NFL owners could opt out of CBA with union as early as Tuesday

[Optimus Moo]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3399645

NFL owners might opt out of the existing labor agreement as soon as Tuesday when they hold their next meetings in Atlanta, according to league sources.

One management source called it a "high likelihood" that the owners will exercise their option to terminate the agreement, which will trigger a number of alternatives, including a potential work stoppage by 2011. Another source said "be prepared" for the action, although it was "not a 100 percent proposition yet."

An NFL Players Association source said, "We expect it to happen."

A league spokesman said the NFL had no comment.

[Optimus Moo]

It'll prob happen...but they should work something out...if not everyone losses...

It may be a formality type thing to work out a better deal.

But both sides will likely work on it once it happens.

However, by opting out of the agreement that was struck on March 9, 2006, the NFL would play 2010 without a salary cap, unrestricted free agency for players would be increased from four years to six years and the orderly selection of college players in the annual draft would not exist after 2011. These "poison pills" are designed to motivate both the owners and the union to work toward a new collective bargaining agreement.

[TheWiz]

The owners are playing with fire but the NFLPA is the one that poured gasoline all over the campfire. There are plenty of things that need to be fixed with the current CBA. The question is whether the owners want to cancel it and replace it with quick fixes or will the league use it wisely as a platform to fix other problems too...

Immediate Concerns
- The Salary Cap is growing too quickly for anyone, even the market, to keep up with. This offseason teams sported record amounts of budget space, largely from rolled over 2006 extra cap space. Teams and owners, especially smaller market owners who don't have large operating amounts, just are not going to ratchet up deals accordingly. Deals with 10M guarantees and bonuses a few years ago can now call for 20M for sub pro bowl players. Even though the finances still pay the yearly amounts, it's the increase in initial bonus money and investment that has cheaper owners spooked.

Result: The league should freeze the cap growth and the union should concede some space for more benefits to players on the whole.

- Profit sharing is still not in effect. It has gotten tossed around, delayed, bumped up and then back at the last moment, and the rich majority of market owners are laughing at the smaller market clubs. If you're say, WAS then you've got a bigger media market and your local TV deals alone dwarf what smaller teams get. That's an huge annual cash advantage. Smaller market teams already spend a lot to get their stadiums packed with a smaller relative population.

Result: At some point there needs to be a balance. I'd create a luxury tax for football. Every year teams must report spending and owners who spend money out of pocket are ranked compared to their teams earnings. Owners who made little and used their own money get reimbursed by the fat cats that who made more and spent even more on their team. If you can make millions and afford to spend the same amount on player bonuses out of pocket other owners cannot. League CAMs already cover this concept with cap space but not actual ownership money. Besides, CAMs only tend to give more space to underspenders.

- Rookie Salaries. I think the league needs to get a bit more realistic on this. Only the smaller market teams are at risk and at the same time, if you don't produce a top 5 loser more than once every 3 or 4 years then you don't have to worry. Not a single deal has hamstringed a team yet. Even with record bonuses and guarantees, no one picks a player top 5 overall and cuts him within 2 years. Teams have structured the deals with low salaries and big bonuses that make deals sound biger and nastier than before. Instead of paying a rookie a 6-year deal worth 60M and 20M in bonuses, they shave 10M off in salaries and turn them into roster bonuses in years 2 and 3 and now it's a 6-year, 60M deal with 30M in bonuses. Sounds like it got more dangerous, it didn't. The team just lost 10M more in those first 3 years. It won't destroy their cap or keep them non-competitive. What's worse, Upshaw has said he will never agree to slotting rookies because it will only further exacerbate the problem with my first point. Now suddenly instead of rookies getting paid you'll need to shell out massive deals to 3rd and 4th year players.

Result: Nothing will happen here. It'ds a slippery slope. So you only reward rookies after 3 years of proven production. So teams instead pay outrageously later on for big draft classes. First off, some teams may instead choose to trade or cut emerging players to avoid the salary bump. Then you've also created a trend of paying players for what they've done. Then you'll have veterans left and right holding out asking for better deals when they overperform. What they can do? Place a cap on the amount of growth from year to year. The amount of total value of a deal and the guaranteed bonus money cannot increase by a percentage high than the salary cap increase or 3%, whichever is larger, from the previous player the year before. If a guy got a 100M deal with 50M guaranteed for #1 overall, next year a cap increase of 5% means the top rookie can at most make 105M with 52.5M guaranteed.

- The LTBE loophole. Let's be realistic here, teams can keep abusing this and giving out 'fake' bonuses yearly to avoid the minimum salary cap and continually rolling it overwithout ever spending it.

Result: First, add a penalty. Only allow teams to recoup 80% of the amount of the bonus. If a team rolls over 10M, they only get 8M. If they roll over that 8M again, they will only have 6.4M to show for it the next season. So even if a team keeps re-rolling over a sum on top of the salary cap increase they won't be able to continually grow a continuing surplus. Another fix would be to both (a) slightly slash the slightly excessive lower cap space limit and then (b) make it independant of LTBE bonus values. One other suggestion is just to really review the LTBE terms of the CBA and remove the parts where "must block 14 punts" is a loophole and terms like that. They've gone to great lengths to involve LTBE bonuses for rookies. But the loophole is actually a bit pro-parity, it allows teams to gear up in a bad year to strike FA big the next year and explode into contention more easily. It just needs to be kept from being abused as a method of avoiding minimal salary expenses and protecting cheap owners.

