Florio from PFT writes a solid piece on the unreported effects of the uncapped year. There’s a lot to take in here, so I’ll try and give some context as we go. I’d advise you all to read the whole thing though. It isn’t that long.
[The] potential uncapped year always has been characterized as a significant windfall for the players, under the presumption that the owners won’t be able to restrain themselves, and thus will overspend in the pursuit of talented players.
Note: I’m still not convinced there will be an uncapped 2010 and we believe teams, including the Jets, are erring on the side of caution so that they have adequate flexibility should a cap be put in place. Is the NFLPA trying to make players think an uncapped year will be great because there will be a spending spree, when in reality that won’t be the case?
With no salary cap, there will be no salary floor. And with far more teams currently well below the 2009 salary cap, what’s more likely to happen next year: (1) a spending spree that drives multiples franchises toward bankruptcy; or (2) a reeling in of player expenses as the teams gird for a work stoppage in 2011?
He suggests the latter. Interesting…and surely a mouth-watering prospect for the select few that are prepared to try and “buy” a title.
Apart from paying to each player the individual minimum salaries, teams aren’t required to spend in any collective minimum amount. In theory, a team could cut every player on the roster and then offer only one-year minimum-salary contracts. This would result in total player expenses of less than $50 million. In contrast, the minimum per-team salary obligation in 2009 is $111 million.
I think the part of this quote in bold may be flawed, because as I understand it if anyone is cut during the uncapped year, the dead money arising will hit the cap in the next capped year, so no team would cut every player (if what Florio suggests above were the case, if Gholston proved to be a bust, they could cut him, which would not otherwise be financially viable due to the cap hit). However, his point that teams could spend a lot less and the gap between the top spending teams and the cheapskates will be larger is solid.
In an uncapped year, six years of service are needed to qualify for unrestricted free agency. So [if you're a player whose contract expires in 2009 with less than six years service] you’ll be a restricted free agent instead, and your team will be able to automatically hold your rights by, in most cases, tendering a one-year contract worth far, far less than the franchise tag. So, basically, you’re screwed.
This applies to guys like Kellen Clemens, Brad Smith and Leon Washington and may explain partly why the Leon thing is dragging on. I consider that the Jets are not dragging their feet on money or deciding whether they want Leon, just waiting on the cap situation. As for Clemens, this could be good news because if he plays in 2009 at all, they can perhaps sign him to a one year tender and get value by trading him. With a cap in 2010, that wouldn’t be possible without the franchise tag.
For the “Final Eight” teams in the 2009 playoffs, there are specific restrictions regarding the number of free agents who can be signed, and the money that can be paid to them.
Some people think the Cowboys and Redskins are the only teams that will spend crazy money in an uncapped year, so maybe we should all root for them to make the divisional round so that their spending is restricted. Here’s a thought: Would a team “tank” to avoid the playoffs and have a run at “buying a title” in the uncapped year?
I am rooting for an uncapped year and for the owners to stick it to the players – any industry where the average salary is well over $1MM a year does not need a UNION – we are not talking about 8 year old kids working 90 hour weeks in a sweatshop. Most Unions have outlived there usefulness in this country and all they do is hurt the employee in the long run.
I normally think of Florio as a bottom feeder who has no credibility.
The fact that I think his is a good article should scare the fans of football and all the players.
I think the morons rich enough to buy teams may do to the NFL what the morons did to kill the NHL.
Harlan
I see where he’s coming from and understand his point but i dont believe his prediction is correct. I think several teams will grossly overpay players and this will eventually benefit most players. I do see several smaller market teams with owners that dont have bottomless pockets getting screwed. For the jets i think we will buy talent even more than we already have.
I am so scared of an uncapped year. The NFLPA swear that if there’s only one uncapped year, the players will never agree to a salary cap again. That would destroy the beauty of football and make it more like baseball. Baseball, though, is able to handle these large salaries because they can spread out the costs of 80+ home games. Football only has 8 home games, meaning that to satisfy these players salaries, ticket prices, which are already really high, would get even higher and even more unaffordable for so many dedicated fans out there.
Terrible comment from Toon238, showing a complete misunderstanding of the role unions play. And 8 year olds don’t need unions, they need child labor laws. But you probably don’t care either way, cause who can shed a tear for these millionaire players, with their grueling physical punishment and truncated careers. I’d much rather see that money go to the billionaire owners. Now those are guys that could really use some extra cash.
I highly recommend reading past the artice to the comments. Jeremiah W FTW.
Who cares?
I love watching the Jets play, but if there was a strike it would not matter. Why? College football would be a good substitute. GO VOLS!!!! Also, I would like to see Directv left holding the bag with the Sunday ticket with no subscribers, ahhh yesssssss.
ALL SPORTS should have a cap of 1M for the players.
i agree w toon the unions suck they make everything worse look at the car industry and if you live in the tri-state area the school taxes that u pay, the education union has a monopoly and wasting all of our money . its time to get rid of all unions.
my problem with any athlete and asking for crazy money: who pays the light bill ,their paychecks and countless other bills and many other staff members while alls they have to do is play ball and collect a check.
