So, we should expect Random Name 2010 instead?

Just last week, SG informed, thanks in no small part to an exclusive blog post, that John Madden was retiring. BAM! That was tough actin’ Ti-blog postin’. Well, hold on to your seats, faithful readers, as you might get exposed to some BAM!, tough actin’ Ti-litigation.

Fresh off a $28 million victory over their own union, a retired NFL player says his comrades are targeting John Madden and Electronic Arts for their roles in games using their likenesses without compensating them.

Readers might recall that more than 2,000 retired NFL players won a collective $28 million judgment against the National Football League Players Association, upheld in January. Their suit alleged that the union advised EA to “scramble” the players’ likenesses (numbers, heights, sometimes races, but not stats) in order to use them in historic team rosters without compensation.

Well, having beaten one end of that shady transaction – the union – it sounds like the players want blood money from the other end-no, not that end-that being the deep-pocketed EA and Madden himself. According to an interview on Dave Pear’s blog:

The retired NFL players who were used in Madden EA video games will be suing Madden and EA for using us in those games without compensating us. We probably will not use … the attorneys who obtained a $28.1 million verdict for us against the NFLPA for “scrambling retired players identities” in those video games. The jury found it a “grossly fraudulent” action taken so they wouldn’t have to pay the retired players. … In my opinion, Madden should have been included in our licensing suit against the NFLPA and so should EA.

Bernie Parrish, the former player being interviewed, asks the retirees, who are due some $13,000 each under the verdict, to set aside $1,000 for a legal fund to continue the pursuit. Because, you know, everyone just has a spare grand lying around for purposes like suing the pants off a union. I keep mine in a glass jar underneath my bed, despite the fact that I’ve never been a member of a union and don’t have any plans to sue former employers of mine.

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…….please don’t rob me.