jjakq27 Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 So maybe Mikey's not so dumb after all. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...PT02/803300424/One of the topics for discussion has to do with hair length and covering up names on uniforms. This might end up affecting TJ and Peko.http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/benga...-hairy-deal.aspReordering the seeds for the playoffs based off of overall record regardless of division winner or wild card is on the agenda and one of my personal gripes recently. Hopefully it will pass.http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/benga...ting-agenda.aspBTW, Jerry Jones is going to ruin the NFL if they let him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 I'm still not convinced that the end of the salary cap wouldn't be, on balance, a good thing. Football isn't baseball. Take the example in the first article, that Jerry Jones could give a $50 million signing bonus to a free agent Carson Palmer. Well...so what? A QB isn't a pitcher, you aren't going to build a "rotation" of Palmer, Romo and Peyton Manning. It isn't like the big 3 or 4 or 5 teams are going to hog all the good QBs.As to the idea that a big chunk of the league would have to operate "Oakland A's style," drafting young talent and having a 3-4 year window to win before starting over -- well, hell, that's pretty much what the Bengals do already, right? And maybe Dallas can't quite give out $50 million signing bonuses now, but the big revenue guys don't seem to have any trouble manipulating the cap today to buy whoever they want.If anyone gets screwed by the loss of a cap, it's the players, IMO, because no cap also means no salary floor. My bet is that many smaller market teams would trim their payrolls, which would result in less competition for big-name FAs, which in turn makes it less necessary for big market teams to sling around wads of cash. As a result, the total pool of money paid to the players actually shrinks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Without a salary cap, the Bengals will surely return to what they were in the 90's, and 10 other teams will follow suit and become perrenial also-rans. The great thing about football right now is that at the beginning of training camp, usually 30 teams have reasons to be optimistic that the upcoming season will result in getting to the playoffs and making a decent run of it. Baseball on the other hand, you've got the same 5 that have realistic expectations for getting to the World Series. I don't want that to happen to the NFL! It's bad enough that we have the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates in baseball (franchises who have no shot of doing anything in the next 10 years), we don't need them in football as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Baseball on the other hand, you've got the same 5 that have realistic expectations for getting to the World Series. I don't want that to happen to the NFL!It wouldn't. The reason is the way revenue is shared in the NFL versus in MLB. In baseball, the amount shared is relatively small, something like 20%. The NFL is exactly the opposite, with more than 80% of revenues shared. There would likely be some disparity between four or five big-money teams and the rest of the league, but it wouldn't be on a Yankees-versus-Pirates level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC_Bengals_Fan Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 The key is what they did about rookie contracts. *IF* they nuked the salary cap *BUT* instituted a rookie-deal wage scale, it might actually help the small market teams who build through the draft, while letting the Redskins of the world continue to chase their own tails with overpriced veterans. But as important as the draft is in football, you'd have to have that wage scale to balance the playing field. Otherwise, you'd have what you have in baseball, where the small-market teams can't afford to even take the best players in the draft because they can't afford to sign them. We're already near that point in football where the high-pick rookies aren't worth what they're slotted, but at least with the cap all teams are screwed equally. Take away the cap, and the high-end teams are the only ones who can go after vets or high-priced rookies, and the low-end teams wouldn't have the luxury of using either well-run farm systems or Latin America to make up the difference like in baseball. I'd say that, without a rookie scale, the elimination of the cap in football would be far more devastating than it is in baseball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 If the CBA blows up, so does the draft. Last one would be in 2011. After that I suppose college players just enter as unrestricted free agents. So we could have already signed, say, Derrick Harvey instead of Antwan Odom to fill our spot at DE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC_Bengals_Fan Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 If the CBA blows up, so does the draft. Last one would be in 2011. After that I suppose college players just enter as unrestricted free agents. So we could have already signed, say, Derrick Harvey instead of Antwan Odom to fill our spot at DE.I'm operating on the assumption that the cap goes away and doesn't return under a future CBA. I don't see either side operating without a CBA - that would be as bad for the players as it would be for the owners. There would be a