The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Mezz wrote: Adam Shefter is as a reliable source as any...and he has no agenda ..this is what he reported last night

Air Hog wrote: Adam Schefter seems to me to be a pretty vaild source of info. and unlike Lenny, he's not biased against the Skins.

Remember we weren't supposed to be able to sign our draft picks from last year.

With a deadline looming tomorrow, NFL owners and the league's Players Association may be inching closer to a new collective bargaining agreement. Last night, Patriots vice chairman and president Jonathan Kraft expressed optimism that a deal was close.
-- Boston Globe

Next season's NFL salary cap likely will be about $108 million per team if the owners and the players' union can agree to an extension of their collective bargaining agreement. It probably will be set at $95 million to $96 million per club if there's no labor extension. Last season's salary cap was $85.5 million per team.
-- Washington Post

rick301 wrote:From http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/s ... index.html I saw:

With a deadline looming tomorrow, NFL owners and the league's Players Association may be inching closer to a new collective bargaining agreement. Last night, Patriots vice chairman and president Jonathan Kraft expressed optimism that a deal was close.
-- Boston Globe

Next season's NFL salary cap likely will be about $108 million per team if the owners and the players' union can agree to an extension of their collective bargaining agreement. It probably will be set at $95 million to $96 million per club if there's no labor extension. Last season's salary cap was $85.5 million per team.
-- Washington Post

I hope its true about the CBA and the $108M salary cap. If it is, we'll be sitting pretty!

kkryan wrote:

rick301 wrote:From http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/s ... index.html I saw:

With a deadline looming tomorrow, NFL owners and the league's Players Association may be inching closer to a new collective bargaining agreement. Last night, Patriots vice chairman and president Jonathan Kraft expressed optimism that a deal was close.
-- Boston Globe

Next season's NFL salary cap likely will be about $108 million per team if the owners and the players' union can agree to an extension of their collective bargaining agreement. It probably will be set at $95 million to $96 million per club if there's no labor extension. Last season's salary cap was $85.5 million per team.
-- Washington Post

I hope its true about the CBA and the $108M salary cap. If it is, we'll be sitting pretty!

We wont be sitting pretty. The cards will have close to 40 million under the cap!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SirSmizzy wrote:NFL | Labor talks break down
Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:32:37 -0800

ESPNews reports the talks regarding the Collective Bargaining Agreement have broken down between the NFL Players Association and team owners. The meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 1, has been called off, according to NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw. The set deadline is Wednesday, March 1, at 4:00 p.m. EST.

NFL labor talks broke off Tuesday three days before the start of free agency, leaving teams and players in a quandary about negotiating new contracts.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, spent the last three days meeting in New York and Washington with commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

"We're deadlocked. There's nowhere to go," Upshaw said. "There's no reason to continue meeting."

Although the contract does not expire until after the 2007 season, this is a critical period in the negotiations to extend the 12-year-old contract. Talks have been going on for more than a year.

Without an extension, the 2007 season would become a so-called uncapped year with no spending limit and no minimum, and players could potentially face a lockout in 2008.

Team officials and player agents have said that doing business without an extension -- particularly with the free agent signing period set to begin Friday and the draft on April 29-30 -- will prove virtually impossible. Because of the extreme circumstances that would exist with an uncapped year on the horizon, it would be difficult to meet the financial expectations of free agents and high-round draft choices.

Free agency is scheduled to start Friday. If the deal is not extended, this would be the last year with a salary cap, so agents and team officials want to know how to structure contracts.

For example, if there is no extension, the salary cap is expected to be about $95 million this season and annual raises after 2006 in a long-term deal would be limited to 30 percent. If the deal is extended the cap could be $10 million or more higher.

ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli reported Monday that league owners are scheduled to meet Tuesday via conference call to discuss the status of negotiations.

Two owners told Pasquarelli on Monday afternoon that they have delayed their departures from Indianapolis, site of the NFL scouting combine since Wednesday, to accommodate the 6 p.m. ET timing of the conference call.

Information from The Associated Press and ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli was used in this report.

