Ongoing CBA discussions

2 preseason games and 16 regular season games. I'm 100% against a 18 game schedule. The sport doesn't need to be that much harder on players longevity.

There is enough football on as is. Between college and pro, 16 pro games is fine.

I'm just as big of an NFL fan as any and I agree with you on this.. NO need for 18 games

46 games a season. Then 4 weeks of playoffs. Then two weeks vacation. Now there's a football year!

Not sure I grasp the owners position on this. If the cap stays tied to revenue then it can go up, or DOWN based on growth or contraction of said revenues. How were the players offering no "downside" protection? Did their proposal include provisions for the cap to increase in spite of any theoretical revenue contraction? If not then I call BS on the owners for that.

I hadn't known this was part of the propoal until now. I would have said "hell to the no" on that too if I were the players.

What makes me perplex3e is that the players should be able to easily win this battle from a PR standpoint but they frittered away a lot of good will by appearing to only be interested in litigating this. They need to reverse course on that and get back into the negotiating room where they easily get the cap retied to revenue and settle the now managebale cost credit issue.

If the owners aren't willing to settle for just an increase to the cost credit, rookie wage scale, shared purvue over scheduling, and minor concessions on free agency and organizational things then go to court. But I bet they'd be willing to take all of that.

The last I heard the owners want it to go to court. I think they think they have a decent arguement in regards to the NFLPA decertifying 8 hrs prior to the deadline because the Players are using the system to their advantage which might not be legal...

League makes three main arguments against lifting the lockout | ProFootballTalk (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/21/league-makes-three-main-arguments-against-lifting-the-lockout/)


Second, the league claims that the decertification of the union is not valid, and that the court in Minnesota should defer to the National Labor Relations Board, which is considering whether the union shut down in an effort to simply gain a tactical bargaining advantage.
As to whether the union legitimately shut down, the league’s brief cites comments from men like Kevin Mawae, DeMeco Ryans, Derrick Mason, Vonnie Holliday, Jeff Saturday, and Mike Vrabel. For example, the league points to the following September 2010 quote from Mawae as proof that the decertification is merely a tactic for gaining leverage: “[T]he idea of decertification, the tactic and the strategy worked back in 1989. . . . [T]he whole purpose [of disclaimer] is to have that ace in our sleeve. . . . And at the end of the day, guys understand the strategy, it’s been a part of the union strategy since I’ve been in the league. . . .” The league also notes that Vonnie Holliday, the Washington Football Club’s player rep, said after decertification of the union, “We want a fair CBA.” Likewise, the league points out that Chiefs linebacker Mike Vrabel said a week after decertification that “[o]ur Executive Commitee needs to negotiate with . . . their Executive Committee.”

EDIT: Here is another piece of the puzzle.

The NFL also claims that the players aren’t likely to win the case because they failed to wait for the CBA to expire before shutting down the union. As the league explains it, the players opted to decertify before the CBA expired in order to file the antitrust lawsuit before the CBA expired. If the players had waited to decertify until after the CBA expired, the players would have had to wait six months to file the antitrust lawsuit, given a separate portion of the CBA.
The league calls the six-month waiting period an “obvious quid pro quo” for the league’s agreement not to argue that decertification was a sham. In other words, the league claims that it agreed to allow decertification of the union plus an antitrust lawsuit, only if the antitrust lawsuit is filed at least six months after the CBA has expired.

I think they should do away with preseason completely. Im all for 18 Game regular season.

I totally agree with you. But... the evaluation of players would have to come from some sort of actual play so do they have scrimmages? Perhaps non hitting scrimmages.

2 preseason games and 16 regular season games. I'm 100% against a 18 game schedule. The sport doesn't need to be that much harder on players longevity.

There is enough football on as is. Between college and pro, 16 pro games is fine.

and my arguement would be then allow the teams to have 10 or 20 more players on each team. That way they can carry more players in order to give more breaks during game play.

