1) So, today a dozen or so folks, including @pedrogomezESPN and @kimbafuzz have for various reasons asked the question: “Where is the @NFLPA?” I have thoughts...1/14

2) Having had lengthy discussions with players and union leadership, the PA suffered from three fundamental flaws. 1. Philosophy. Ever since Kap took a knee, the union has been conflicted about how to respond because it has never truly believed protest to be the job of a union.

3) Leadership believed in protecting jobs, safety, growing jobs, growing salaries, but have never been truly committed to the social component that has now become part of the game. When the protest started, leadership refused to view it as a labor issue.

4) Part of the reason they did not is because D Smith felt he had constructed a binding, non-CBA framework for protecting protesting players from being disciplined. You could call this shortsighted because the Trump factor increased pressure to sanction players.

5) So, with the threat of discipline, protest became a labor issue whether the PA believed it to be one or not. Had D Smith and the PA believed passionately in the protest issue their actions would have been different, even though D was aware labor law heavily favors employers.

6) 2. Kap. The relationship between Kap and the union was so strained, the union was generally lukewarm in their defense of Kap. D felt his immediate interview with @EdgeofSports the night Kap knelt was sufficient support. Kap’s team felt abandoned.

7) especially abandoned when @mikefreemanNFL quoted an anonymous exec who said Kap was the most hated player since Rae Carruth. How the PA could let a guy fighting for black people be compared to convicted murder-for-hire kingpin was a wound that never healed.

8) The union needed to swallow its enmity toward Kap, be more vocal in fighting for him AND recognize there would be no way to avoid protest becoming a labor (not political) issue that deserved its full attention and mobilization of its membership, but it didn’t.

9) 3. Tactics. Because D and the PA didn’t really want to deal with protest, they made perhaps the worst tactical decision they could make: they let Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins negotiate directly with the owners while Kap was out of a job and while Donald Trump attacked.

10) D’s felt the players were being empowered, no CBA issues were being compromised and deep down, the PA didn’t want to get involved in the social justice morass. D was never convinced there was widespread support to get involved despite individual player passion...

11) But by not getting involved, the Kap/Reid faction and the Jenkins Players Coalition devolved into civil war. It also allowed the owners to divide and conquer while never appealing to the 1700 players that the owners are making a power play against jobs, union solidarity...

12) AND the CBA by potentially imposing rules/sanction against protest while denying employment to players. So, a union that never thought protest was a CBA issue is now fighting concurrent collusion cases against two players while its players made a business deal with owners.

13) Not viewing Kap and later Reid as a labor issue allowed the players to be bought by owners while weakening the resolved of the union to collectively fight ownership for denying two players jobs. Tactical errors by the PA pitted players against themselves.

14) By allowing the owners and media to frame this as a political/patriotism issue, the players devoured each other. So much of this stems from the PA’s unwillingness to forge a cogent labor strategy when Trump kept threatening their jobs. No one mobilized against the real threat