Labor Deal or Not, League to Set Salary Cap
By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 28, 2006; 12:39 PM
Executives from NFL teams had expected to find out Monday what next season's salary-cap figure would be. Instead, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue informed all 32 clubs in a memo that the teams would be notified by 4 p.m. Wednesday whether there will be an extension of the labor agreement, and they'll be told then what the salary cap will be.
If the league and the players' union agree to a labor extension, the salary cap likely will be set somewhere between $104 million and $108 million per club. That would be an immense jump over last season's salary cap of $85.5 million per team. Without an extension, next season's cap probably will be around $95 million or $96 million per club.
That is a huge difference to teams facing a potential salary-cap crunch. If there's no labor deal, clubs would have to be in compliance with the salary cap by Friday and scores of players likely would be released Thursday. The free-agent market is scheduled to open Friday.
If there is a labor extension, the opening of free agency perhaps would be pushed back by a week to give the team owners and the players time to vote to ratify the deal. That would be a trickier proposition for the owners, who are scheduled to meet Monday and Tuesday in Dallas, since NFL Players Association chief Gene Upshaw continues to maintain that a labor deal would have to be accompanied by an agreement among the owners on a system to increase the degree to which the clubs share their locally generated revenues. The owners' revenue-sharing deliberations have been highly contentious, but it's possible that Tagliabue will arrive in Dallas on Monday telling the owners that he has a labor deal with Upshaw that would go into effect only if they approve a revenue-sharing plan.
The players have an executive board meeting scheduled for next week in Hawaii. They could end up approving a labor deal at that meeting. Or, if there's no labor deal, they could end up receiving a recommendation from Upshaw to put in process the motion to decertify the union. That would be a tactic designed to prevent a lockout by the owners in 2008, and it perhaps would lead to a courtroom confrontation between the two sides. The players decertifying the union would enable the owners to implement whatever system they wanted, but would give the players the right to file an antitrust lawsuit if they didn't like what the owners imposed.
Everything depends on what happens between now and Wednesday afternoon. Tagliabue and Upshaw are scheduled to meet today in New York. The parties apparently have made progress toward an agreement, but Upshaw said as he traveled to New York on Monday that speculation that a deal was already in place or virtually in place was off target. The two sides still had not agreed to what percentage of an expanded revenue pool the players would receive as compensation under a salary-cap system, Upshaw said Monday.
The labor deal keeps the current salary-cap system in place through next season, then there would be season without a salary cap in 2007 before the agreement expires.

Smithian wrote:People think by no new CBA< we'll be good in 2007-2008.

We won't... There will most likely be a lockout.

Also, with no new CBA, NFL probably will fall apart by 2010. Smaller market teams will eventually fall apart without revenue sharing and eventually middle market teams will be forced to either move or have permanet mediocrity.

No CBA will have long lasting effects that could kill NFL.

Negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement extension continue to drag. Conference calls are going on daily with hopes of getting something done. The collective bargaining agreement runs out after the 2007 season, but March 3 of this year is perhaps the most important date in the process.

Even though two years remain in the agreement, the NFL Players Association and owners built incentives into the current CBA to encourage negotiations. The incentives include the uncapped year in 2007 and the equally painful transition year in 2006. If no deal is done by March 3, the NFL, as we've known it since the cap started in 1993, won't be the same. If a new deal isn't worked out, NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said the union will proceed to the uncapped year in 2007 and not look back. That could put pro football in the rare position to be the first sport to lose a salary cap.

Most experts think a last-minute deal will be completed, but what if it isn't? Here are a few answers to the questions.

• What is the problem in the negotiations?
The biggest problem is the lack of cohesion among the owners. The players have to settle on a negotiated percentage of total gross revenues, and Upshaw said that percentage must be in the 60s. They currently get 64 percent of designated gross revenues, but the sport has grown so much that the formula must change. Starting with an extension, the percentage will be based on total revenues. The NFL has grown into a $6 billion business and is expected to be a $10 billion business by 2010. Upshaw and commissioner Paul Tagliabue should be able to work out the number but not if there isn't improved revenue sharing among the owners, and that's what has been holding up a settlement.

Teams with new stadiums at the top of the revenue list don't want to share their profits with the lower revenue teams. Heading the list of high-revenue teams are the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, New England Patriots, Houston Texans and Philadelphia Eagles. Because eight votes can block any deal such as a CBA, they prevent a deal from getting done and it could cost the league the salary cap. Their position is strong.

The revenue differences in a league that made its success by sharing has grown apart. A top team such as the Redskins can make between $200 million and $240 million in gross revenues and that number should grow to $300 million. The lower-revenue teams are in the low $100-million range. What the high revenuers are hoping is that the union would do a deal without revenue sharing. Upshaw says that won't happen because he can't have a top revenue team pay 35-40 percent of its revenues on payroll while a low revenue team pays 70 percent. Conference calls over the past couple of days are moving the process but the negotiations are complicated. At some point, the owners have to settle their differences and take the best deal or they will lose the salary cap.

• With no extension, what problems would exist for the '06 season?
Because 2006 could be a transition year to no cap in 2007, rules change slightly and they take a lot of money out of the free agency pool. Teams will lose between $2.5 million and $5 million of cap room because of the transition. Because there is no cap in 2007, players who are released from multi-year contracts will have the cap hits on the 2006 cap. With no salary cap in 2007, there will be no June 1 adjustment date to release players with high cap numbers and delay the cap hits. With no cap in 2007, all incentives will count immediately.

