Reply #47: Ahhh... okay, here's the thing, the NFL doesn't do 'suspend with pay'. [View All]

[Kagemusha]

If it suspends a player, the player is disqualified from receiving pay for the portion of the season (or in the worst case, the entire season) for which the suspension occurs. This is for regular season games - preseason and postseason are separate things and matter very little or not at all for player pay. So there really isn't any suspension with pay like a teacher in a union would get.

That's why the league can't suspend without any legal cause; it'd be costing Vick an awful lot of money, directly, which he would then sue the league for, with the support of the player's union, plus punitive damages for jumping the gun.