strike/lockout before playing with no CBA. So the question is, what happens after an uncapped year? Upshaw says if the cap goes, it's never coming back - but of course that could just be bluster. But if the cap *does* go permanently, something needs to happen to balance things, or the poorer teams are completely screwed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 I'm operating on the assumption that the cap goes away and doesn't return under a future CBA. I don't see either side operating without a CBA - that would be as bad for the players as it would be for the owners. There would be a strike/lockout before playing with no CBA. So the question is, what happens after an uncapped year?Just what you said: a lockout. At which point, the player's association follows through on its threat last time around, dissolves itself, and cranks the old antitrust lawsuit back up. My prediction then is that President Obama steps in to negotiate -- or impose -- a solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC_Bengals_Fan Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Just what you said: a lockout. At which point, the player's association follows through on its threat last time around, dissolves itself, and cranks the old antitrust lawsuit back up. My prediction then is that President Obama steps in to negotiate -- or impose -- a solution. All we need is hope, right? That solves all our problems! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Just what you said: a lockout. At which point, the player's association follows through on its threat last time around, dissolves itself, and cranks the old antitrust lawsuit back up. My prediction then is that President Obama steps in to negotiate -- or impose -- a solution. All we need is hope, right? That solves all our problems!And change...don't forget change. Maybe we can have a national change jar that everyone has to put a quarter in every time they say a bad word...might pay for universal health care... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cincy9275 Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurmanation Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals.i also believe this.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals.i also believe this..Well, one is always welcome to one's beliefs...but I have yet to hear any argument that an uncapped NFL would "kill the Bengals" that, at least to me, carries any weight. I repeat: the NFL is not MLB (or basketball or hockey), and for reasons ranging from the nature of the game to the vast difference in revenue sharing, fears of the NFL going the way of MLB are vastly overblown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BengalszoneBilly Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals.i also believe this..As do I. There has to be some sort of parity mechanism built in to the league. Otherwise the NFL ends up like MLB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted April 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals.i also believe this..Well, one is always welcome to one's beliefs...but I have yet to hear any argument that an uncapped NFL would "kill the Bengals" that, at least to me, carries any weight. I repeat: the NFL is not MLB (or basketball or hockey), and for reasons ranging from the nature of the game to the vast difference in revenue sharing, fears of the NFL going the way of MLB are vastly overblown.Guys like Jerry Jones threaten the foundation of the league. I don't want to get into the pros and cons of the economics of the NFL because I am not well versed in these types of things. But I agree that removal of the cap would cripple many clubs. Jones in particular is set to open a brand new stadium that is considered state-of-the-art in the world. I give him credit for his vision and personal stake in that stadium but the end result will be a cash pot to hire scouts out the wazoo and to cherry pick many of the top free agents. As you said we are free to have our opinions but I fear the worst when guys like Jones and Snyder among others are going to have an unfair advantage over teams like the Bengals. And like it or not, baseball is a perfect example of a bad system that just doesn't work for the majority of teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cincy9275 Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 a uncapped nfl would kill the bengals.i also believe this..Well, one is always welcome to one's beliefs...but I have yet to hear any argument that an uncapped NFL would "kill the Bengals" that, at least to me, carries any weight. I repeat: the NFL is not MLB (or basketball or hockey), and for reasons ranging from the nature of the game to the vast difference in revenue sharing, fears of the NFL going the way of MLB are vastly overblown.mikey don't like paying people now, i just don't see him shelling out the type of money it would take to too keep players here. my point is not so much that the team would fold. i believe it really would turn in to the 90's all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 I don't want to get into the pros and cons of the economics of the NFL because I am not well versed in these types of things. But I agree that removal of the cap would cripple many clubs.Well, that's just it: if you look at the economics of the league, I think you'll find that the loss of the cap wouldn't cripple anyone. As I said before, the vast difference in the amount of shared revenue in the NFL versus other sports makes comparisons