Dave Pear's Blog

More keeps coming out on the touchy-feely meetings that Commissioner Goodell has been conducting with the “Alliance” in league cities across the country. The first meeting held in Dallas ended with Disability Attorney being invited – and then uninvited – by John Wooten (read about that HERE) and as revealed in a series of interesting e-mails that followed the meeting (read about that HERE). Then a dull second meeting in Chicago and a more interesting one last week in Baltimore. The spouses of several players with dementia confronted the Commissioner outside of the meeting room about being denied a voice in the process. And then the New York Times backed it up with the revelation that it was the Alliance who decided to close the meetings to everyone except retired players (read about that HERE and HERE).

Behind the scenes, there’s been a flurry of e-mails and phone calls between the retired players and some members of the “Alliance,” discussing and rationalizing the secret decision to keep the meetings closed. And lots and lots of backpedaling and finger-pointing. We’ve got one interesting exchange that came from Alliance member John Wooten trying once again to explain his way out of another ridiculous situation. Tony Davis’ response is first and Wooten’s e-mail follows at the end. Tony is expressing an opinion that the majority of retired players all seem to share. So why weren’t the other players even consulted before the Big Brother Alliance decided for them?

continue reading »

Harold Henderson in front of Congress

It was obvious after the meeting that the NFL’s in house attorney, Harold Henderson, tried to do an end run with his attempts to get real information to the retired players. Here’s the follow up on our Snowing in Dallas (click HERE to read that) post about Commissioner Goodell’s visit to Dallas. Many of you were well aware ahead of time that John Wooten had invited John Hogan to the meeting in Dallas. As a courtesy, we decided not to publicize his trip, with hopes that John Hogan would be given some time to actually address many of the issues he has personally encountered with the NFLPA’s disability program (or lack thereof). But that was not to be. John was initially turned away from the “closed” meeting and then allowed to take a seat but was told he couldn’t address the group about his findings and ideas. John left the meeting before it finished and then received an interesting e-mail from John Wooten (after we posted Snowing in Dallas) denying he had invited John Hogan to attend. What was more interesting however was another e-mail that came in after Wooten sent that e-mail out to John Hogan AND Harold Henderson. Henderson then sent a short and terse e-mail back to John Wooten and it sure looks like he doesn’t know too much about the Internet and e-mail either (like our good friends at Akin Gump!). Looks like Henderson clicked on that REPLY ALL button and sent his message out to John Wooten as well as John Hogan and several other people in the NFL organization: Jeff Pash, Peter Abitante and Deborah Pugliese). Pash is an Executive VP and an attorney, Abitante is their PR flak (?!!) and Pugliese is Goodell’s secretary. Now why would Henderson have to keep their PR counsel informed? Here’s the e-mail:

continue reading »

or so you would have thought, judging from the cold reception attorney John Hogan received when he showed up at Commissioner Roger Goodell’s “open” forum to hear about retired players’ complaints. John was there at the invitation of John Wooten of the NFL Players Alliance. After canceling appointments and juggling court appearances so that he could make the meeting (all at his OWN expense), John arrived at the meeting and was first stopped from entering the room. After a brief delay, John was finally allowed to take a seat in the meeting room. But in no uncertain terms, he was then told that he wasn’t allowed to speak at all because the floor was only open to players! So John sat through the entire meeting and took copious notes – over ten pages of ‘em!

continue reading »