Clarett Wins Another Decision Against NFL

Maurice Clarett, aided by another favorable courtroom decision, plans to enter this year’s NFL draft, his lawyer said.

Clarett cleared another legal hurdle Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin rejected the NFL’s request to suspend her ruling that the suspended Ohio State running back is eligible to play in the league, despite being less than two years out of high school.

Scheindlin said Clarett would face “very detrimental” harm if excluded from the draft, whereas the NFL wouldn’t. After the decision, the player’s attorney, Alan C. Milstein, said Clarett was “going to be in the draft.”

The NFL will ask the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to stay Scheindlin’s ruling while the league appeals.

“We will move promptly for a stay in the Court of Appeals,” league attorney Jeff Pash said in a written statement. “We continue to believe that last week’s ruling is legally erroneous and not in the best interests of the NFL, college football, or professional and college players. We are a long way from a final decision.”

Scheindlin said it would be “perverse” to grant a delay of her Feb. 5 ruling in which she said the NFL stipulation that bars draft eligibility to Clarett and other young players was a violation of antitrust law.

“If a stay is granted, Clarett will miss the 2004 draft,” she said. “He will not be eligible to play in the NFL until the 2005 draft, when he would have been eligible under the current rule. If the stay is granted, Clarett will have effectively lost his lawsuit.”

Scheindlin said it was unlikely that the ruling would lead to an onslaught of younger players entering the draft.

“At worst, the NFL will be forced to tolerate the handful of younger players who are selected in the 2004 draft,” she said. “What would amount to a one-year suspension of the league’s eligibility rule scarcely imposes any great hardship on the NFL or its teams.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.