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So, with the presumptive deadline for keeping everything on track about a week away and judge Boylan apparently going on vacation (really?), what are the issues?

The players are going to get between 48% and 50% of "all revenue". There are still some discussions about what is included in "all revenue" (e.g. players want sales tax to be included).

The salary cap is going to be between $117M and $125M (it was $127M in 2009). The "guaranteed spend" (payout floor) is going to be between 95% and "nearly 100%". Lower end of cap would mean higher end of "guaranteed spend" and vice versa.

Rookie contracts are a huge sticking point still. Owners are looking for 5 year deals for the top picks with guarantees in the neighborhood of $20M for #1 overall (down from $50M last year). The players want shorter rookie contracts and higher guarantees.

Free agency rules are also a point of contention. Owners are pushing for rules that would allow a team "right of first refusal" for some number of its own (free agent) players. Whether this would be in addition to the old "tag" system or in place of it is unclear. What is clear is that 4 years will result in free agency, just like under the old CBA (and unlike the 6 years required last year).

Another significant hurdle is the handling of disputes. The owners want a system of binding arbitration, whereas the players want a judge to handle appeals. The old CBA called for judge Doty to handle those and the owners have taken a particular dislike to him, so that's clearly out of the question. The current arbitrator, judge Boylan, is the obvious candidate right now.

The final major issue appears to be retirement benefits, but very few details have leaked on the details.

So the judge (Boylan) really did go on vacation, setting the next mediation for the 19th. He did ask the two sides to continue talking in the meanwhile, but considering the number of times Boylan has brought the sides together (both physically and on issues), it's not good.

Hopefully, a deal is close enough now that mediation is no longer needed...

So, there is hope. Both sides are eyeing a deal by July 21, where the owners have a meeting scheduled where they could ratify the CBA. (I wonder what the players have to do? There is no Union, so there can be no collective bargaining in an official capacity -- I assume they would have to reinstate the union somehow first.)

According to ESPN, a document has been formulated ("The Transition Rules") which details how the transition would take place if a deal were ratified July 21:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6756301

The document states, among other things, that the beginning of free agency would be July 28.

As noted above, rookie contracts are a huge sticking point still. Players have reportedly agreed to cut guaranteed money in half, but insist on limiting the contract length to 4 years for all 1st round players (as opposed to 5-6 years currently). The solution that everyone has been circling around has been to have a 5th "option" year for some subset of 1st round picks (all, top-16, top-8, top-3, top quarterbacks).

However, the players won't accept anything less than "veteran" compensation for that 5th year. The latest player proposal apparently suggested a franchise-tag like salary equal to the average pay of the top 5 or 10 at that position, whereas the owners are pushing for a fixed amount (the ESPN article mentions $4 million, but that's never going to fly).

There are some indications the players are beginning to get pissed and several media outlets have reported that there is a contingent that want to win over the owners in court. There's also the issue of the $4 billion TV deal where the owners lost in court and judge Doty has yet to rule on damages.

Reading this thread just makes me think of Lloyd in the movie Dumb and Dumber...

"So, you're telling me there's a chance..."

I hope so!!!!!!!!!!!!

Season could be saved if so..

If there was a "Like" button on this forum, I'd click it.  I've had that quote in my head for a while on this whole mess.

Looks like the two sides have had some productive days!

The details of a final agreement are firming up:

Salary cap will almost certainly be $120M, with a possible $3M "transition credit" for 1 player to help teams that are way over the cap (e.g. Dallas) still being negotiated.

First round rookie deals will be 4 years plus a 1 year option which would give a guaranteed salary of the average of the top-10 players at that position for top-10 picks, while other first round picks would get the average of players 3-25 at that position.

Some still outstanding issues include details of benefits and injury compensation, right of first refusal on FAs, arbitration with or without judicial appeal, and of course settlement of the two lawsuits (the TV money and the Brady vs NFL trial). Settlement is required before the NFLPA can reestablish itself as a union and thus actually sign anything with the league.

