CBA and Uncapped 2010 Season

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don_banks/03/23/nfl.meetings/index.html?eref=T1

It appears more likely the 2010 season will be uncapped, but it will not be a crazy spend fest as some might think....work stoppage possible in 2011.



"a growing sense that the league's impending labor showdown will all but assure a season with no salary cap in 2010, with a decent bet for a subsequent work stoppage in 2011......Said another club's general manager: "I don't think it's a long shot any more in regards to an uncapped season. It's probably going to happen. It's just the reality now and everyone's dealing with it.....A third general manager (Vinny?)told me that his team's every move this year has been made amid the backdrop of no salary cap next year at this time, and then the strong possibility of a work stoppage in 2011.....Once upon a time, conventional wisdom held that NFL owners wanted no part of an uncapped year because they were fearful that a few rich and aggressive owners (read Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder) would go all George Steinbrenner on them and snap up a boatload of free agents.....But in reality, there were so many new parameters built into the CBA's rules for an uncapped season that owners will have anything but free rein to make a killing for their teams in free agency. ...For starters, once the salary cap disappears, players can't be free agents until they've completed six NFL seasons, rather than four. That means there will be fewer quality young players in the 2010 free-agent pool, and less talent for any spend-happy teams to accumulate.....in addition, teams in 2010 would own an extra transition tag, meaning a franchise could use both a franchise tag and a transition tag on two of its own free agents (or two transition tags) in the same season, as opposed to the one..."

There will be alot less young FA on the market.

less player turnover wouldnt be a bad thing imo.

less player turnover wouldnt be a bad thing imo.

I agree. I'm tired of buying jerseys and then having the player leave and play somewhere else. I'm tired of getting attached to a player only to see him leave after we've developed him, and play for a rival after he starts playing well to get his big payday. I'm tired of not seeing young drafted guys develop because we signed a FA who we think is better at the moment and take away the young guys chance to play. But that's just me.

There are so many ways to circumvent the salary cap these days that for most teams in the NFL, cash is actually the bigger constraint than the cap is. In many ways the cap already has limited impact on the way a number of teams operate.

Baseball does not have a salary cap, but they have had tremendous success recently just by having a revenue sharing agreement in place. They've shown you can generate enough parity in the league, giving small market teams enough of a chance, by controlling the flow of cash on the revenue side without limiting it on the expense side.

In many ways I think a capless league can be good for the NFL. I won't go as far as to say the league will be better without one, but baseball sure has shown that small market teams can compete and win titles without a cap in place. I don't think the NFL will get worse at all, it will still be the same product we've come to love.

There are so many ways to circumvent the salary cap these days that for most teams in the NFL, cash is actually the bigger constraint than the cap is. In many ways the cap already has limited impact on the way a number of teams operate.

Baseball does not have a salary cap, but they have had tremendous success recently just by having a revenue sharing agreement in place. They've shown you can generate enough parity in the league, giving small market teams enough of a chance, by controlling the flow of cash on the revenue side without limiting it on the expense side.

In many ways I think a capless league can be good for the NFL. I won't go as far as to say the league will be better without one, but baseball sure has shown that small market teams can compete and win titles without a cap in place. I don't think the NFL will get worse at all, it will still be the same product we've come to love.

I agree. I know I liked things better before the cap. This crap of letting players go just to get under the cap has got to go! You still have a 53 man limit. You should be able to keep your best players no matter what the cost is. Some teams don't even reach the cap limit and that is their perogative. Which is why it was raised even more this year. But for teams that WANT to have the best 53 guys on their roster, they should be allowed to do so.

I grew up watching and counting on most of the same guys to be in b&g from year to year, so less player movement would be good for me, and a lot of fans.

Work stoppage in 2011? Let's party like it's 1982! or 87!

Schneed, on one hand I agree with you. On the other hand... what about the possibility of a work stoppage. That's the part of this scenario that scares me.

Schneed, on one hand I agree with you. On the other hand... what about the possibility of a work stoppage. That's the part of this scenario that scares me.

Yeah that truly sucks. But that's a seemingly inevitable by-product of the struggle between players and owners rather than a philosophical debate between cap & no cap. In other words, what can ya do.

I don't want to go into september one year & only have college football, but it may be the best way to bring real change. It could get really crazy from a PR standpoint. Things are so much different now than in previous strike years. Fans, like some here, know so much about the cap & the bureaucracy of the nfl.

I don't know who would win in the court of public opinion.

There are so many ways to circumvent the salary cap these days that for most teams in the NFL, cash is actually the bigger constraint than the cap is. In many ways the cap already has limited impact on the way a number of teams operate.

Baseball does not have a salary cap, but they have had tremendous success recently just by having a revenue sharing agreement in place. They've shown you can generate enough parity in the league, giving small market teams enough of a chance, by controlling the flow of cash on the revenue side without limiting it on the expense side.

In many ways I think a capless league can be good for the NFL. I won't go as far as to say the league will be better without one, but baseball sure has shown that small market teams can compete and win titles without a cap in place. I don't think the NFL will get worse at all, it will still be the same product we've come to love.


if there IS a CBA Extension AND a salary cap in 2009, then we have some problems:

1. Haynesworth's cap number is something like 23M, if i remember correctly.

2. Rogers and Campbell both become free agents. Assuming we wanted to keep one or both of them, what could we do? If we had the cap space, we could extend one and franchise the other... but considering the franchise tag for either of them would be north of 12M, and the cap figure in a contract for the other one of them would be 6-8M, then what could we do? Would we be forced to let them both walk for nothing?