Pash: My pleasure Rich.  It's good to talk to you.

Eisen: Now what would you say the mood is there?  Shocked?

Pash: I think we're surprised.  We didn't expect this kind of a ruling.  Shocked gets pretty close to it yeah.

Eisen:  So what's the next step for the league?

Pash: The next step is as we said earlier today is to take an appeal. We think we have a very strong legal basis.  There's a lot of law that has come out of the appeals court here in New York which is quite favorable to us.  In fact I don't think this court has ever ruled against a sports league on labor exemption issues in probably the last 25 years.  So we think we have a good shot at an appeal and that's our next step.

Eisen: Is that why you were sort of surprised?

Pash: Yes, that's exactly why we thought that the combination of the supreme court case that we won on behalf of the NFL in 1996, plus all the law here in New York that had been developed gave us a pretty good shot in front of the district judge.

Eisen: Let's talk about the law a little bit right now.  The judge apparently ruled that the rule by the league preventing anyone from coming out before three years after their High School graduation is preventing them from shopping their wares.  What are your thoughts on that?

Pash: Well my own thought on that Rich is that it gets farther down the road that you need to get.  We don't think the judge should have ever reached that question because this rule is collectively bargained.  It's something that was agreed to by the NFL and by the players association.  It's the kind of rule, an eligibility rule, that exists in every unionized industry in America and has been upheld countless times in unionized industries throughout this country.  So there's not a question of being able to shop your wares or not shop your wares, it's a question of whether an employer and a union can agree on eligibility rules as to who can come into the business and when.

Eisen: So the next question of the fact that you mentioned that age is a poor proxy for NFL readiness, that the teams are better off testing each player’s physical and psychological maturity.  That is another issue where you think the judge shouldn't have gotten that far?

Pash: Exactly. Exactly.  There’s no requirement that a union and an employer agree on some sort of individualized testing mechanism.  It’s no different than saying that before you can be a pilot for an airline, you’ve got to have a certain minimum number of hours. Before you can work in the automobile industry, or the steel business or something like that you’ve got to meet certain requirements, those kind of requirements on an across the board basis have been negotiated for decades and decades and always upheld.

Eisen:  So you’re going to go to appeals, but sometimes the wheels of justice grind slowly, I don’t have to tell you that.  What happens if this appeal doesn’t come up before the end of April and the Commissioner steps to the podium with the Chargers on the clock?

Pash: Well if the appeal doesn’t get heard until the end of April, which is very much the likely scenario here and we don’t get a stay on the order that was issued today, then Maurice Clarett will be eligible for the draft and presumably one of our clubs will draft him in April and we’ll welcome him into the league.

Eisen: So you’re seeking a stay right now?

Pash: Well we haven’t made that judgment yet, that’s something we are going to look hard at right now.  We’re going to talk to our litigation council about it and make that decision in the next day or two.

Eisen:  So as of right now, I guess freshman, high school seniors, their eligible right now too, would you say that’s correct?

Pash: It’s a broad ruling and I think what you’ve said is a fair reading of the opinion.  As of right now, those people would be eligible to apply for the draft and we would not have a basis at least on blanket age or something like that basis on which to say no.

Eisen:  Does this affect Larry Fitzgerald, the star receiver from the University of Pittsburgh?  Does this affect his status or is that separate from this issue?

Pash:  Well, Larry Fitzgerald’s eligibility was being evaluated under the rule as it has existed for years.  But I think it’s fair to say that Larry Fitzgerald is eligible for the 2004 draft.  We have told his family and his legal advisors that he is eligible for the draft and we would assume unless he changes his mind for some reason that he will be drafted in April.

Eisen:  Have you heard from Clarett’s side since this ruling came down?

Pash:  Our outside council did have a conversation with Mr. Clarett’s attorney earlier today talking about some scheduling matters and he was asking some questions about what kinds of processes we intended to follow on the appeal.  It was the kind of talk the lawyers have to have in order to plan for the next phase of the lawsuit.

Eisen: Well it’s been quite an interesting week for the National Football League, Jeff we appreciate you coming on here.

Pash:  It has been, it’s my pleasure Rich and  if I knew I was coming on NFL Network I would have called my local cable operator a few days ago, but I’m going to go home and do that right now.

Eisen:  Thank very much Jeff Pash, the Executive Vice President of the National Football League.