quarterbacks who appear to have been knocked unconscious and nonetheless, they were not given the protocol. Whether we file grievances or under the new CBA file claims under the actability section of the CBA, we remain vigilant about the rules that we collectively bargain and want enforced.
So, again, going back to her question. I don't have the luxury of saying I believe it's working or I hope it works better. Every time we have an incident that we think involves a sideline concussion protocol, it's something Thom Mayer is on top of. Anytime we believe a player has suffered an injury and not received the proper medical care, it's an email that I get from Tom usually before midnight Sunday.
Q. I was wondering your thoughts on how you think Roger Goodell has governed here lately? And anything you'd like to see him change or maintain or delete going forward?
DeMAURICE SMITH: Maintain or delete? This is one of those jobs where both of us are acutely aware of what our jobs are. My job, our job is to represent the players. It's his job, he represents the interest of the owners. When those issues come into conflict there are really two ways to handle them. In 2011, when those issues went into conflict, we went through a 134‑day lockout where we had over 100 negotiation sessions and at the end of the day we ended up with a document in excess of 300, 350 pages where we fought it out and reached a conclusion.
Is everybody happy with all of it? No. But I honestly believe that that collective bargaining process not only is the right thing to happen between our two parties, but I honestly believe that that collective bargaining agreement represents the best of our work together. Where it spins out of control is where the league, nonetheless, believes that they can impose or do something unilaterally. I think that at times that represents the worst. So when we are in a situation where the former commissioner overrules the current commissioner in bounty, yes, we're thrilled when that happens for our players.
Do I think that's a great process? No. When a neutral arbitrator overrules the league in the Ray Rice decision, are we thrilled that we got a decision that vindicates the rights of our players? Yes. Do I think it's great for the work that we have to do together? No.
Respectfully I'm not going to answer your question directly, because that's what I do best. But at the end of the day what we do as a group of leaders is championing the bargaining process and insist on it.
Q. Beyond the fact it was not collectively bargained, are there elements of the new personal conduct policy that you specifically don't like, and parts of it that you can support?
DeMAURICE SMITH: No and yes. I just did that on purpose. I'm sorry. Are there parts of …the personal conduct policy where our player leaders believe we can probably come together and reach conclusion and support? Yeah, maybe. But we also don't have the luxury because of the way in which they did it to cherry pick. As Eric mentioned before, what we insist on is the process and they violated the process.
Q. Are you concerned or do you have discussions with the league when there are obvious breaches of the confidentiality of the drug program?
DeMAURICE SMITH: That is one major change in the new program, and I believe that is something that, one, we made the changes because we think it's important. Two, the breaches of confidentiality to us as players is ridiculous. It always seems to happen at one time of the year. It always seems to happen right around combine. The league's investigation of how those things happen never real really seemed to pan out. So it's something that we're always vigilant about and always looking for a way to improve the confidentiality of our process.
Thank you very much.
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