Normally, incentives have to be earned during the season and are posted on the next year's cap. Teams have to leave room for the extra charges and that will take anywhere between $100 million and $150 million of cap room out of the free agent pool. With less room, fewer free agents will get big dollars, and fewer free agents will be signed. Another problem is the 30-percent rule for base salaries. Any contract that extends into an uncapped year limits the increase of a player's base salary to 30 percent a year. That kills the teams over the cap because they can't negotiate simple replacement deals in which they replace base salary with signing bonuses. The base salaries can increase only 30 percent a year so teams would have to negotiate two or three years of reductions. It will be harder for teams to free up money under the cap because of that.

Signing draft choices will be more difficult because teams can prorate signing bonuses for only four seasons. Already, agents figure the most a top draft choice can make under that scenario is $15 million, a major reduction from recent years. That leads to long holdouts by draft choices.

• What does the NFL lose if it doesn't negotiate a CBA extension?
Labor peace. In 2008, the NFL will either be on strike or the owners will lock out the players. That's not going to play well with networks investing a total of $100 million a year in rights fees. The union will decertify and then antitrust rules will apply. The NFL draft will go away in 2008 as part of a clause inserted in the current CBA if it expires. Naturally, the NFL will try to implement a system, but the NFLPA will sue and both sides will be spending all of their time in court. To get players out of college, it could be open negotiations. Minimum salaries for all players will be eliminated in 2007, so every contract, including those for rookies coming out of college, has to be negotiated individually and those players get what they can get. Players probably can sue if their contracts are traded. Every single move of the league will be under legal scrutiny.

• What do the players lose if there is no extension?
They will lose some protection. Even though it's more of a procedural thing that has to do with antitrust laws, the union will go out of business if there is no CBA. That will cause uncertainty for the players. Teams can change and cut down the benefits package that players receive, which is considered the best in sports. With no structure, teams can pay young players below the current minimums of $235,000, $310,000 and $385,000 a year.

• Will the NFL resemble baseball if there is an uncapped 2007?
Not really. There will be some restrictions of teams being able to go out and sign whomever they want. There will be what is called a "Final Eight" restriction for teams that make the playoffs in 2006. The final four playoff teams will be allowed to re-sign any of their own unrestricted free agents. However, they will be permitted to sign unrestricted free agents from other teams as replacements only if they lose one of their own free agents. A team that loses in the divisional playoff round will have the limitation of adding one unrestricted free agent with a salary of $1.5 million or more. So the final eight playoff teams won't be able to go out like the Yankees and Red Sox and grab all the players that are available in an uncapped year. There is no limitation on Fight Eight teams signing franchise or transition players from other teams but those players are hard to acquire and would cost top draft choices to sign. Teams in 2007 also will have one extra transition designation along with their one franchise tag, giving them a franchise tag and two transition tags to keep their top players.

• Will free agency be different in 2007?
Yes, players hit restricted free agency after three years and unrestricted free agency after four years under the current rules. If no CBA agreement is reached this year, players won't begin unrestricted free agency until after their sixth year. Players whose contracts end after third, fourth and fifth seasons will be considered restricted free agents and subject to qualifying offers.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

vasfinest24 wrote:Sad and unfortunate??? This could be great!!! Lets face it, even if we look at the most grim outlook for next year, no scenario has mentioned us cutting any cornerstones or key buidling blocks. Sorry, but Walt Harris, Bowen, Raymer, and Hall don't exactly bring up those thoughts in my mind. And no, I find it hard to believe that no new CBA will bring about the end of the NFL for all eternity. I just hope that 07 isn't the only uncapped year, and judging from Upshaw's comments it looks like we could hit the jackpot with this one and be without a cap for quite a few years down the road.
HAIL

vasfinest24 wrote:Sad and unfortunate??? This could be great!!! Lets face it, even if we look at the most grim outlook for next year, no scenario has mentioned us cutting any cornerstones or key buidling blocks. Sorry, but Walt Harris, Bowen, Raymer, and Hall don't exactly bring up those thoughts in my mind. And no, I find it hard to believe that no new CBA will bring about the end of the NFL for all eternity. I just hope that 07 isn't the only uncapped year, and judging from Upshaw's comments it looks like we could hit the jackpot with this one and be without a cap for quite a few years down the road.
HAIL

This is downright silly. The revenue sharing program has made the NFL what it is. The playing ground is level and all teams are able to compete. If rich teams like us, Dallas and New England are able to gobble up a lot of the best talent (even with resrtictions, we'll still have a large advantage), fans wont be as interested in teams like The Vikings once their free agents leave to rich teams that missed the playoffs.

Also, why would you want to risk losing labor peace? I may not be an expert but it just doesn't make sense to me. The NFL is in the height of it's popularity. Smart buisness men know not to mess with seccess. Personally, I like watching teams go from 11-5 one year, to 7-9 the next, to 11-5 the next (like Carolina). It keeps you on your toes. Cincinnati just became an exciting team for the first since I've been watching the sport.

Keep the playing field even, keep the fans frothing at the mouths, share the revenue extend the CBA.