NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement-2006

[HairOnFire]

Maybe they just needed a good night's sleep.

Hopefully they will finish it off today. Guys like Snyder and Jones have an advantage that other owners just don't have. Big cities, name recogonition of their teams, etc.We don't need any Steinbrenners trying to buy a title every year. That's what makes football different.

Personally I would like to see them raise the cap number but make it a firm cap. Eventually signing bonuses would go down. This kind of creative accounting makes it too complicated.

I definitely agree than, if they're going to have a cap, it ought to have at least some force. The current one is little more than a book-keeping annoyance. But even if they do cap "cash over cap," I suspect ways around that cap will be found eventually. Oh, well, at least that would give them something to argue about for the next CBA, eh?

But doesn't that speak directly to the heart of the matter? If a few owners are allowed to circumvent the very intention of the CBA, and the salary cap, then very quickly all of the other owners are forced to adjust their own business practices in order to compete as best they can. Do that and you've got a fundamentaly flawed system where one or two maverick owners are dictating policy to everyone else.

The history of signing bonuses becoming ever increasingly the real way players are paid, not yearly salary, is a perfect example of this. By all accounts almost no owners, players, or agents predicted that the way players are now paid would be fundamentaly changed in the way that has transpired. But because a few maverick owners and agents found a way to get around the spirit of the agreement everyone else had to adjust.

But here's the rub. The adjustment doesn't level the playing field. The maverick owner gains a competitive advantage....as was his intent all along. As long as he owns a large-market team, or one of the franchises that tradition & history have made into a flagship brand, he can use the greater than average financial wealth of his franchise to take far greater risks and willingly overpay for talent. And he can more easily throw his money in the direction of fines, penalties, luxury taxes, and past mistakes.

Meanwhile, the owners who under the best circumstances can't financially compete with this type of maverick business practice are forced to become more and more conservative, not because their own businesses aren't profitable, but because one or two flawed attempts to match what the maverick is doing have a much longer lasting impact.

[HairOnFire]

As to the big vs. little market, there's certainly going to be variances that could unbalance things...but there's not as much to that as some of the PR emanating from the small market teams would have you believe. For example, organizations like the Bengals love to toss around facts like "the Redskins make $100 million more a year than the Bengals." Which is true -- but the Redskins are an anamoly. Go look at the Forbes numbers I linked earlier and yeah, DC's revenues are $116 million higher than Cincy's. But the revenues of the No. 2 team, NE, are just $65 million above Cincy's. Quite a drop. The No. 10 team, Chicago, makes only about $22 million more. If the revenues tracked by Forbes were shared equally, everyone would have made about $188 million, which is just $17 million more than the Bengals made unshared.

But how many NFL owners can boast that the bulk of their financial fortune is made outside of football? Most of them, right? Yet Mike Browns sole source of income is generated by his football team. Frankly, the Bengals are one of the few remaining mom and pop shops attempting to compete in the corporate world on one of the highest levels, and the profit figures being pointed to are ample proof of how well the business side of the Bengals is being run. Constantly mocking how the Bengals do business misses the point. They're surviving and prospering financially in a small market against huge odds. Best, they've become competitive on the field of play again, and they did so not by abandoning the conservative business practices that ensure their continued survival, but by deferring more and more football related matters to better qualified people.

Huge props.

[schweinhart]

If all the big market-small market revenues are what's standing in the way of owners reaching some kind of accord about how to share revenues, then it's up to the teams to generate more regardless how the CBA extension pans out.

For instance, instead of getting Hooters in like Snyderbrenner did at FedEx, maybe Mikey can get Deja Vu in the Jungle.

[HoosierCat]

But doesn't that speak directly to the heart of the matter? If a few owners are allowed to circumvent the very intention of the CBA, and the salary cap, then very quickly all of the other owners are forced to adjust their own business practices in order to compete as best they can. Do that and you've got a fundamentaly flawed system where one or two maverick owners are dictating policy to everyone else.

