VM lists reasons for OL firing- PFT

[4th&long]

>>Vince McMahon lists reasons for Oliver Luck’s firing from XFL in court filing<<

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... rt-filing/

>>Lawyers for Vince McMahon claim in a court filing Wednesday that the XFL owner terminated commissioner Oliver Luck for cause, Sports Business Journal reports.

Luck is suing McMahon for breach of contract after being fired April 9, four days before the XFL filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

McMahon’s attorneys responded in their pre-trial fillings, listing three reasons for Luck’s dismissal: 1. Gross neglect of his job during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic; 2. Personal use of a league-issued cell phone; 3. Signing receiver Antonio Callaway despite McMahon’s orders to avoid players with previous legal troubles.

McMahon claims Luck left the XFL’s headquarters in Connecticut for his Indiana home March 13 and “disengage[d] from the XFL’s operations,” according to Sports Business Journal. McMahon said Luck did not inform him of his intentions.

“Put simply, at the very moment when his leadership as CEO was needed most, Luck did not devote substantially all of his business time to the XFL, as required by his contract,” the filing reads.<<

[MGB01]

Second one's kinda weak and the first would have to be defined further, but Callaway was quite frankly a waste and flies right in the face of the league's strategy to avoid "names" (the name extent here is Callaway essentially being a poor man's Josh Gordon) based solely on name value, especially when you had the whole Corey Vereen thing. If this was a lame-ass response to it that's even worse. That's easily the most valid of the three--though I'd go less on the previous legal troubles aspect of it.

Plus while Karter Schult probably wasn't that big of a deal (although he does have eight sacks through 13 games in my sim league) and there's really dozens of him for the league to pick from it's not a good look to give a guy who the Browns punished by making him play longer in a preseason game () a "big name" bonus while Schult isn't even getting an invite.

Maybe Luck had buyer's (or in this case, seller's) remorse, but what exactly does he think he'd be doing at the NCAA right now?

[4th&long]

Second one's kinda weak and the first would have to be defined further, but Callaway was quite frankly a waste and flies right in the face of the league's strategy to avoid "names" (the name extent here is Callaway essentially being a poor man's Josh Gordon) based solely on name value, especially when you had the whole Corey Vereen thing. If this was a lame-ass response to it that's even worse. That's easily the most valid of the three--though I'd go less on the previous legal troubles aspect of it.

Plus while Karter Schult probably wasn't that big of a deal (although he does have eight sacks through 13 games in my sim league) and there's really dozens of him for the league to pick from it's not a good look to give a guy who the Browns punished by making him play longer in a preseason game () a "big name" bonus while Schult isn't even getting an invite.

Maybe Luck had buyer's (or in this case, seller's) remorse, but what exactly does he think he'd be doing at the NCAA right now?

OL made $10mm for 2019-2020 or there abouts. He's got paid well.

The allegation that OL basically went silent contrast with say the CFL which is petitioning the Gov and working with its players. I think VM has a argument there whether it pans out or not. Instead of doing a battle plan OL was paying everyone for no performance weeks 6-10 + playoffs.

And the third point, if VM said X and OL did Y won't sit well with VM.

Yeah the phone thing is just trolling.

[4th&long]

Here's the latest.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/x ... 188160002/

>>Dobrowski, in his own court filings Wednesday, said the $23.8 million Luck is seeking includes $800,000 in base salary due for the remaining two months of Luck’s 2019-20 contract, a $2 million bonus for the 2019-20 contract year and $21 million in salary and bonuses for the remaining three years of the contract. <<

I read elsewhere there was a personal guarantee....
https://www.espn.com/xfl/story/_/id/291 ... luck-cause

I think he'll settle for the $2.8mm which he has a much better argument and that will end this...

[nick1091]

I think he'll settle for the $2.8mm which he has a much better argument and that will end this...

If I were luck, I wouldn't settle for anything less than say 50% of the contract. Personal guarantee of the contract (which I think is new news) changes everything.

I'm guessing (no first hand knowledge, obviously) that Luck's attorneys are working on a contingency basis, so his out of pocket expenses for letting this play out are negligible. VM's costs to defend this are probably not. This may be a case where like many other law suits of this magnitude it's cheaper to settle than to go through the whole process and roll the dice with a civil jury.

If VM wants to forge ahead and fight this tooth and nail, he needs to use every trick in the book to delay, delay, delay as much as possible. With all the frenzy going on out there you're not going to get a lot of traction with a guy heading home ahead of the state lockdown - the further we're removed from this hysteria the more level headed jury you are likely to get.

[4th&long]

I think he'll settle for the $2.8mm which he has a much better argument and that will end this...

If I were luck, I wouldn't settle for anything less than say 50% of the contract. Personal guarantee of the contract (which I think is new news) changes everything.

I'm guessing (no first hand knowledge, obviously) that Luck's attorneys are working on a contingency basis, so his out of pocket expenses for letting this play out are negligible. VM's costs to defend this are probably not. This may be a case where like many other law suits of this magnitude it's cheaper to settle than to go through the whole process and roll the dice with a civil jury.

If VM wants to forge ahead and fight this tooth and nail, he needs to use every trick in the book to delay, delay, delay as much as possible. With all the frenzy going on out there you're not going to get a lot of traction with a guy heading home ahead of the state lockdown - the further we're removed from this hysteria the more level headed jury you are likely to get.

