New CBA In Peril “Bloody” Offseason Looms
Posted: February 28, 2006 @ 10:46 pm
Years ago when the the NFL began flagging players for excessive celebrations, a joke arose that the acromyn stood for the “No Fun League.”
This afternoon, talks to extend the league’s collective bargaining agreement stalled, threatening to take all the fun away from the offseason bazaar known as free agency. The owners and players union have until 4 pm tomorrow to find common ground or a cap of roughly $95 to $96 million will be imposed for the business year that begins Friday, March 3rd.
A host of other business parameters would change: 2007 would be uncapped. The time frame for amortizing signing bonuses would shrink from seven years to four. Conversely, players would have to play six years before qualifying for unrestricted free agency. The threshold is currently four years. Union chief Gene Upshaw warned that if the players ever tasted an uncapped NFL world they would never return to the present system.
The immediate shocks to the league system would be severe. ESPN’s Len Pasquarelly quotes one league official on the extensive cuts that could come Thursday as teams scrambled to get under the cap:
People are going to be stunned — not just by the quantity of players who are cut by Thursday, but by the quality, too. It’s going to be ugly. There’s going to be blood in the streets and, compared to past years, it’s going to be from some bluebloods, guys who can still play.”
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has called an emergency meeting for Thursday morning in New York City. Given the late time frame, it’s not clear what contract-saving actions could take place there.
Questions abound after days of encouraging news:
1. Is Upshaw engaging in the most intense form of brinksmanship? One sticking point is the percentage of total league revenue to be apportioned to the players; the owners are apparently offering 56.2%. The players are asking for 60%.
2. How many unresolved issues are within the owners’ camp? Rumors persist that one of, if not the largest remaining issue involves how owners split their revenues.
3. How would this new system affect Dallas? The Cowboys are under the cap, but may choose to terminate large contracts or those which require payment of large roster bonuses in the near future.
Dallas would not be alone in cutting such veterans. Rumors from Atlanta had the Falcons, who are also under the cap, contemplating cutting RB Warrick Dunn. The Chiefs, who are over the cap, might have to part with Pro Bowl guard Will Shields.
Locally, a new system would take much of the fun out of March. One official predicted a “nuclear winter” for free agent signings, as teams faced uncertainties about structuring contracts under a new system.
If the cap disappeared, the rapid turnover viewed in the ’90s could evaporate and the game could return to its 1980s form, when two rich franchises, the San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins, claimed six of the ten titles. Both operated at a loss, with Niners owner Ed DeBartolo and Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke dipping into their outside businesses to give their franchises operating budgets that far exceeded other teams’. It was also a decade for NFC dominance, with smaller market AFC teams serving as Super Bowl fodder for the big kids from the older, richer conference.
The landscape has changed, with the wave of new stadiums leveling some of the revenue disparities that existed then. For most fans, however, a return to that system would be no fun at all.
Update: The DMN’s notes that Dallas could have a lot of cap room entering 2006, as much as $14 million without touching the contracts of Larry Allen and LaRoi Glover, thought both players could have their deals renegotiated or be cut. Both have cap numbers in excess of $7 million.
Here’s the line about the new landscape that has to give you pause: without a new deal there would be no draft in 2008. That has to give front offices pause too. Not only could better teams claim talent that usually cycled to weak teams, but without slotting the costs of rookies would explode.
That would take football closer to Major League Baseball. The current CBA mandates minimum payrolls. In the new world, cheap teams like the Cardinals could cut player salaries to the bone, and pocket handsome profits from the guaranteed TV money.
And that’s an area yet to be discussed. The NFL just signed a huge new extension with the major networks. If competitive balance was thrown out of whack and the overall value of the package was diminished, how long before the networks ask for givebacks?
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My background and education is in finance and economics, and I can tell you with complete ‘certainty’ that the one thing that will hurt a market is ‘uncertainty’. If there is not a resolution to this issue, then forget about free agency this offseason. No team is going to want to be the one to start bidding in such an unpredictable world. It will be a market with too many sellers and not enough buyers.