The history of signing bonuses becoming ever increasingly the real way players are paid, not yearly salary, is a perfect example of this. By all accounts almost no owners, players, or agents predicted that the way players are now paid would be fundamentaly changed in the way that has transpired. But because a few maverick owners and agents found a way to get around the spirit of the agreement everyone else had to adjust.

The way signing bonuses, option bonuses and other various accounting tools have been used to circumvent the cap not only violates the spirit of the cap -- it destroys it. And that is pretty much what's happened. I have, as I've already stated, no objection to closing the loophole. My comment about more ways being found to circumvent a cap simply reflects my faith in the combined ingenuity of people trying to give away large amounts of money and people trying to receive it.

But here's the rub. The adjustment doesn't level the playing field. The maverick owner gains a competitive advantage....as was his intent all along. As long as he owns a large-market team, or one of the franchises that tradition & history have made into a flagship brand, he can use the greater than average financial wealth of his franchise to take far greater risks and willingly overpay for talent. And he can more easily throw his money in the direction of fines, penalties, luxury taxes, and past mistakes.

Unfortunately, that isn't what happened. Franchises like Oakland and Indy don't make more than the Bengals, yet they have been able to compete for FAs quite successfully. The key, as the example of DC points out, is that quality beats quantity.

Constantly mocking how the Bengals do business misses the point. They're surviving and prospering financially in a small market against huge odds. Best, they've become competitive on the field of play again, and they did so not by abandoning the conservative business practices that ensure their continued survival, but by deferring more and more football related matters to better qualified people.

The Bengals have had one winning season in the past 15; that doesn't make their business model a success. And the point you're missing is that those practices are already under strain because of their success. Their own star players are rapidly inflating their payroll to the point where they, like Indy and New England, will have to either let them walk or start pouring in cash over cap. A new CBA and revenue-sharing agreement may fix that, or just delay the day of reckoning, we'll see.

[JPW]

Another delay from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

[Whur CHad At?]

Another delay from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

They will just keep delaying it until an agreement is made....

FA may never begin

[HoosierCat]

I suspect the deal's done, but that time is needed to ensure a "rubber stamp" by the owners next Tuesday. Tags may need to massage some egos and/or twist a few arms. But anything that brings an extension and caps "cash over cap" will be a good deal in my book.

[HoosierCat]

Oh, well, so much for that theory. Talks are dead again. Sunday Bloody Sunday looms.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2355190

Labor talks between NFL owners and the players' union have broken off without an agreement, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports. Representatives of the players' union walked out of negotiations Sunday evening, believing that an agreement with owners cannot be made.

"They're off," NFL vice president Joe Browne said after a day of bargaining that seemed to provide hope for an agreement.

The NFL had previously delayed the deadline for teams to get under the salary cap to 10 p.m. ET Sunday, Mortensen and ESPN.com's John Clayton reported.

Management wanted to extend the deadline to Wednesday, Mortensen reported, but the players' union would only agree to a four-hour delay from the original 6 p.m. ET deadline.

The owners and the players' union have until midnight Sunday to agree on an extension to the league's collective bargaining agreement, a scenario that now seems unlikely with talks breaking off. Free agency will begin on Monday at 12:01 a.m. ET.

[Whur CHad At?]

f**k those Greedy ass players

[Whur CHad At?]

Well, by how things are going right now...it seems there will be no FA this year. Geeesh these guys are acting stupider than our man in Washington right now!

[HoosierCat]

Like I said earlier, we've definitely entered "farce" territory. The latest:

The start of FA has now been pushed back to 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

Teams have to be under the $94.5 million cap by 9 p.m. Wednesday.

The NFL says there will be no more talks with the NFLPA but that it will present the last offer from the players to owners for a vote Tuesday (gee, which way you think that will go? )

Any bets on how long it takes for yet another round of "negotiations" to get started? I'm figuring tomorrow morning.

A pox on all of 'em -- owners, players, the lot.

[Whur CHad At?]

Yep there will be...and it will be the same s**t over again

"They made progress...then talks broke off"

[JPW]

ESPN link ...

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the delay would give owners a chance to consider the union's latest proposal during a meeting Tuesday in Dallas.

the inability to bridge the differences over two key issues -- the internal revenue sharing among the league's 32 teams and the so-called "cash over cap" problem -- were almost certainly among the components which forced the end to negotiations.

