Free Agency May Start In A Week

Well, the 775 million is just reality, any such number has to be divided by 32 teams, then subtracted from the Salary Cap, if they had stuck with 1 billion that is 32 million missing from each teams' payroll, that would drive maximum payrolls below 100 million from the current 110 million or so.

INOW, there would be a massive waiver of players to get underneath the Cap, which wasn't going to happen just from a Competition POV.

One proposal I do like is move UFA to 6 yrs, RFA to 5 yrs, otherwise why spend 3 yrs to develop a player only to watch him walk in yr #4?

A Franchise just paid him to learn how to do his job, then off he goes, that seems unfair to the Franchises and a disincentive to develop players.

 

This seems impossible. How will teams sign guys to contracts if they don’t know the parameters of how the league will operate?

 

Yes, it does.

The owners wanted a 1 billion dollar clawback from the player's, the Cap is the means to accomplish it, 1,000,000,000,000 divided by 32 teams. or 30 million or so taken off of the table for each franchise, the last cap in 09 was 127 million.

Rosenhaus estimated the owners saved an additional billion by moving the goal posts on FA in 2010, those 4th and 5ht yr guys who did not hit the market saved Owners serious money.

 

There’s another problem—which rules? The 2009 rules with a salary cap, or the 2010 rules without a salary cap, but with an additional year of playing time necessary to qualify as a UFA? What happens to players who would qualify for 2011 free agency under the 2009 rules but not the 2010 rules? What about the players who would be UFAs but have been extended RFA tenders, like DeAngelo Williams and Santonio Holmes? And if there’s a cap, how much would it be and how would that be determined?

I can’t see this happening, since the uncertainty would cause teams to not want to sign players.

 

I think the idea would be that once they had a basic framework in place, they could proceed with FA and then iron out the details later on. B/C there are coaches and GMs all over the league getting antsy about not having FA before the draft or not having the ability to interact w/ players etc.

 

Do not even bother attempting to explain, it like trying to bail out the ocean with a bucket with holes in it Amigo.

 

Quality.

 

I think they’re more annoyed with not being able to communicate with their players. Free agency isn’t a big deal to them, at least not compared to offseason workouts, installing schemes in OTAs, that sort of thing.

 

they need to get this show on the road.

 

I dunno, I think not having FA prior to the draft really puts more pressure on the GMs in the draft rooms. Imagine our draft last year had we not gotten Marshall & Dansby before hand. What would we have done?

 

GMs could be tied and blindfolded in a cave with a dozen masked terrorists while submitting their draft cards, and they still wouldn’t feel any additional pressure. Draft rooms are already pressure cookers.

 

Is there an article or anything else that shows this or are you just thinking this is how it will work? Not that I'm asking for a link. Just wondering if it's your opinion or a stated fact.

I mean as it stands now the players are getting an extra 600 million with the current deal so If the owners happen to get to where it's even, the owners will be making more. I don't see how it's going to kill the cap and especially since there will most likely be a rookie pool. That's how teams caps have been ruined the most. By signing a high pick, like Russell, only to see him out of the league in a couple years....

 

I believe it was on Tim Graham's blog or ESPN radio.

And think about Ozman "right now the players are getting it (600 million)"

How do they get that money? They are signed, how are they signed? why under the salary cap of course, the only way to enforce such a clawback is to reduce the salary cap.

The players have individual contracts that would be impossible to void, however if the NFL told the club "you only have X amount to spend" the problem solves itself, the teams themselves will have to either restructure, or shed the contracts that do not fit under the new cap number.

 

Yeah i thought about that but with the rookie pool that's going to be in place, it lowers spending on them which means more to spend on deserving veterans. Will the total cap be reduced? It very well could be but not by that much...imo

Yes, a good portion of what the players get goes to salaries but not all of it. The union has plenty of money.

 

The rookie pool is only really going to effect the top 10 or so teams in the draft

 

It's going to affect the top 10, anyone who drafts a QB in the first two rounds or any other rookie with a good agent.

In other words, probably like half of the draft.

It sucks for the players, but it's right. It's asinine for kids to be getting $50 million guaranteed when they haven't played a down in the pros.

 

how so?

 

Last year's draft was not good for quarterbacks (as to prove all three points), but 2009 is a perfect example.

http://www.macsfootballblog.com/2009/04/2009-nfl-rookie-signing-status.html

Clearly, the Top 10 are overpaid (or the rest are underpaid). As a generalization, the players get paid less the lower they were drafted (rightfully so), but there is VERY dramatic drop-off in guaranteed money after 10. Annual salaries drop ~$1million after 10 as well, although this is not as dramatic as the guaranteed money.

Also, the quarterbacks are notably paid more than other positions. A cash-strapped team might shy away from drafting a quarterback, but with a wage scale, this problem is eliminated.

Lastly, players with "difficult" agents such as Michael Crabtree (Eugene Parker) won't scare off potential suitors. With, what I anticipate will be a fair payscale, will eliminate holdouts, which will be good for teams and players, alike.

The underlying issue is that while the salary cap should be adjustable for inflation, rookie contracts are absolutely out of control. I wasn't born to know what rookies were getting in the 70's and 80's, but my guess is that it'd be chump change to JaMarcus.

In otherwords, the system is broken in two senses:

1) Rookies are making an imbalanced amount relative to eachother based on an arbitrary draft position.

2) Rookies are making too much money period.

 

Well, your right but I'm not sure it's going to be the top 10 or 15. But what it does, if the owners get their ways, is it locks them up for 5 yrs. The players want 4 so we'll see on that. I'm also not sure if there will be allowed renegotiations before the 5th year. The top of the draft is what kills teams cap when the player gets near the end of his contract.

 

The player will only walk if you dont pay him fairly. If you have a good organization, the player will accept a contract extension before becoming a FA.

 

That to me is what changed everything. Doty basically told the owners that if you lock out the players, I'll reverse it immediately. I think the owners still had the advantage without the $4B, but with no lock out they're basically powerless. That ruling is the first thing that has made me optimistic about there being football without an interruption in the last two years.

 

See Jamarcus Russell, Ted Ginn, Jr. Jason Allen, Vernon Gholston, Chris Long, etc. Players who got paid big bucks without having to prove they deserve it.

Baseball does this to an extent. They pay signing bonuses, but its not ridiculous. I think the pitcher for the Nationals, Steven Straussberg got the largest bonus ever paid, and it was around $ 12 million. Last year Bryce Harper only got about $ 11.5 million, so in one year it fell by $ 1 million. That hasn't happened in the NFL, its only been going up, around 10% a year, and its out of hand.

 

That is not the answer to my question. Also Ted Ginn and Jason Allen would be getting paid pretty much the same.

 

@ Andre Smith being low-balled by Cincy as if they knew what a s#!tty pick they were making.