CBA GLITCH LIMITS BALL, OGUNLEYE
At least two current NFL players have threatened to refrain from signing current contract offers until only six regular season games remain, since six games on the roster is the magic number for picking up a year's credit toward free agency.
Specifically, Chargers center Jason Ball intends to delay signing his one-year, exclusive rights tender, and Dolphins defensive end
Adewale Ogunleye plans to delay signing his restricted free agent tender until the last possible minute, meaning holdout of up to ten weeks.
Ten weeks, however, could be three weeks too many.
A league source has pointed out to us a glitch in the collective bargaining agreement that could be used to prevent Ball and Ogunleye from picking up credit for 2004. Specifically, Article XXXII, Section 4(c)(iii) of the CBA permits players such as Ball (who has "two but less than three Accrued Seasons") and Ogunleye (an Article XIX Restricted Free Agent who has been given the required tender) to be placed on the so-called "roster exempt" list until the day following the third regular season game after he signs his contract, if he shows up after the fourth preseason game.
This means that, if Ball and/or Ogunleye show up after Week Ten in order to get their requisite six games, the Chargers and/or the Dolphins can drop them onto the roster exempt list and prevent them from meeting this goal.
The Miami Herald vaguely alludes to this dynamic in its Wednesday edition, but provides no details for its suggestion that the possibility of a "three-game suspension" would require Ogunleye to report after seven games instead of his original plan of missing ten. It's not a suspension per se, but placement on the roster exempt list operate in the same manner, keeping the player from getting paid and from getting credit for the three weeks that he spends on the roster exempt list after showing up.
In order to place a player on the roster exempt list, the team must give the player written notice of its intention to do so at least five days prior to the second preseason game.
Though the CBA seems to suggest that the exemption is automatic, the source has indicated that placement on the roster exempt list might require the exemption to be formally granted by the league office. (We'll get more info on this point.)
The source also told us that he is not aware of a team ever using the exemption to keep a player from qualifying for free agency.
"I do not recall ever seeing this done for this reason," the source said. "In the few instances I can recall, the exemption was granted in the early part of the season so a late reporting player -- or otherwise activated player such as from [the] Reserve/Left Squad
-- can work out and the team gets to devote that
roster spot to someone available to play. In these cases, there was enough of the season left that an accrued season was not in jeopardy."
In Ogunleye's case, the reduction of his tender by the Dolphins from $1.8 million to $412,000 suggests that the team will take advantage of any rules available to it under the current system.
In Ball's case, well, it's the Chargers. We're confident that they'll find a way to screw up their ability to screw him out of qualifying for restricted free agency in 2005.