One prominent owner strongly suggested to ESPN.com that those two issues, which he lumped under the umbrella category of "revenue sharing-related things," indeed led to the collapse of discussions.

Hey, if all the owners get to vote on it maybe we get a deal that includes revenue-sharing and excludes cash-over-the-cap.

[HairOnFire]

The way signing bonuses, option bonuses and other various accounting tools have been used to circumvent the cap not only violates the spirit of the cap -- it destroys it. And that is pretty much what's happened. I have, as I've already stated, no objection to closing the loophole. My comment about more ways being found to circumvent a cap simply reflects my faith in the combined ingenuity of people trying to give away large amounts of money and people trying to receive it.

There's nothing ingenius or noble about violating the spirit of an agreement, and the fact that Daniel Snyder is at risk of being the very biggest loser if there isn't a new agreement hardly makes his reckless and fundamentally stupid business strategy one that an owner of a small market team should follow. In fact, as you've admitted previously...Mike Brown has positioned his business to be on very solid footing regardless of if there's a new agreement or not, and being prepared for either eventuality is a pretty good sign that he isn't the fugtarded businessman that many claim.

[HairOnFire]

The Bengals have had one winning season in the past 15; that doesn't make their business model a success. And the point you're missing is that those practices are already under strain because of their success. Their own star players are rapidly inflating their payroll to the point where they, like Indy and New England, will have to either let them walk or start pouring in cash over cap. A new CBA and revenue-sharing agreement may fix that, or just delay the day of reckoning, we'll see.

The Bengals won/loss record doesn't define their business success. It only touches on one area, their ability to compete on the field. Frankly, that doesn't count for much, if anything at all, when the issue at hand involves labor agreements and the ability to compete off the field. Regardless, even the area of the Bengals greatest prolonged failure has recently been impacted positively by the construction of a new stadium, a favorable lease, and after many missteps a competent head coach. This team is a playoff team right now, and I for one don't gave a crap about 1993.

And I'm most certainly not missing the point about what success on the field will do to their future payroll. You pay for performance, right? Over time will their payroll will continue to inflate due to the developement of even more star players. But that only serves to point out how successful the business model actually is. The Bengals are a playoff team that has been built through the draft and a strategy of retaining the teams own talent as opposed to chasing quick fixes. The have one of the youngest rosters in the NFL. So even if it's fair to say that the day may come when the Bengals have to lose a player or two due to cap issues, it's totally unfair to claim that the Bengals need help from a new CBA to put off a day of reckoning. They're on solid footing with a new agreement or without. The type of teams that need help from a new CBA are ones like the Redskins. Namely, teams that squander built in competitive advantages and find themselves desperately needing a new agreement and the much bigger salary cap that comes with it.

[HairOnFire]

Franchises like Oakland and Indy don't make more than the Bengals, yet they have been able to compete for FAs quite successfully. The key, as the example of DC points out, is that quality beats quantity.

I don't think it's that simple. Indy couldn't attract free agents of real quailty before becoming a Super Bowl contender. Vice versa, the quality of Oakland's ability to attract premier free agents has slowed in response to it's recent history of cratered won/loss records. Instead of landing premier FA's in their prime the Raiders now pick through aging leftovers.

As for Washington, they've shown the unique ability to spend themselves into salary cap hell while spending only 40% of their revenue on player salaries. So if their strategy is working I haven't noticed. Meanwhile, Indy has had far greater success by spending close to 70% of their much smaller revenue stream on player salaries, most of which are to players they've drafted, developed, and paid dearly to keep.

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

I find it interesting that in every report on the fact that it's the small market owners who don't want to allow cash over cap, the Bengals are not mentioned as being one of the small market teams protesting to close down cash over cap....

[HoosierCat]

Another update from Mort, via pft...

NFL, UNION HAVE AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE

Chris Mortensen of ESPN reported moments ago on Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio that the NFL and the NFLPA have reached an agreement in principle on a new CBA, and that the deal is subject to approval of the owners on Tuesday.