The biggest sticking point is probably the right of first refusal for free agents. Under the old CBA, players were free agents after 4 years (if not under contract), whereas the last two years have required 6 years of service. The new CBA would cut that back to 4, but doing so results in a huge backlog of free agents (roughly 3x the normal number).

The owners want to essentially get the right to match contract offers for up to three players this year to compensate for that backlog. It's different that the various tags in that the players need not be singled out (tagged) beforehand, so any three free agents on a team could be affected. There would also not be any form of team-compensation (draft picks) like there are with tags.

Well I think we can officially start crossing pre-season games off the schedule, not likely the HOF game will be played now, since those teams were supposed to open camp next week.

Yeah, the Hall of Fame game is very much up in the air and I think you're right; it's going to be cancelled.

That said, I think we'll get the rest of the preseason games in full, as scheduled. A "handshake deal" will be done this weekend and judge Boylan has ordered the parties to have someone present on Tuesday with full authority to sign a deal -- and I think the CBA should be ready to sign by then. The one issue that could cost a day or two is that the owners don't want a situation like last time when they were basically forced to sign off on a deal that they hadn't had time to read. It looks like the lawyers have been pretty hard-working these past few weeks, though, and much of the deal is already "done". Hopefully, the owners have had their own lawyers / accountants / whatever combing through that... basically reading through every section of the CBA as it gets done. Otherwise, we could be looking at a slight delay. No more than that slight, though.

According to ESPN, the issue I mentioned as the biggest sticking point (right of first refusal) is off the table.

What's left is peanuts. Really, really small stuff. I have to believe the lawyers can hash out the details over the weekend.

The final details need to be done so the deal can be signed off on in front of Boylan on Tuesday. After that, the NFLPA and owners need to ratify the deal. The owners have a meeting on Thursday, so that would be the obvious time for them to do that. The NFLPA needs to reestablish itself as a union before it can do anything, which various outlets are reporting "could take a couple of days", so maybe... just maybe... a new deal will be ratified by both sides on Thursday.

The timeline in the "Transition Rules" looks likely then:

July 25: Start of 3-day period to sign own free agents.
July 28: Free agency. (And official start of the league year.)

Meanwhile, the NFL has (today) denied reports in a Chicago paper that the HoF Game was cancelled:

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-07-16/nfl-denies-report-that-hall-of-fame-game-has-been-canceled

So... a little cold water on the fire after today's negotiations. The NFLPA lawyers did exactly what media had reported the owners were afraid of: Take some minor issue and blow it up into a deal-breaker. All of a sudden, the players want to $320M in benefits they would have gotten last year, had the CBA been in effect. Hopefully, this is just a ploy to get a decent amount of money from the "TV contracts" lawsuit.

The NFLPA have also presented another new demand, namely that franchise tags only be applicable once per player, such that teams cannot franchise a player in consecutive years.

Previously, a team could franchise the same player three times. 

I have a good idea to get these issues ironed out.  The owners give the players their $320 mill in benefits they were entitled to, and in return, the players drop their lawsuit for that TV money.  As for the number of times a player can be franchised, they should split the difference.  The owners want to stay at three but the players want only one.  Let's agree to two.

Apparently, the latest news has the players using every "trick" in the book to make ends meet during the lockout:

NFLPA spokesman George Atallah said the players have been whoring very hard and will continue to do so until a deal is done.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d820d9d73/article/reps-for-retirees-join-conversation-as-talks-progress-toward-deal

It's simply amazing that they managed to get a deal in place, one day before training camps were suppose to open.  >:D

Hey, as long as it prevents players from having to sell their bodies on the street... (in fairness, the nfl.com article I linked to has been fixed, but seriously, that's one heck of a typo.)

Let the whoring continue... there'll be no vote today.