Other Problems

- Line of Duty re-examination. Players who suffer injuries while playing in the NFL and later retire can file for full medical coverage if it can be proven that the injury was due to football. For example, if a player broken his ankle in a game and when he turns 55 has arthritis in the joint and weak ligaments due to a previous injury, he gets covered. But tons of players who suffer back and mental/head conditions later in life as a result of playing pro for many years cannot prove it was due to football. But as time goes on and the number of guys with mental problems from a dozne concussions, arthritic knees, degenerative spine conditions at ager 50, etc. seems to be evidence enough.

Result: Generation based coverage. If a player played Decade X for at least so many years, he gets a percentage of league coverage for degenerative and chronic conditions proven by a medical doctor. Players in the 50s-70s should get up to 80% of coverage. They never got paid enough as players to afford the medical bills they have today. Players in the 80s get 65% and 50% for players from the 90s. These days, if you play at least 6+ years enough to build up likely future chronic trouble, you've made millions. On top of investments you should be making, league pension and benefits, the league should only cover a small percentage of your pain. After all, any player today looks at those guys from the 70s and 80s who are barely senior citizens now who are experiencing trouble. They know they're selling their bodies. That's why they're paid so darned much. Players from the 00's should only get 35% coverage. Every 10-years, the coverage rolls over to protect the oldest generation even more. So in 10 years the 80s player will go up to 80% coverage and the 90s up to 65% and so on.

- Retiree benefits re-examination as a whole. Don't just give them a pension based on years played and some weak medical coverage and give them the boot.

Result: Extend the "continuing education" benefits to any players within 10 years of filing their retirement papers so they can pursue second careers more easily. Increase the pension amounts by 25% and then fix it to beat inflation by .5% every year. The league should also appoint a specific position(along with a full time assistant and 2 part-time staffers) in the NFLPA offices to record and handle alumni concerns as their sole duty. If a player has a grievance, that's their office. It gets recorded, filed and it's the job of that employee to report regularly to the league, league offices and NFLPA anmd to also negotiate the CBA for those alumni. What the top concerns are is to avoid future media fiascos, to see compounding problems and fix them before they're too public, and for the league to record grievances to react to them more swiftly and officially instead of letting some upstart alumni run to congress uncontested.

- Recouping bonus money from bad players.

Result: Very simple. Allow all non-guaranteed bonuses not-tied to performance to be re-claimable. Roster bonuses, reporting bonuses, workout bonuses and similar that are not guaranteed can be brough to civil court. Bonuses based on playing performance or those guaranteed cannot be touched. Players at risk should just be forced to go with fewer guarantees, period.

- A Commissioner powers clause. Should a comish be allowed to fine and suspend players at will? Why can't there be a process set aside to deal with the worst players and not a dictator power like Goodell?

Result: There should be penalties for individual arrests, convictions and legal problems set forth with a position inside the league offices (the same office that doles out playing fines) to be the deciding factor in grey areas. Second offenses can be compounded by added fines and games and the office can further call for excessive suspensions based on multiple infractions. All such cases can be contested before an impartial, random, non-league arbitrator at the player's request.

[WiscoMagic17]

Way to point out the obvious, Wiz...

[The OLD Cookie Monster]

atta boy Wiz! Just what I was thinking too....

I'm sure you were.

[WiscoMagic17]

I'm sure you were.

lol. I thought of something even funnier now.

[The OLD Cookie Monster]

lol. I thought of something even funnier now.

Lol, don't make him mad, he'll talk you to death.

[WiscoMagic17]

Lol, don't make him mad, he'll talk you to death.

Nah, I don't mind his long posts. For the most part, they're accurate and provide info I'm too lazy to go looking for anyway.

[The OLD Cookie Monster]

Nah, I don't mind his long posts. For the most part, they're accurate and provide info I'm too lazy to go looking for anyway.

Except when he tried saying the NFL isn't a natural monopoly, he's quite ignorant on a lot of stuff actually. He has no idea about the draft, he is actually one of the more ignorant posters when it comes to that.

[WiscoMagic17]

Except when he tried saying the NFL isn't a natural monopoly, he's quite ignorant on a lot of stuff actually. He has no idea about the draft, he is actually one of the more ignorant posters when it comes to that.

Draft - Yeah, I guess. But I would take his opinion on a lot of stuff just as seriously as some of those clowns on ESPN.

[The OLD Cookie Monster]

Draft - Yeah, I guess. But I would take his opinion on a lot of stuff just as seriously as some of those clowns on ESPN.

On contracts and the stadium I take his advice, but it stops there. I've seen some pretty laughable posts about the draft out of him.

If you want to know some draft stuff look at Majesstik1's posts, he knows more about the draft than Wiz does contracts, stadium, etc. And he comes without the ego.

[Pound th' Rock]

Wow this turned into a Wiz bashing thread pretty quickly...

[Optimus Moo]

bump

[Giedi]

Everything I heard the opt out will happen @ the meetings...the NFLPA will have to give a lil to get more...John Clayton was saying that maybe adding a 17th gm could end up being one of the new agreements that the NFLPA gets while they give up some of that 60% of profit to the owners...just something I heard...

I don't know how good the current Comish is at twisting Owners arms, because the last time ownership had to deal with the renewal of the CBA - it was a touch and go situation.

Clearly, if both sides cant cut a deal, work stoppage is in the future. Big loss to everybody, but usualy a shock like that is needed to get some sensibility on both sides.

We'll see, but I'm of the opinion that the owners are going to opt out. Bad idea, but it will lead to better things for the NFL in the future.

Giedi

[MR. WEBBER]

if there is no salary cap,i could see the cowboys and a couple of teams becoming like the yankees.just shelling out lots of money to buy the best team.it ruins baseball and it would ruin the nfl.i like that any team could come out of nowhere to win a title.