NFL's Exclusive Club -- Players Association's Lawsuit Tackles Quarterbacks

Bubby Brister and 10 other National Football League quarterbacks are embroiled in a nasty dispute with their players' association.

The NFL Players' Association alleges NFL Properties bribed each quarterback with $500,000 guaranteed over five years in an effort to put the NFLPA out of business.

The quarterbacks say they were just making good business deals.

The Quarterback Club is incorporated and consists of Brister of the Steelers, Boomer Esiason, Cincinnati Bengals; Bernie Kosar, Cleveland Browns; Warren Moon, Houston Oilers; Jim Kelly, Buffalo Bills; Dan Marino, Miami Dolphins; John Elway, Denver Broncos; Randall Cunningham, Philadelphia Eagles; Jim Everett, Los Angeles Rams; Phil Simms, New York Giants, and Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys.

At issue are group licensing rights, which provided the NFLPA with $6 million in revenues last year, half of which went to operating and legal fees and half of which was rebated to the players.

"We have smoking-gun evidence that this is to do nothing but put us out of business," said M.J. Duberstein, the NFL Players Association's research director and economist. "If we have no money, there's no lawsuit and no free agency."

The NFLPA says seven of the 11 members of the Quarterback Club - all but Kosar, Kelly, Cunningham and Aikman - signed three-year authorization forms giving the NFLPA exclusive rights to use their names, images or likenesses in products involving six or more players. Players remained free to make individual deals.

Brister said he wasn't harming the NFLPA.

But Jeffrey Kessler, a New York attorney handling the case for the NFLPA, said he is "highly confident" he will win the trial, which he hopes will begin by November.