There are 61 articles, appendices from "A" through "N" and 357 sections. There is an introduction, countless subsections, tens of thousands of words. There are painstakingly minute details about the salary cap, precise guidelines on severance pay, huge sections on arbitration, collusion, injury grievance procedures, moving expenses and fringe benefits.
What there isn't in the collective bargaining agreement, however, is any explicit language regarding the NFL's rules for draft eligibility. Article XVI of the CBA deals with the draft. Its 13 sections lay out rules covering the annual timing of the draft down to workouts for draft eligible players. But there is nothing about eligibility.
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But companies and unions -- and the NFLPA is the exclusive bargaining agent for the league's rank and file -- have a right to collectively bargain hiring practices and guidelines for such. In most cases, for instance, you can't just stroll in off the street, grab a welder's torch and begin constructing a automobile frame. There is an apprenticeship to be served in most skilled crafts and the rules for those are collectively bargained.
An employer and the exclusive bargaining agent for the workers can be in accord on the terms or conditions of employment. Just as individual states have a right to establish the age at which a citizen can belly up to the bar and legally buy a beer or mixed drink, or the age at which someone can drive, both sides in labor relationships can set guidelines under which people can be employed.
Those rules might not be ironclad, but they are made more difficult to challenge if committed to language.
The fact the NFL's draft eligibility rules aren't included in the CBA makes the task of league attorneys considerably more difficult in front of any judge. And the key oversight certainly means some crafty labor attorney like Milstein was telling Clarett and his family that the NFL is vulnerable to a challenge.
It's not by happenstance that the apparent cornerstone of the Tuesday court action is the fact that the NFL eligibility rules exist outside the purview of the collective bargaining agreement. Or that Milstein charges that the rule is "a restraint of amateur athletes who were strangers to the collective bargaining process."
From espn.com