very suspect.Jones in particular is set to open a brand new stadium that is considered state-of-the-art in the world. I give him credit for his vision and personal stake in that stadium but the end result will be a cash pot to hire scouts out the wazoo and to cherry pick many of the top free agents.You mean like he already does? The cap is already fictional for big-market teams like Dallas. The have sufficient unshared revenues to manipulate it indefinitely. The situation where big market teams can buy oodles of coaches and scouts, and boatloads of stars while smaller-market teams have to economize already exists. Frankly, if the cap disappeared tomorrow, I'm not sure anyone would notice a difference.mikey don't like paying people now, i just don't see him shelling out the type of money it would take to too keep players here.I think he could actually shell out less and get equal or better quality than we have now. My bet is that you would see payrolls drop league-wide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted April 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 I find it hard to believe that annual payrolls won't exceed $200M in a matter of years and that what ever disparities wouldn't be worse than they are now. Before long the Bengals will be asking for a new stadium again.The problem in baseball is that with 162 games, you can have a crappy team but still see a lot of good baseball. But in football, there is little room for error with a 16 game schedule. A few extra million or tens of millions is no guarantee of a championship but it'll keep you in the hunt every year.What I see happening is teams making a two or three year run and then stripping their team down every few years like baseball does.Hoos, hopefully you are right but I am skeptical when it comes to guys like Jones and their motives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 I find it hard to believe that annual payrolls won't exceed $200M in a matter of years and that what ever disparities wouldn't be worse than they are now.Heck, you might see the even with the cap, given the way NFL revenues keep skyrocketing. They were just under $7 billion in 2006; projections put them at $9 billion this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted April 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7977050...P>1=39002Peko and TJ can keep their hair.http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d8...mp;confirm=trueWhile defensive players get radios. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted April 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2008 more fallout from the meetingshttp://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7980294?MSNHPHMA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 Peter King drags himself, kicking and screaming, into discussing some details of a potential uncapped year.I normally hate writing about labor and things like looming strikes. You hate reading about that stuff. But I'm going to write about it here today, and I will make this commitment to you: I won't do it again, at least not at the top of the column, until something really significant occurs that you need to know about.I'm writing now because I think there's so much misinformation out there, and I want you to have a bedrock of knowledge so you'll be able to rebuke the office know-it-all if he says, "Hey, no more NFL after this year. They're going on strike. Did you hear?''Now there's a wet-blanket lead for you. But I want you to understand why, a little more than two weeks before the draft, I'm taking the top of the column to cover labor issues. I promise it won't be too painful. Give me five minutes.***First things first: There is no danger of the NFL being interrupted by a labor dispute in 2008, 2009 or 2010.When NFL owners ratified a new collective bargaining agreement two years ago, it allowed for either the owners or the players' union -- if they were dissatisfied with the new deal -- to opt out of the CBA, beginning in November 2008. That's likely to happen seven months from now. If it does, this season will be wholly unaffected, as will 2009, when teams play with a salary cap of approximately $123 million per club. The 2010 season would be played without a salary cap if a new contract between players and owners is not reached.And that's where most of the misinformation has come in. The rules for the 2010 season are significantly more restrictive for players than they currently are, so players and agents waiting out the next two years for a pot of gold in the uncapped year are going to be disappointed. The 2010 rules for player movement:FREE AGENCY: Currently, players who are unsigned and have finished at least four NFL seasons are free. In the 2010 market, players will be free if they are unsigned after at least their sixth NFL season. In other words, 2009 would have to be a player's sixth season, and he would have to enter 2010 unsigned. Let's use Cleveland wide receiver Braylon Edwards as an example. In his original rookie contract, signed in 2005, the final year is 2009, which would be his fifth NFL season. Ordinarily, he'd be a free-agent in 2010 -- if the team didn't sign him before then or place a franchise tag on him. But under the 2010 rules, he won't be a free-agent.MORE RESTRICTIONS VIA FRANCHISE AND TRANSITION TAGS: Each team now can use one franchise-player tag and one transition-player tag -- which pay the tagged player, respectively, the average of the top five and top 10 