Its an interesting article. I can not see any way that an uncapped year is good for the players. There could be a few teams who would be willing to overpay, but considering almost every owner wanted to opt out of the CBA this past year means that most owners already feel they are paying too much money. There are a ton of teams that don’t want to spend the money as evidenced by the drastic differences in cap spending that has occurred after the 2006 deal. That’s the real beef of the teams.
If players think there will be a signing bonanza they are likely wrong. Its not like every contract in the NFL becomes void in 2010. If anything there will be a limited amount of free agents on the market. The 2006 2nd round and later draftees are RFAs in 2010. So are all the 2005 1st rounders. So you are really looking at the 2004 first rounders and most of those good ones are already signed to extensions. So the players who really have the chance to cash in are the few guys whose contract extensions actually expire after 2009. The rest of the free agent market will be nothing but cast offs from other teams. I think that really limit’s the amount of “buying a title” type of teams.
If the NFLPA is pushing the uncapped idea because baseball doesn’t have it and the NBA doesn’t have a hard cap, they are just wrong. Their negotiation goal should be to get more guarantees for players. Baseball and basketball have stronger guarantees for their players since if you cut them they still get their money. The problem is in a capped league it makes the agents almost useless (which is how the NBA agents lost almost all their power after basically running the unions from the mid 80s through 90s) so the Drew Rosenhaus’ of the world are not going to let their players vote for it. From a league standpoint the guarantees hurt because there is no way to fix a mistake, if all contracts are guaranteed. Plus the shelf life on an NFL player is way shorter than that of a player in any other league. So there is no way owners will cave on that. In the long run just a select few players will benefit while most will be hurt by an uncapped league.
Jason – do you agree with where I felt there was a flaw in Florio’s logic?
You would have to believe that something will be worked out eventually as the Commissioner has said himself and most players and owners alike: “Why kill the Golden Goose?”
The NFL is the most popular sport in the USA for a reason. I hope the new leader of the NFLPA understands what’s best for all teams and all players is to keep the standard that has been set by its predecessors Tagliabue and Upshaw.
Otherwise we’ll be looking at a business run much like MLB: get gready for work stoppage and lockouts. No Super Bowl next?
Regarding unions they are a double edged sword. Part ot the problem is that big money crushes little money in litigation. Unions often can help protect the blue collar worker; the little guy.
Unfortunately as in every position of power the little guy gets taken advantage of in the end. Political aspirations in-house crush the purpose of the union and make them just another lobby that throws money at politicians.
I think in a perfect world people would best plan their own retirement (see Enron and GM) instead of allowing union money grubbers to do everyting for people.
Union money is best spent in litigation for group or individual cases. Clearly though workers in this country can make huge sums of money without unions when they sue employers. It used to be that only unions would help but now laws, many times created because of unions, protect workers and there is no shortage of lawyers willing to sue a big company.
And a big corporation’s one desire is to make more money so the less they pay in salary the better for the owner and stock holders. In the case of the NFLPA they are just starting to help the retired players, the guys who never even heard of scoping a knee. Every NFL player has enough money to give back to help ex-players but they don’t often do it voluntarily just going to show how everyone is greedy and all that ever works is taking care of one’s self.
Peope have a great way of corrupting everyting when power is involved. Maybe if the fans boycotted sports every once in a while, like hockey saw a crash in attendance and viewership, the owners and players would respect the game gand fans more. I keep asking for that to happen but there are always the fans that say “I will die in my seat even if I have to give my mother to pay for it.”
Everyone is complicit.
Bent,
I agree with you on the flaw in his logic about cutting players. I’m pretty sure you are correct about the acceleration coming back in capped years. There really is nothing written about it in the CBA, but there is also nothing in there about cutting a guy in an uncapped year meaning they do lose all cap charges without penalty. I believe the inference is that it works as a June 1 cut.
The other problem with his logic is that there are contracts already in place. He makes the leap of faith that uncapped means voided contracts. It doesn’t. If Vernon Gholston has a guarantee for skill or injury for his salary in 2010, 2011, and 2012 and the Jets cut him, the team still owes him the salary regardless of a cap or no cap. Even if his logic is correct that you never have to worry about cap ramifications by cutting a player in 2010, cutting players works against his idea that it saves owners money. In many cases it would not.
The other flaw is that most money is paid up front to players in the form of big roster bonuses and either signing bonuses in year 1 or option bonuses in year 2. In most cases the actual salary is not a big deal. The Jets already paid Kerry Rhodes in the ballpark of 15 million dollars and hell be paid around 3 million a year in 2010 and 2011. Calvin Pace is in the same boat with a little more money coming his way. Unless the player is just so bad that they never see the field most owners see the sunk cost in those players and feel they would rather pay them for another year or two to justify that initial investment. Purging the roster just for the sake of purging it does not make sense unless you are the owner of franchises like the Bengals or Bills who are notoriously cheap.
So, it wasn’t an unflawed article, then!
What team would sign their entire roster to one year contracts? You’d have no players under contract the following season!
Despite the flaws, it did raise some good issues.