Attorney David Cornwell, eliminated in January from consideration for NFL Players Association executive director, is back in contention for the position, sources told the National Football Post today.

Cornwell procured the three nominations from NFL player representatives that are necessary to allow him to speak to all 32 player representatives this month in Hawaii at the annual association meetings, which is one of the final steps before the union names its new leader. The meetings start March 14. The NFLPA constitution specifies that a minimum of three player representatives can nominate new candidates 10 days before the annual meeting.

Cornwell, who has worked as a player representative and for the league, was among nine candidates hoping to succeed the late Gene Upshaw as executive director until the list was pared to five in January. Still in the running are former union presidents Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong and attorney DeMaurice Smith.

Cornwell was regarded as a strong candidate because of his background with sports licensing and his familiarity with the NFL office. He also recently represented a group of NFL players that appealed suspensions for taking a diuretic that’s a masking agent for steroids.

At the time he was eliminated, Cornwell said in a statement: “The prior employment and the other unique professional experiences that I considered assets were perceived to be liabilities. While I am disappointed, I will remain a forceful advocate for NFL players."

Cornwell declined to comment about the executive director post, saying the selection process is ongoing. But he did previously release a statement to the National Football Post about the Collective Bargaining Agreement and economic issues facing the players.

FROM DAVID CORNWELL:

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING – THE ECONOMICS

Collective bargaining is the most important issue that the next Executive Director of the NFLPA will confront.  While there are significant non-economic issues that need to be addressed (drug, steroid, and conduct polices and an independent arbitrator for league imposed discipline), the NFLPA’s success will be measured by its ability to confront the economic challenges that evolved since the current system was adopted in 1993.

New Tension in the Current System

The salary cap has exposed revenue disparities among NFL clubs.  For some teams, 70% of team revenues are spent on the salary cap while the salary cap is as little as 40% of other teams’ revenues.  The result is a wide disparity in team earnings.

Team revenues

Minus Salary cap spending

Minus Operating expenses

Equals Team Earnings

This year, at least one team is projected to earn $65 million while average team earnings are projected to be $25 million. Explosive and uneven revenue growth at the team level has created a wide swing in team revenues that did not exist in 1993 when the salary cap was first adopted. To even out this earnings disparity, the NFL adopted new revenue sharing procedures in conjunction with the 2006 CBA that require higher revenue teams to make payments to lower revenue teams.

This revenue sharing among NFL teams has created friction between the “haves” and the “have nots.”  Because the salary cap is based on total league revenues but salaries are paid with individual team revenues, the disparity in team revenues creates economic pressure.  The lower revenue teams spend a higher percentage of their revenues on the salary cap.  They believe that higher revenue teams benefit from factors that they did not create -- the size of their market and their membership in the NFL -- and they should share the revenue that flows from such benefits. Higher revenue teams complain about revenue sharing because their revenues are sourced locally. They believe that revenue sharing rewards lower revenue teams for not working hard enough to generate local revenues.  The owners’ inability to reconcile the tension created by these economic realities has caused them to look to players for relief.

Collective bargaining has traditionally sought to resolve the tension between players and owners. Economic disparity among NFL teams has added a new dimension (owners versus owners) to the traditional conflict between players and owners. The competing interests of lower revenue teams and higher revenue teams have collided with players’ legitimate economic expectations. This three-way tension will not be resolved by simply asking players to reduce their share of the pie.

Transparency

NFL owners cannot expect players to be part of a solution unless they are given the opportunity to examine the problem. Owners must accept that transparency is the only bridge to a resolution.  A solution cannot be reached without the NFLPA having the same information upon which the owners rely in making their demands for economic relief.  The NFLPA must have access to teams’ earnings.

When NFL asserts that teams are not making enough money, it is focusing on team earnings (i.e., money after payments for the salary cap and operating expenses), not revenues.  The NFLPA has access to league-wide revenues, but it does not have access to every team’s financials. League-wide revenues are an apple to the orange of specific team earnings. The NFL cannot deny access to teams’ financial information and then expect players to accept its assertions regarding the teams’ financial health.

This lack of transparency has limited creativity and, among other things, forced both sides to stake out positions.  The challenge in any negotiation is to ensure that your interests are not derailed by your positions. While players and owners have conflicting positions, they have one fundamentally common interest – maintaining the health and growth of the game.