Under the deal, the NFL will devote 59.5 percent of total football revenues to player salaries. On one hand, the league moved a lot farther than the union as to the reported gap of 56.2 percent and 60 percent that existed before the weekend. On the other hand, the deal undermines the credibility of NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw, who insisted that the first number would have to be a "6".

Mort also says that it's no guarantee that the owners will approve the deal. Pats owner Bob Kraft, Mort says, is strongly opposed to the package, which addresses revenue sharing via the so-called "cash over cap" issue.

"Cash over cap" is the amount of total money paid to players in a given year. Because high-revenue teams have the ability to dump more money into players' pockets, the unlimited ability to pour future cap dollars into current cap years could, in theory, disrupt competitive balance because the low-revenue teams simply won't have the cash on hand to match a string of deals that rob Peter to pay for a Lombardi. The proposal apparently limits the extent to which a team can spend money in a given year over the salary cap.

Mortensen says that Tuesday's meeting could get ugly, and that it could extend into a second day.

Our suggestion to the Commish -- if you didn't break out the Louisville Slugger when the fellas got together last week in New York, make sure you take it with you to Texas. Your legacy is on the line, and it's time to stand up and build a consensus.

If you can't, then walk away. If nothing else, it'll get the attention of the guys who are no longer listening to you because you're a short-timer.

[HoosierCat]

There's nothing ingenius or noble about violating the spirit of an agreement,

I didn't say it was noble or ingenius. I'm simply acknowledging the fact that it's almost certain to happen. It happened wiith the signing bonus the last time. This time, what the loophole will be, I don't know, but the law of unintended consequences is as true in business as it is in government.

The Bengals won/loss record doesn't define their business success. It only touches on one area, their ability to compete on the field. Frankly, that doesn't count for much, if anything at all, when the issue at hand involves labor agreements and the ability to compete off the field.

...

And I'm most certainly not missing the point about what success on the field will do to their future payroll. You pay for performance, right?

You do see the contradiction there, right?

As for Washington, they've shown the unique ability to spend themselves into salary cap hell while spending only 40% of their revenue on player salaries. So if their strategy is working I haven't noticed. Meanwhile, Indy has had far greater success by spending close to 70% of their much smaller revenue stream on player salaries, most of which are to players they've drafted, developed, and paid dearly to keep.

So what are you worried about? You first insisted on DC's huge money being a dominant competitive advantage, yet now say it doesn't work. Meanwhile, teams like the Steelers, who take small steps into the cash over cap business when needed, prosper. And that's all I expect the Bengals to do. But they don't, and there's no doubt that's been part of the franchise's problems.

Hopefully, a new revenue-sharing agreement makes all these issues go away.

[schweinhart]

If all that comes of this is Tags taking a ball bat to Jerry Jones, then I like it. And moreover, Tags taking that H&B to the ring finger of Bob Kraft works for me because any NFL owner that would give a Super Bowl ring to a foreign government for business trade advantage needs more than just a helping hand of constructive criticism.

So the baby's been split and the NFPLA are out of the loop again with the owners now back to bickering among themselves....

No doubt the NFLPA won't want any cash over cap limit, but when the league starts pointed at them saying they're the ones holding up things again, I'll be laughing.....again.

Cash over cap is a total non-issue IMO. All teams can avail themselves of the same accounting practices to spend more than the cap and the setting of the cap itself will regulate how much over they can go based on the available methods..ie signing bonus spreads. Some teams will and some teams won't. But the ones that do really don't gain a competitive advantage. If a team that doesn't payroll higher than cap thinks another team is getting that advantage, then they should engage in the same practice themeselves (yes even if it means installing a Deja Vu at the stadium just to come up with some extra revenues).

No, this next load of NFL owner crap looks to me like it has to do with how stdaium debt is factored into the revenue equation, if at all. Hence the big Bob Kraft "Huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." I'd like to see Mikey flip him the ring finger tomorrow.

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

Cash over cap is a total non-issue IMO. All teams can avail themselves of the same accounting practices to spend more than the cap and the setting of the cap itself will regulate how much over they can go based on the available methods..ie signing bonus spreads.

