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NFL General Counsel to Lose Millions if There's a Lockout

By Jason Beahm on February 01, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

How much would you stand to lose if you lost your in-house position? If the NFL has a lockout next season, Jeff Pash, the National Football League's top lawyer and chief labor negotiator, stands to lose nearly $5 million if a deal is not reached by the March 4 deadline. Pash is the NFL general counsel.

Pash, along with Commissioner Roger Goodell, have pledged to take a $1 annual salary if the lockout occurs. Not to be outdone, DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director of the NFL Players Association tweeted that he will take 68 cents if the lockout is avoided.

The NFL players association even has a "Lockout Central" site with a clock counting down to the expiration of the labor agreement, The New York Times reports. The Times reports that the "Goodell-Smith volley was the latest in a dispute that is the first in sports history to be played out extensively on digital turf."

However, social media is going to have a big impact on the dispute, despite both sides "trumpeting their positions to the public," Stanford law professor William Gould IV told the Times. "My sense is that this stuff does not fundamentally change things in disputes that are difficult to resolve."

So which is more likely to happen, for NFL general counsel Jeff Pash to take $1 and have a lockout or for DeMaurice Smith to take 68 cents and avoid one? According to sources, the former is far more likely than the latter.

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