Not sure how you come to the conclusion that there will never be a salary cap again?

The Owners wanted the Cap not the players. The owners hold the cards, they want a cap, they want a rookie scale, and they want to reduce the percentage of the pie that the players get.

There is no way they go through a Capless ( and floorless) season, lock-out, and then accept no Cap.

The owners will win because there is only one league in the world that pays players millions of dollars to play football, and there are millions of players who would gladly play for less.

Could there be a reduction in quality? maybe for a season...the players do not have an alternative source of revenue.

There will be a cap, and a rookie scale, and the reduction in the players slice...they may disguise it but it will happen.

to think that a sport can generate so many billions of dollars and these greedy a$$ cant agree on how all of this money is to be split. NO MATTER HOW YOU CUT IT YOU WILL BE MAKING CRAZY MONEY!!! It is rediculous. Now they will lose everything. Look at basketball after the shortened season, they have never recovered. If there is a football lock out look for this sport to fall back to the surface. The way that this sport is rising it is the sport of america. THe fact that the draft is moved to prime time is proof. Even highschool games are becoming big business.

If they were to get there act together it is stagerring the amount of money this sport could have generated in the next 5 years. I think that it could have become an olypic sport within the next 12-15 years if things were to continue smoothly...

Miami Reppa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> to think that a sport can generate so many
> billions of dollars and these greedy a$$ cant
> agree on how all of this money is to be split. NO
> MATTER HOW YOU CUT IT YOU WILL BE MAKING CRAZY
> MONEY!!! It is rediculous. Now they will lose
> everything. Look at basketball after the
> shortened season, they have never recovered. If
> there is a football lock out look for this sport
> to fall back to the surface. The way that this
> sport is rising it is the sport of america. THe
> fact that the draft is moved to prime time is
> proof. Even highschool games are becoming big
> business.
>
> If they were to get there act together it is
> stagerring the amount of money this sport could
> have generated in the next 5 years. I think that
> it could have become an olypic sport within the
> next 12-15 years if things were to continue
> smoothly...


While the NFL is having its biggest years ever. The owners want the players to take an 18% cut in pay. That is the issue at hand.

If your boss went to you and said, we just had our biggest year ever and business has never been better. And oh yeah, were cutting your pay by 18% next year, have a good day. What would your reaction be? I don't care if your making $40,000 a year or $40million....you would be PISSED!!

Like I said earlier, Gene Upshaw is dead and this is a NEW NFLPA! This one is gonna fight back!

The owners want a salary cap. The players do not. It benefits the owners right now to have an uncapped year in 2010. That's because it's going to change free agency service time to 6 years, give teams two transition tags in addition to the franchise tag, and it restricts the top 8 teams from signing free agents. And it will allow teams to get out from bad contracts with no salary cap hit. It all adds up to a lot less free agent dollars spent in 2010. But, in the long term, the owners want the salary cap. The salary cap is what has allowed the league to become as strong as it is.

MikeO Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And one more thing, the real kicker in this whole
> thing.
>
> Back in 2002, the players were getting 54% of the
> revenues. In 2009 they are getting 51%. IT'S GONE
> DOWN AS THE NFL OWNERS PROFITS HAS GONE UP!!! And
> the owners want it to go down even more as the
> value of these franchises has skyrocketed and as
> their profits have gone way up!!
>
> This is gonna be a loooooooong and dirty battle!!


I hear you man, I am the common person. No question I am in favor of the players. But that does not matter who I or anyone is in favor of. There is so much money to be made I dont understand why you would want to short someone so much when you are still making crazy money...

there won't be a lock out, this will get settled at the 11th hour

My prediction, there will be a lockout in March 2011. It will last through the summer. As fall gets near, CONGRESS will get involved. Scare the holy hell out of both sides. And the season might start in October and a little late.

I find the idea of a lockout - possible, but unlikely.

1. I see the owners & players alike coming together at the appropriate time to avoid legilative interference and risk to the antitrust exemption they enjoy.

2. I expect that both will spin it to satisfy their troops and that the rookie and regular salary caps will get done.

3. Suggestions that the Owners would take the short term benefit of not paying / screwing the contracts for non payment of TV or pensions etc is very short sighted - penny wise / dollar foolish. I think they are smarter than that on both sides.

4. Owners stand to gain more by waiting, and a lot of players will effectively have to extend time to free agenct by 2 years. That again is leverage on the owner's side.