New Options

A salary cap is merely an option for, not a lynchpin of, an effective system. While it has provided owners with cost certainty, the salary cap has exposed revenue disparity among NFL teams and its accounting requirements have overwhelmed the original intent of the salary cap. The NBA and MLB have prospered with a “soft” cap and no salary cap. Rather than allowing their options to be defined by old positions, the NFLPA and the NFL must use creative problem solving to push the analytical envelope to examine the best features in the current system and the systems in other sports to weave together a new approach for the NFL.

Equitable revenue sharing is essential to maintain the unique elements that have driven the success of the NFL. Pete Rozelle’s breakthrough concept of sharing national television revenues is now the standard in all successful sports leagues. The debate between higher revenue and lower revenue teams creates an artificial distinction between the character of revenues (i.e., local versus national) that is inconsistent with the foundation upon which the NFL was built. Higher revenue teams benefit from their membership in the NFL and they should share those benefits. Team revenues are as a much product of a team’s location, market demographics, membership in the NFL, and the quality of the competition on the field as they are a reflection of the creativity of an individual team’s marketing department.

The higher revenue teams’ concern about a “free rider” problem can be avoided by setting objective revenue targets that conditions lower revenue teams’ eligibility for revenue sharing upon their performance against these targets. Lower revenue teams must be motivated to adopt the best practices being utilized in all sports to maximize their revenues.

Ignoring sensible solutions to revenue disparity places an undue burden on players to provide economic relief.

Partnership

Though the “us versus them” mentality tends to ignore it, players and owners are partners. Last year, $40 million of the NFLPA’s $160 million in revenue came from the NFL. Arguably, all of the NFL’s revenues flow from the quality of the competition on the field. The next round of collective bargaining must embrace the reality of the partnership between players and owners.

The NFL must recognize that partnership is defined by not only what you give up, but also by what you get in return. Partnership in the NFL begins with a shared commitment to grow the business. The NFL’s demands for concessions from the players must be accompanied by a willingness to accept players’ examination of and input into the ways that the NFL makes money. If players are expected to accept that the salary cap is too rich for some teams, then players have a legitimate interest in ensuring that every team works diligently to maximize its revenues.

The next CBA must encourage and promote an expansive partnership between players and owners and owners and owners. A successful, new system will have features of the old system and new features that have not yet been effectively employed in the NFL. These features must include:

1. Equitable revenue sharing that acknowledges the benefits of membership in the NFL and challenges all teams to maximize their revenues,

2. Guaranteed compensation,

3. A mechanism that invites the NFLPA to participate in creating new revenue opportunities and expanding existing ones, and

4. A mechanism to share future growth that results from today’s investments.

These economic features motivate all parties, lower revenue teams, higher revenue teams and players, to contribute to growing revenues and ensures that each of these parties will share in that growth.

Players are prepared to accept the challenges and responsibilities of this partnership. It will not be enough to compete hard on the field. The players’ contribution to this partnership will require a greater commitment to conducting themselves responsibly on and off the field and consistently reflecting the common attributes of NFL players – Excellence, Commitment, Toughness, Leadership, and Achievement. Players play a significant role in drawing sponsors, licensing partners, and the ultimate customer, the fan, to our game and they are ready to accept this responsibility by using their stature to assist the NFL in generating revenues. Faithfulness to these principles will ensure that the next CBA will preserve and build upon the economic gains made thus far by the NFLPA.

This is not our fathers’ NFL. The national economy and ever-increasing entertainment options make it highly unlikely that fans, television networks, and corporate partners will simply wait for the NFL to resolve a looming labor dispute. A new partnership will enable the NFL to weather the current economic storm and maintain its position as the leading entertainment option for fans.

FROM THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL POST:

The other remaining candidates include:

Troy Vincent, a former union president and 15-year player in the NFL. His stops included Miami (1992-95), Philadelphia (1996-2003), Buffalo (2004-06) and Washington (2006). Vincent, who was replaced as union president by the Titans’ Kevin Mawae in 2008, had a strong player presence in the locker room but has been mired in controversy over reported leaks of confidential information related to player agents.

Trace Armstrong, also a former union president. He played 14 seasons in the NFL, including stints with Chicago (1989-1994), Miami (1995-2000) and Oakland (2001-2003). Armstrong was union president for eight years until he retired from the game in 2003. Since his retirement, Armstrong has worked with is former agent, Tom Condon, of CAA Sports.

DeMaurice Smith, a Washington D.C.-based attorney and a partner with the Patton Boggs law firm. Despite his lack of involvement in the football world, Smith is a leading candidate and has avoided the controversy surrounding Vincent and Armstrong, both of whom have ties to sports agents.

The National Football Post does not take a position on the selection of the new Executive Director of the NFLPA and offers Cornwell's statement for informational purposes only.