I wonder how long that could last until the NFLPA tosses Upshaw overboard? The agents, the players, and especially the fans will not be happy to see this. At least in year one. I wonder if a lockout wouldn’t happen by year two anyway. Six years until becoming a UFA? Most players would be at or around 30 years old at that point. What a mess, they should have learned something from the way the NBA handled things compared to the NHL last year.
Yeah, Upshaw is playing a dangerous game of chicken.
I also have to wonder about Taglibue. If this blows up, his legacy is shot. I read an article a month ago saying if he got a new deal he could think of retirement and the Hall of Fame. Without one he and Upshaw could become the guys who destroyed pro football.
Tagliabue is going to be cracking skulls together tomorrow. I watched him in the congressional steroids hearings, he is one slick operator.
Of course dealing with 32 ego-driven billionaires and a reckless labor union boss is going to be a lot like herding cats.
The NFL owners need to take a look at the some of the other sports leagues. Lock outs, strikes, threats of hold outs, and poor management have lost them many fans. .. Hockey is attempting to gain a fan base again. Even when they came back, it was like a who is who? Plenty of Americans cheered against a US Basketball team who sported a bunch of NBA players. Baseball? I for one USED TO be a season ticket holder. Stress “USE TO”. .. It turns me completely off how these leagues turn their backs on the fans while fighting for MORE money. The majority of the players and owners are millionaires. MILLIONAIRES!! Please spare me the Latrell Sprewell arguement of I need to feed my family. All a fan asks is to find middle ground so we don’t have to find an alternative. .. A friend of mine told me a story once. He said, ” A dumb person will make a mistake and never learn from it, and repeat the same mistake over and over again. But a smart man will make a mistake, and learn from it and never do it again. Yet its the wise man who will watch another man make a mistake and learn from that man’s experience, and never make that mistake at all.” Well these other leagues have shown a high disregard for their fans, and some of their fans have walked away. Today you see Barry Bonds, of all people, in a “fan friendly” promotion wearing a dress and in good spirits. The New York Rangers salute their fans after every home game. All this in an attempt to win back their fans. While I am sure some of the players are sencere in their appreciation for the fans, the leagues are now using ploys like “fan appreciation - S.F. Giants Idol” to watch some fans slowly crawl back to them. .. I hope its the NFL that can look at the NBA, NHL, and MLB and see how they are viewed today compared to how they once were. The NFL is the best competative sports league out of the bunch … and I just hope they want to stay the best.
I guess that we’ll know tomorrow how “effort” and “desire” are spelled by the front officers involved in the talks.
Hi Everybody!
W-w-why are they screwing with a good thing?
Saying that things might more closely resemble baseball is admittedly oversimplifying things, but everybody knows how much better football is because of parity and the thought that any team might when the Super Bowl…(except, of course, the Oilers…)
OT
Texans released FS Marcus Coleman. I would not be surprised to see Parcells snap up another one of his former players. He’s only 31 (younger than Aaron Glenn), probably wouldn’t cost too much, and would allow FS from the draft to develop for a little while.
What does everyone think?
RParr:
I’ve said before that Parcells is a very unpredictable guy, but one thing you can predict is that he will bring in pretty much one of his old players every offseason.
This looks like a perfect match, IMO. I have long believed that they weren’t going to spend a lot of money on a marquee player for FS, just someone who knows how to play the position and still can. My guess is this Coleman probably has at least 2 more years left in him. I heard something about him having problems with Dom Capers though? I doubt if it matters, Parcells would keep him flying straight. I bet this happens.
Raf,
my apologies. I posted earlier that your quote of the $108 potential cap was wrong…i was wrong. it appears it would be 95 w/o a CBA and somewhere near $108 with a new CBA.
OilerTroll:
Messing with a good thing isn’t smart but there are new positions to be considered. Back in the day, millionaires started this league mainly as a toy and not to “make money” except possibly in the rise of a teams market value. with the influx of new owners (jerry being one of the first), they want to make money. They work the franchises more to make money. Things such as naming rights. Why should they send this money to teams that don’t do the same? The skins sold the naming rights to their field to FedEx. the Bills named theirs after their owner. Should the skins send the naming rights money to other teams such as buffalo?