It's not a total non-issue. The cap is there to keep teams equal. It is supposed to be a hard cap. Teams are breaking the rules and cheating around the cap. That's not the way it is supposed to be. If you allow some teams to do it, and "everyone can", soon agents will expect owners to do it and the cap is worthless.

Saying it doesn't matter is like saying it's ok to cook your books, the SEC won't care....

[HoosierCat]

No doubt the NFLPA won't want any cash over cap limit, but when the league starts pointed at them saying they're the ones holding up things again, I'll be laughing.....again.

From the few details that have dribbled out so far, it appears that what's under discussion regarding cash over cap is less of a limit than yet another set of Rube Goldberg accounting tools soldered on to the existing system. Word a couple days ago was that they wanted to limit cash over cap to a certain percentage of the total cap (specifically 2%). That would have the cap ceiling far harder than the current one. Now they're talking about "credits" and "adjustments" to the next year for spending cash over cap. My bet is that we'll get some some hybrid abomination like: teams can spend 2% cash over cap with no penalty (other than the normal proration) but if they go over that amount, the amount they go over (or some fraction thereof) then gets subtracted from future caps. Standard operation procedure in big bidness or big gummit: don't fix the problem, just f**k it up more.

[HairOnFire]

There's nothing ingenius or noble about violating the spirit of an agreement,

I didn't say it was noble or ingenius. I'm simply acknowledging the fact that it's almost certain to happen. It happened wiith the signing bonus the last time. This time, what the loophole will be, I don't know, but the law of unintended consequences is as true in business as it is in government.

But you're acknowledging that it's almost certain that a few maverick owners, round up the usual suspects, will quickly find a way to circumvent the very intention of whatever agreement is signed, AND in a long history of posts, including the one I'm quoting, you implore the Bengals to mimic many of those same maverick practices. In truth, they have done just that in almost any example you could name, but they do so rarely and cautiously, always refusing to adopt those tactics as their standard way of doing business. Cash over the cap? According to those who follow the Bengals for a living the Bengals have done it before.

[schweinhart]

Again, this cash over cap looks like just another smoke screen. Does anyone really believe that the final stumbling block to getting a deal is restricting teams to spend $2 million more in payroll than the cap limit? Is this why Bob Kraft has already postured to rebuff any approval of the tentative agreement...because he wants to spend $10 million more based on practices that are not absolutely not breaking the rules or getting around the cap.

Nuh-uh

Bob Kraft is going to b*tch about the proposed agreement for the same reason he gave his last Super Bowl ring to Vladimir Putin. Money. And in his case that will be stadium debt in relation to revenue sharing.

[HairOnFire]

The Bengals won/loss record doesn't define their business success. It only touches on one area, their ability to compete on the field. Frankly, that doesn't count for much, if anything at all, when the issue at hand involves labor agreements and the ability to compete off the field.

...

And I'm most certainly not missing the point about what success on the field will do to their future payroll. You pay for performance, right?

You do see the contradiction there, right?

No, I don't. The Steelers do business in almost exactly the same way that the Bengals do, and they're currently holding up the championship trophy. So the major difference between the two franchises in on-field success isn't a result of drastically different strategies. It's related to the competence level of the people implementing it. And on that score the Bengals have been performing at a much higher level for three years now, prompting me to repeat yet again that I no longer give a crap what happened in 1993. What matters to me is the financial health of the franchise right now, and it's performance on the field of play. And on both counts the answer is very positive.

And last, I could make a rather lengthy list of players currently on the roster who have been richly rewarded by the Bengals for their outstanding performances, and include several others who will be rewarded in the near future due to the way the Bengals have positioned themselves to retain them. Best, the roster is largely made up of young talent, which almost always comes at a cheaper price initially. So there is no contradiction. The Bengals are a young playoff team manned by emerging stars who rank amongst the highest paid players at their respective positions. That's reality. The fact that the Bengals may have to accept a future reality where they lose a player or two, due to having developed even more stars, is one that can't be avoided by any team using any strategy.