5. The only no-win scenario is an extended lockout. Neither side benefits and both would have a lot to lose.

Thus the position - IMHO Unlikely for an extended lockout to happen

I hope that they understand that the fans are the ones who make the NFL valuable. If there is a lockout/work stoppage for any material length of time, they risk alienating me. I've shared it before, but in the 1980's and early 90's, I was a huge baseball fan as a kid. I'm certain I'd be spending hundreds if not thousands on baseball stuff now if the strike hadn't cost the 94(?) World Series. My unchanged perspective was that if the game didn't mean enough to them (players & owners) to ensure the WS was played, then it shouldn't mean so much to me. I do not want my affinity for the NFL and the Dolphins specifically to diminish, but I know that it will if there is this sort of nonsense. I can envision that they will lose the +/-$1000/yr I spend on games, travel to games, merchandise, DirecTV if they stop work.

DeMaurice Smith the leader of the NFLPA said today that once you have an uncapped year, it is virtually impossible for the NFL to to back to a salary cap system. That the genie is then out of the bottle.

And he's right. The NFL players will look at the MLB players and then turn to their union and say..."I WANT THAT". And your days of having a salary cap are over. Not to mention the owners (especially the guys like Kraft, Johnson, Jones, Synder, Bowlen, the main players who run the league esentially.) will be very happy with no cap. And your poor teams will be able to put out a team on a $40 mill payroll and just count the cash flow coming in and not care about wins/losses.

Once they dot the i's and cross the t's on "no cap".....they will then move to "shared revenue". That's when the owners fight among themselves and the players sit back. And we get to hear Jerry Jones bitch as to why he has to share his revenue to help keep the Packers and Bills afloat. That's where the REAL DRAMA starts!!

The players may say "I want that" but there are 53 guys on 32 teams and that is it! They play 16 games. They have no leverage.

The USFL failed. XFL failed. NFL Europe failed.

The CFL? The highest paid players in the league re QB's who make around $200,000. The average CFL salary is $45,000.

If the NFL locks them out...and the players decertify, they will bring in 'the replacements' who will play for a fraction of the current players play for. And people will watch. Tickets will be sold.

And then guys like Tyler Thigpen and Kory Sheets, and Joe Berger will say " I am not a multi-millionaire player, this is my chance to show what I can do" and they will cross the line. And guys who are older and figure they have 1 -2 years to make some money will cross the line. And then guys like Pat White, Michael Vick, will cross the line and make some dynamic plays because they are athletic and the scabs won't have the talent that they do. And people will enjoy the hybrid of College and NFL talent and plays.

The owners can hire replacement players. The players can not sign with replacement teams. Not that pay anyway.

The players know this; that's why they are sabre rattling about no-more CAP....but in the end...70% of the players would get screwed with no floor.

The owners are asking for 18% reduction in players share....they'll take less; They may even offer an increase on paper...as long as the revenue streams are adjusted so the owners get a bigger slice. But, the owners are in the driver's seat.

Some of you guys obviously don't remember or weren't old enough to remember the 1982 or 1987 labor trouble. Or don't remember Boomer Esiason laying down in front of a bus to stop SCAB players.To think the players have "no leverage" is insane.

Wait till the fans with PSL's start suing the teams cause they were fooled into paying HUGE MONEY for one thing and got another.

And to think the players will "decertify the union" is laughable on every level. EVERY LEVEL!! Please. Let's keep this discussion in reality.

MikeO Wrote:
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> Some of you guys obviously don't remember or
> weren't old enough to remember the 1982 or 1987
> labor trouble. Or don't remember Boomer Esiason
> laying down in front of a bus to stop SCAB
> players.To think the players have "no leverage" is
> insane.

Wasn't 1982 one of the seasons we went to the Superbowl? I'll take that.

That was 83

Panteraize Wrote:
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> That was 83


82 season. Superbowl was played in 1983.

You said the union would "decertify" that is laughable , yes! The union is going noplace

MikeO Wrote:
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> If your boss went to you and said, we just had our
> biggest year ever and business has never been
> better. And oh yeah, were cutting your pay by 18%
> next year, have a good day.
-------------------------------------------------------

So haven't worked for a big American company lately?

This is EXACTLY the type of things they have been saying... before the recession, anyway. Now it's even worse.