46 games a season. Then 4 weeks of playoffs. Then two weeks vacation. Now there's a football year!

:food-smil

Give the players what they want.... let them see the books, under the condition they agree to play a full year with 2 weeks of vacation time. lol.

and my arguement would be then allow the teams to have 10 or 20 more players on each team. That way they can carry more players in order to give more breaks during game play.

Which will drive player costs up even more so that the owners can complain yet again they are making 100 million a year as opposed to 150 million.

Good luck with that one.

10-20 extra players ain't happening

5-7 extra at the most

Ok, so I kinda had an "Aha" moment when I woke up.

On one side you have the owners who are claiming there is a loss in revenue partly due to the bad economy. I'm sure the owners are probably somewhat correct because fans don't have the money to purchase the expensive jerseys or purchase the expensive season passes. In some cases fans are turning in their season passes because they can't afford them anymore. I know the Redskins are somewhat in a different catagory due to the fact there has always been a waiting list and as soon as one fan turns in his passes another steps up to take his place, but there are other cities that I'm sure are not as well off as Washington. We fans have a tendency to look at what is around us or what we know. The Skins are close to us and they are one of the most profitable teams in the league so if we use them as an example we are blind to the worst markets out there.

So the owners want to take 1 bill off the top of the 9 bill the league makes to use towards revenue sharing, to help out the worst markets as well as using the money towards their stadiums.

The players know that getting a % of 8 bill is far less then getting a % of 9 bill. So they are requesting the owners show their books and if the owners can prove that there are teams struggling they will consider the 1 bill being taken off the top. Problem is they know the NFL is a money making machine between T.V. deals, commercials, advertising, seat cost for fans, and paraphernalia the NFL is getting more money every year. Honestly I'm still not quite sure how a % of 4 bill or a % of 4.5 bill effects the players who have signed contracts with set amounts of salary for each year but perhaps I'm just not the brightest crayon in the box. My understanding is the 4 bill or 4.5 bill goes towards a retirement fund for the retired players. I honestly don't know what else it goes towards. I thought at one point the players health insurance but I keep hearing about the owners have to pay for that up to a year after they are not playing.

Both sides I guess are making good arguements. Even we fans can't agree on which side is right or wrong and some of us are having a hard time deciding which side to lean towards. But in the grand scheme of things what about the fans? We've watched player salaries go up and up, we've watched ticket prices go up and up to off set the player salaries, new stadium costs, costs to upgrade the old stadiums and so forth. So I guess my question to the owners is "IF" you were to be given the 1 bill for revenue sharing would you agree to lower ticket prices by 5% and keep the price the same for the next 10 yrs? They already would have their money for the bad market teams and money to fix up their stadiums. Thats what they want the 1 bill for. Then it's all a matter of player salaries, coach's salaries, and extra personel such as secretaries and the like. So if the owners are not throwing $100 mill dollar contracts at players and doing their best to keep player salaries down then ticket prices should reflect that as well since the ticket prices went up to reflect players salaries.

To me if the owners are taking 1 bill off the top for their revenue sharing/stadiums and they are putting a Rookie salary in place, then amount saved from the Rookie salaries can off set the Vet salaries which enables ticket prices to either be lowered or stay the same for the next several years. If at all possible (which I know would not happen) lowering the ticket sales might enable the fans to keep their season passes and might enable more fans to purchase tickets to games who don't have season passes. What with people facing hard time and possible foreclosures on their homes I'm sure less fans are paying for or keeping their season passes which makes it harder for the owner to know in advance how many people will be at a game and how much money he has on average to spend.

Sorry for the long ramble. Just thought it would be interesting if the fans some how could get involved, hired an attorney to represent them and put pressure on both sides in regards to ticket prices.

SBXVII: you seem hung up on how a new CBA would impact current contracts, it wouldn't. But there are a ton of potential free agents sitting out there right now, and guys who will be impacted by a new CBA in the very near future.