salaries at his position. In 2010, the revised deal would allow each team the use of a second transition tag. If a team chose to use all its tags, it could stop its best three players from hitting the unrestricted free-agent market.RESTRICTIONS FOR THE TOP EIGHT TEAMS IN FOOTBALL: If the uncapped year is reached, the teams with the best eight records in football in 2009 will be severely restricted from jumping into the pool. It's still not precisely determined how the system would work, but let's say the Patriots are one of the top eight and want to sign a free-agent to a five-year, $20-million contract. They'd have to lose their own player or players to contracts totaling $20 million before they could sign the free-agent they want. Conceptually, that's how this clause in the deal is going to work, but the exact mechanics of it are not clear yet. The purpose is very clear: The best teams are going to have tight leashes in free agency. And I can tell you from talking to a few traditionally good teams at the league meetings last week, they're not happy about it.All told, teams would be able to protect more players with tags, and would have fewer free agents because of the six-year rule, and the best eight teams would be playing with one hand tied behind their back. This is a good system for the players?Five of the eight richest players in free agency this year would not have been unrestricted free-agents in an uncapped system requiring six years of service. Defensive lineman Tommy Kelly (Raiders) had four years of service and would have been restricted, as would five-year vets Jeff Faine (Bucs), Lance Briggs (Bears), Calvin Pace (Jets) and Asante Samuel (Eagles).In 2011 and beyond? Murky times. The union could disband and try to rewrite the rules of engagement with the NFL, as it did in the '80s to try to break a labor stalemate. The league could try to unilaterally adopt bargaining terms. There could be a strike. That season is three-and-a-half years away, and to think the two sides couldn't figure out some way to divvy up $8 billion or $9 billion a year ... There's a better chance of Brett Favre quarterbacking the Bears this year.Now, the fear around football is that some very rich man -- Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, Woody Johnson -- will grab hold of the free market in 2010 and make it their personal playground. Jones especially, because his new stadium, with personal-seat license fees as high as $150,000 per seat, will put his revenue stream far above other owners. I asked Jones whether he'd ever be a Steinbrenner if the market allowed it."I am so grounded in the thinking that higher payrolls don't win Super Bowls,'' Jones said. "Remember -- one year when we won the Super Bowl [in the '90s], we had the second-lowest payroll in football. I've never experienced success throwing money at players. I never see myself doing that [being a Steinbrenner].''He's right. After seeing the Patriots win three Super Bowls this decade with a fairly anonymous team, there's no proof that big spending means big wins.As to how we got to this point, I won't get too technical on you, but the previous CBA was very owner-friendly. Because of all the ancillary revenue (like luxury box fees) that wasn't included in revenue-sharing, the players, who theoretically were supposed to be getting 60 percent of the gross revenue the game produced, were getting about 54 percent. So on March 8, 2006, owners approved a deal that would allow owners to skim 5 percent off the top of gross revenues, with an increasing percentage scale (60.75 percent this year) of the remaining 95 percent of the revenue going to the players. Seems easy enough, but for some owners, it was like going to bed and waking up to find their mortgage rate had gone up four points.In the last few months, as the economic climate in the country has worsened, teams that need to borrow money for either new stadium financing or major stadium renovations (Giants, Jets, Cowboys, Panthers, Dolphins) have found the NFL's lending branch has run dry. So teams needing money are looking increasingly toward private financing and bond issues.For teams that don't have the revenue of a New England or a Dallas, it's imperative to get that $87 million check, as the NFL passed out for network TV dough in 2007. But with the salary cap $29 million higher than that this year, and rising $7 million next year, struggling markets like Buffalo and Jacksonville and New Orleans are playing in a different league than the haves right now. And it's getting worse each year.Back to reality. The system needs to change. But the landscape has three years of business-as-usual before the sky really does fall ... if it ever does. I don't think it will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted April 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2008 5 Rule changes he'd like to see. I agree with every one of them.http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-t...o&type=lgns Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ickey44 Posted April 12, 2008 Report Share Posted April 12, 2008 Those seem like pretty logical rule changes to me as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierCat Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 And...it's done. The new CBA is dead. Owners vote 32-0 to opt out.http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3404596 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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