Look the problem is not between the league and the union, the union is at 60% and the League at 56%, its something like a difference of $ 300M a year–meaning that its a gap that can be overcome.
The real unresolved issue is revenue-sharing between teams, because a change in the way those revenues are shared over a new CBA extension of 15-20 years is measured in the billions between teams–thats the real sticking point. For many of the owners it is about the future of there family’s single source of wealth and revenue. Meaning no one is going to start compromising until there’s a gun to their head–and the union is about to provide one.
I think Tags needed the union to walk away like this, the owners have to feel some desperation before the start making serious concessions with each other.
According to the Washington Post, Snyder is willing to “modify” his stance on revenue sharing because his team would get killed by the cap.
I found this interesting because my roommate is a banker and of course, reads plenty of financial literature and magazines.
According to him, Snyder’s ownership of the Skins is incredibly leveraged to the tilt and because he has so much debt, he must have great attendance figures each year or he won’t be able to afford the team. And that’s a big reason why he’s been on the forefront of restructuring the revenue deal with small market owners. He needs all of the money he can get.
I doubt that Snyder would be willing to modify his stance on revenue sharing just for one bad season in 2006.
I think he’s afraid that there’s a good chance that the CBA will be extended in say, September and that will really screw the Skins for the next few years.
And while Skins fans are diehards as diehards get, I’ve got to imagine a bunch of lousy seasons during Gibbs’ second tenure (when Gibbs really got stuck in Snyder’s mess) can’t be good for business.
And while I think it would still be a longshot, a few bad years of business could force Snyder to sell the team to somebody else.
Again, I don’t know if what my roommate is telling me is completely accurate, but I still don’t see Snyder modifying his stance for one lousy year. There’s most likely something of more consequence that is forcing him to do that.
YakuzaRich,
your friends viewpoint on Snyder is close. He did leverage to the hilt. However, he has turned the team into the highest income team in the league and has been paying down the debt quickly. Even buying out some of the people who own small shares. I live here in DC and believe me, the field gnome is a jerk. i know a number of people who used to work with him at Snyder communications. For all his faults and idiocy though, he seems to know how to make money.
On an unrelated/related note, it looks like we’ll have a cheap FS in marcus coleman. The whole Sexton/parcells/jets relationship. He’s older but should be ok so that we can maybe draft a FS later and groom. Hate getting older, would rather build young but old and cheap is ok. Especially for a FS. Also, Bentley is going to be courted heavily by minnesota who has a lot of cap room i believe. that puts him closer to cleveland(home town) than dallas.
Although the current CBA covers the NFL draft, there is nothing in that agreement that states the draft must end if the CBA is not extended. The NFL could continue with the draft, just as it did before the CBA was implemented. The great danger would be that without union agreement, the NFL could become embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit against the draft, which they might well lose. The defense against such a suit today, is that the union has agreed through collective bargaining to limit the rights they might otherwise have. The fact that the players entering the draft are not yet members in the union has somehow not been persuasive in the courts. That could all change, though, if there is no labor agreement.
J-Man,
You never say never, but I’ve read that Coleman has really lost his speed the last couple of years. Plus, with the cap chaos that could come, it’s possible that a better option will shake loose in the next 36 hours.
True Raf,
a better one could but then who could afford any of them. I hadn’t heard about the drop in speed. Daniel Bullocks looks good in the combine.
I agree with everything said, and I think you have to bring in a veteran FS. IMO, there is one FS that could start right away and we have no shot at him. The next best, Ko Simpson and Donte Whitner, probably could start but will make mistakes. The rest of the guys, Anthony Smith, Jason Allen, Watkins, and Bullocks need at least a year or 2 of seasoning before being ready.