Possible - but due to the Coronavirus pandemic we could see courts more willing to side with VM as the personal guarantee was made in environment that excluded a gov shutdown. So if he pays for current year plus bonus the rest is for work beyond season. But who knows.

[MGB01]

I think he'll settle for the $2.8mm which he has a much better argument and that will end this...

If I were luck, I wouldn't settle for anything less than say 50% of the contract. Personal guarantee of the contract (which I think is new news) changes everything.

I'm guessing (no first hand knowledge, obviously) that Luck's attorneys are working on a contingency basis, so his out of pocket expenses for letting this play out are negligible. VM's costs to defend this are probably not. This may be a case where like many other law suits of this magnitude it's cheaper to settle than to go through the whole process and roll the dice with a civil jury.

If VM wants to forge ahead and fight this tooth and nail, he needs to use every trick in the book to delay, delay, delay as much as possible. With all the frenzy going on out there you're not going to get a lot of traction with a guy heading home ahead of the state lockdown - the further we're removed from this hysteria the more level headed jury you are likely to get.

Personal guarantee for what though? Unless it's a Steve Young or Bobby Bonilla-type personal services deal, it's too vague to actually be interpreted. If it's something like a downside guarantee the WWE offers then about 50-60% sounds right, if it's guaranteed with the company well there is no company (at this point) from 2021 on. As far as what's left this year: I don't think the 800K will be a problem, the bonus is a non-starter if it was incentive-based for obvious reasons.

Quite frankly, he should be lucky (Luck, so to speak) that he wasn't canned earlier, although to answer Mike Florio (who is just terrible) how does that look for the league if say Vince canned him right after he did the Seattle Times interview?

So if Vince's defense has any weakness, it's like I said yesterday: The phone, what's that?; and gross neglect, why stop at the pandemic? You can expand it to really "protecting the X" so to speak--the aforementioned SeaTimes piece being one, where he dangerously got into "slightly more legitimate than XFL1.0" territory. The Callaway signing came off as a lame overreaction to Corey Vereen, and pointed to a general lack of clarity regarding salary structure. You could also argue the TV deals were half-assed. Where the pandemic comes in is it indicates Vince did likely want to go full speed ahead for week six and Luck just up and left. As I said a few days ago, you make them shut you down (Dana White) and put it on them.

So I'd have just gone with a general "TF were you doing?" and gone from there.

[4th&long]

I think he'll settle for the $2.8mm which he has a much better argument and that will end this...

If I were luck, I wouldn't settle for anything less than say 50% of the contract. Personal guarantee of the contract (which I think is new news) changes everything.

I'm guessing (no first hand knowledge, obviously) that Luck's attorneys are working on a contingency basis, so his out of pocket expenses for letting this play out are negligible. VM's costs to defend this are probably not. This may be a case where like many other law suits of this magnitude it's cheaper to settle than to go through the whole process and roll the dice with a civil jury.

If VM wants to forge ahead and fight this tooth and nail, he needs to use every trick in the book to delay, delay, delay as much as possible. With all the frenzy going on out there you're not going to get a lot of traction with a guy heading home ahead of the state lockdown - the further we're removed from this hysteria the more level headed jury you are likely to get.

Personal guarantee for what though? Unless it's a Steve Young or Bobby Bonilla-type personal services deal, it's too vague to actually be interpreted. If it's something like a downside guarantee the WWE offers then about 50-60% sounds right, if it's guaranteed with the company well there is no company (at this point) from 2021 on. As far as what's left this year: I don't think the 800K will be a problem, the bonus is a non-starter if it was incentive-based for obvious reasons.

Quite frankly, he should be lucky (Luck, so to speak) that he wasn't canned earlier, although to answer Mike Florio (who is just terrible) how does that look for the league if say Vince canned him right after he did the Seattle Times interview?

So if Vince's defense has any weakness, it's like I said yesterday: The phone, what's that?; and gross neglect, why stop at the pandemic? You can expand it to really "protecting the X" so to speak--the aforementioned SeaTimes piece being one, where he dangerously got into "slightly more legitimate than XFL1.0" territory. The Callaway signing came off as a lame overreaction to Corey Vereen, and pointed to a general lack of clarity regarding salary structure. You could also argue the TV deals were half-assed. Where the pandemic comes in is it indicates Vince did likely want to go full speed ahead for week six and Luck just up and left. As I said a few days ago, you make them shut you down (Dana White) and put it on them.

So I'd have just gone with a general "TF were you doing?" and gone from there.

What Seattle Times article.

[MGB01]

My bad, it was KJR, whatever one he mentioned stepping in and unilaterally firing team personnel--among other head-scratchers. A commissioner of league shouldn't be in team business, period--Vince worked too damn hard to get the league up and running again for Luck to pull something that would be mocked as "Oh yeah, the Mr. McMahon league". Why even have a team president/GM? That'd be like Roger Goodell firing Mike McCarthy in GB.

Hell it was bad enough when Pepper Johnson got Mossed and we had those two seminar posters here calling Luck to fire him.

I quite frankly don't care if he did it in NFL Europe--which wasn't exactly hailed as a rousing success.