While the New York Times’ Dave Anderson describes Wednesday’s Giants practice as uneventful, and compared to the prior two weeks, perhaps it was. But he failed to acknowledge LB LaVar Arrington joining Matt Birk and Bryant Gumbel in attacking the NFLPA. From USA Today.
New York Giants linebacker LaVar Arrington equated the players union with organized crime Wednesday, 24 hours before he was scheduled to testify before Congress at a hearing involving his former agent.
Lawmakers will be looking into the NFL Players Association’s suspension of Arrington’s former agent, Carl Poston, stemming from his handling of a contract the linebacker signed with the Washington Redskins near the end of the 2003 season.
Arrington contends the union acted unfairly in taking away Poston’s livelihood.
“They suspended him without a hearing, the NFLPA,” Arrington said, sitting in front of his locker at Giants Stadium. “If you are educated and you pay attention to what is going on around you, they do a lot of foul stuff. It’s like organized crime, to be honest with you. They are bad.”
Union head Gene Upshaw (above) told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday that Poston made a major mistake in the contract by omitting an alleged second $6.5 million roster bonus that was due in 2006.
“This isn’t just about LaVar,” Upshaw said. “This is about the other players this guy represents. We have a duty to the other players.”
Upshaw added that the union and not Poston is officially Arrington’s agent and that it tried to recover the money for Arrington when the mistake became known in January 2004.
“When we got into this, we did it to protect LaVar,” Upshaw said. “I couldn’t care less about Poston. I felt we’ll take care of him (Poston) later, and we did.”