As for all this CBA junk, I cant believe the NFL would let this happen. They are far and away the best sports organization despite playing only 16 games a season. They should have learned from hockey or baseball 10 years ago. As much as I would love to see the Redskins teared to peices I cant believe the kind of players team would have to release, guys like Warrick Dunn, Will Shields, etc. etc. You have to feel for a guy like Dunn, probably the best guy in football. He comes off a career year, yet could get cut now, have to move his family, and not even get the money he deserves because of the amount of better FA RB’s and the depth at the top of the draft at RB. Right now, with all that turmoil you can’t even say which teams should be good next year because who know’s who will be going where after all is said and done.
Mr. Bill:
John Clayton reported that as part of the last extension, the NFL draft will go away in 2008 as part of a clause inserted in the current CBA if it expires:
Why would the players union want a draft with minimum salaries for 1-3 year players when they can reap the rewards of acting as “free agents” for their first contract in the NFL?
Raul,
Baseball has a version of this. If you see how Scott Boras works, he’s figured out a way around baseball’s more medieval draft system.
The one area where baseball loses all its fun is that draft picks are not fungible. You can’t trade them for other picks or players.
Boras finds the best prospects and sets a hard price on them. The team with the top pick has to decide — pay or pass. It doesn’t matter for Boras if his guy is taken 1st or 21st, because he’d rather get his price from the Cardinals or Yankees at the bottom of round one than get into a standoff with the Royals at pick one or two.
In this system, the best phenoms more often than not end up with organizations willing to pay top dollar, like the Yankees, Mets, Cardinals, Angels, etc.
However, since baseball drafts 18 year olds, the accuracy of this system pales in comparison to good NFL front offices.
However, put a good personnel man in charge of a strong budget and we’ll be back to the ’70s, where a handful of teams will dominate the league year in and year out.
Just hope that Jerry can keep Bill Parcells and Jeff Ireland around after the Tuna hangs up his clipboard. THEN, you could see another Cowboys dynasty.
OTOH, pro football will be a young man’s game, with rookies getting as much as all but the best veterans.
Rafael:
True on all points. Although the key will be getting the right personnel man and some sort of scouting edge. Imagine some of the money guys like Dan Snyder or JJ could waste on getting the next Ryan Leaf without a draft order, salary cap, or a truly good personnel man to keep them in check.
One thing that hasn’t been pointed out is how Snyder was being hailed as a genius a few weeks ago for seemingly finding a way around the salary cap by spending big money hiring all those assistant coaches. With the strong possibility of no salary cap going forward, now he’s stuck with a lot of resources tied up in coaches that could have gone toward signing big name FA’s next year. Remember the predictions we were making about that coaching staff imploding because of egos and one-upsmanship? Do you think the liklihood of that meltdown just improved if a few of those guys are worried about cutbacks in the coaching staff in 2007 to devote more money to FA players? The Redskins are really going to suffer without a new CBA in ways they can’t even yet imagine.
Raul,
The CBA specifies that a draft is to take place through each year of the agreement and the year following its termination or expiration. It is silent on subsequent years.
I can find no clause in the CBA that prevents the draft from taking place after the CBA expires. I believe Clayton is mistaken.
If I were to guess, this is where he made the mistake:
Article LVIII Duration of Agreement
Section 3 - Page 219
‘Section 4′ goes into detail about what happens if the agreement is ‘terminated’, primarily due to court action.
‘Article LXI’ tells what happens if one side gives notice that it does not intend to extend the agreement. It, too, refers back to Article XVI.
Article XVI describes the draft process as covered by the CBA. The only exception noted there is where it specifies dates for the draft. It specifies when the draft should occur including the year after the agreement expires. This is the exception referred to in the sections quoted above. Everything else terminates with the agreement, but CBA coverage for the draft lasts for one more year.
The draft does not then go away, only the provisions of the CBA which cover it.
If anyone wishes to examine the CBA and find what I have missed, it is at: http://www.nflpa.org/members/main.asp?subPage=CBA+Complete. The last extension is at: http://www.nflpa.org/members/main.asp?subPage=CBA+Extension+Features.
Let me know if you find what Clayton is talking about, or where I might have misinterpreted something.