Mike Brown as Rodney Dangerfield

[GregCook]

Remember way back when Brown and one other owner voted against the current collective bargaining agreement? I think his reservation was that it was too expensive, basically gave away the store to the players.

Well none other than Mr. Cowboy, Jerry Jones, is on record that the agreement won't be renewed. See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...fs.3af6996.html.

While Mike Brown is Rodney Dangerfield around here, looks the owners might be seeing things his way, only a couple years late. Imagine, Mike Brown visionary?

[TJJackson]

Remember way back when Brown and one other owner voted against the current collective bargaining agreement? I think his reservation was that it was too expensive, basically gave away the store to the players.

Well none other than Mr. Cowboy, Jerry Jones, is on record that the agreement won't be renewed. See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...fs.3af6996.html.

While Mike Brown is Rodney Dangerfield around here, looks the owners might be seeing things his way, only a couple years late. Imagine, Mike Brown visionary?

Re-read the piece

You've mis-represented what is said therein

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

You're right, and with all the Mike Brown bashing that goes on around here from jackasses like me, we should be at least willing to point out when he gets it right. And he and Wilson were right about the CBA. For what it's worth, even at the time I thought he was right, because the players crushed the owners on the last round of bargaining.

Just because it will fry Hair's brain, I will say

"MIKEY WAS RIGHT!!!!!"

[jjakq27]

You're right, and with all the Mike Brown bashing that goes on around here from jackasses like me, we should be at least willing to point out when he gets it right. And he and Wilson were right about the CBA. For what it's worth, even at the time I thought he was right, because the players crushed the owners on the last round of bargaining.

Just because it will fry Hair's brain, I will say

"MIKEY WAS RIGHT!!!!!"

[COB]

If it comes to pass, that uncapped year will be quite a carnival. Jerry Jones will probably spend more in that year than the whole AFC North combined.

Upshaw said he thought if they had one uncapped year they'd never get a cap again. No way. The owners recognize that the cap: A. Creates the competitive balance that makes the league so unique and entertaining. If they lose that competitive balance, the NFL will suffer. B. Saves the owners from themselves. Without the cap Dan Snyder and Jerra would engage in an obscene spending contest that would probably drive both into the poorhouse.

If the owners void the agreement, I look for them to have a Plan B that will allow a new agreement, or reinstatement of a modified version of the old one, before the uncapped year. Upshaw's threat about never getting a cap again if that year occurs tells me he'd be open to a deal before that.

[HoosierCat]

If it comes to pass, that uncapped year will be quite a carnival. Jerry Jones will probably spend more in that year than the whole AFC North combined.

It wouldn't work like that. The "uncapped year" is governed by special rules in the CBA that restrict how crazy owners can get. It's the year after, 2011 I think, that's the bigger issue: with no labor agreement at all at that point, there's the possibility of a lockout by management -- and some owners are worried about a wholesale defection of players and front office personnel to the new UFL, which is supposed to start that year.

I still think an NFL without a salary cap is far from the end of the world. The revenue-sharing agreement between the owners is a distinct and separate thing from the CBA, and that would still exist, meaning 80%+ of league revenues would be shared. That's a far, far, far, far higher percentage than in baseball, so you would never get the same level of disparity. Moreover, for big-market teams like Dallas, NE and DC, the league is already effectively uncapped. Their big pots of unshared local revenues mean they can transform roster, option and other bonuses, and even salary, into signing bonuses and continually avoid the cap hit.

Not that it would ever come about, of course. No labor agreement and the old antitrust suit against the league clanks back to life, the draft would be evidence of collusion, etc. But we could lose a season while the billionaires and millionaires argue over money. Ain't America grand?

[COB]

It wouldn't work like that. The "uncapped year" is governed by special rules in the CBA that restrict how crazy owners can get.

It's odd, but I'm a little disappointed to learn that. I guess I had visions of a grotesque money orgy. Instead we'll just get pretty much what we have now except they'll re-do the agreement to let the owners keep a little more? Who's running this thing, Mike Brown?

[sparky151]

If I remember, teams can't prorate signing bonuses beyond the length of the CBA. If the league enters an uncapped year, remaining signing bonuses accelerate into the previous year. This means that there will be lots of players cut if the CBA expires or is reopened.

The players have a reason not to play chicken. The owners are divided between the small market types who think the CBA pays the players too much and the big bucks types who have extra cash and want to spend it on their team.

[AMC]

If I remember, teams can't prorate signing bonuses beyond the length of the CBA. If the league enters an uncapped year, remaining signing bonuses accelerate into the previous year. This means that there will be lots of players cut if the CBA expires or is reopened.

The players have a reason not to play chicken. The owners are divided between the small market types who think the CBA pays the players too much and the big bucks types who have extra cash and want to spend it on their team.

Good point on the prorated stuff.....

[HoosierCat]

The players have a reason not to play chicken. The owners are divided between the small market types who think the CBA pays the players too much and the big bucks types who have extra cash and want to spend it on their team.

Actually, the owners are divided between the small market types who want the big market guys to share more of their revenues, and the big market guys who don't want to.

The fact is, the CBA isn't the main issue. The main issue is the revenue sharing scheme between the owners (and it's that, not the CBA, that Mikey complains most loudly and longest about). The CBA is tangentially involved, since the new version changed the formula from which the players' cut of total NFL revenues is derived, to include some of those unshared revenues (thus driving up costs for small market teams without increasing their share of the pie) but that won't change now short of a lockout.

The simple solution is for the owners to increase the amount of shared revenue -- or at the very least for the big market teams to increase the already existing extra yearly subsidy for small market teams.

[HairOnFire]

The simple solution is for the owners to increase the amount of shared revenue -- or at the very least for the big market teams to increase the already existing extra yearly subsidy for small market teams.

And that's exactly what Mike Brown has repeatedly lobbied for, and been denied at almost every turn....most famously when it was ruled that teams, regardless of the size of their market or revenue streams, would receive a smaller share if they happened to play in a stadium that was less than 10 years old. Nevermind if that stadium had a roof, the number of luxury suits it featured, or whether it cost a relatively paltry sum of 350 million to build or was a billion dollar palace.