One new detail that leaked out was an agreement to seriously bump up the minimum wage over the life of the 10-year CBA. For the rookie minimum, it would be a 10% increase every year. That's a bump of around half a million, from $325k last year to $842k in 2020. The increase for second-year players would be even greater at 12% a year, from $400k last year to $1.24M in 2020.

For reference, that's TWICE the rate of increase of the old CBA (at 5%). Since this is cumulative, that means the old plan called for a 1.6 fold increase in salary over 10 years (for rookies), whereas the new CBA increases this to 2.6 fold.

Considering that over half the players in the league make some kind of minimum (not necessarily rookie or 2nd-year) and that the increase really targets the "lowest" income group (hard to call people making well over $300k/year "low income"), it's really something that will affect players.

^^It was the owners who were unhappy with the old deal and wanted this lockout..lol. And if what you wrote above is true they are so clueless it sounds like they are giving themselves a worse deal. I know on the rookie wage scale from picks 16 on down, nothnig changed. All they did was change the pay structure of the Top 15 picks, which is where the problem really was. But this rookie wage sacale everyone was barking about for years, isn't the grand overhaul everyone thought it would be. It changes, yes. But not to the extent everyone thought it would.

The best thing the players did out of all of this was raise the salary cap floor forcing teams to spend. So now teams like Tampa Bay can't be $40 mill under the cap like they have in the past.

The players were united from day 1 and it will show when they come out ahead in this deal. While it was always owner vs owner and their in-fighting that caused this lockout it will come back to haunt them since they weren't united and the deal they probably strike won't please all the owners. But now the owners are backed in a corner and don't want to look like the really bad guys and prolong this anymore. And be the league that had to cancel games on the 10 year anniversiry of 9-11..etc They are in the position to "CAVE IN" and just end this debacle that they started!

Sigh... sometimes you just seize on something like a little terrier with absolutely no regard for the bigger picture.

The owners don't care what rookie players are paid. It doesn't matter. It all comes out of the same pool of money, so more for the rookies just leaves less for the vets. This is mainly an internal players' issue. It's a question of how they want to distribute the finite compensation they get.


I've seen exactly no evidence of owners infighting in this dispute.

Let's look at what has happened:

In the uncapped year, 2010, the NFL "underspent" by $160M+ on salaries and saved $320M on benefits (that the players are now trying to get anyway). That's about half a BILLION straight into the owners pockets.

If you actually read the coverage, the players' cut in the new deal is 3-4 percentage points LESS than the old deal.

So what the owners are getting is close to $500M in savings already in the bank, plus $300M to $400M more a year at current revenue levels.

As revenue increases, the deal gets WORSE for the players. The old deal called for 60% for the players after $1B off the top, whereas the new deal calls for less than 50% of everything (depends on some deductions off the top that they've already agreed to, but whose amounts depend on some stadium builds that haven't actually happened yet - could be anywhere from 46.5% to 48%). Plug in some numbers and if revenue increases by 50%, that means players will lose out on a whopping 1 BILLION dollars a year compared to the old deal.

No team has EVER been $40M under the cap. The maximum allowed by the old CBA was about half that for the 2009 season and much less in all the others.

The new minimum introduced is a payroll floor, "guaranteed spend", which is being widely reported as 90%, e.g. by ESPN, which is surprising considering rumors of between 95% and 99% -- I suspect there might be some confusion of terms, since there might also be an actual cap minimum and they're confusing "guaranteed spend" with "cap floor".

In terms of payroll spend, yes, there are teams that have been significantly under (and over) the cap. That's the nature of the beast.

The myth of the constantly underspending team is just that, a myth. The Buccaneers (only beaten out, slightly, by the Chiefs in spending the least on payroll from 2000 - 2009) had a total payroll expenditure of 89% of the total salary cap over the past 10 capped years (2000 - 2009). And the only reason it's so "low" is that the Bucs, like a lot of teams, moved salary expenses from the capped 2009 into 2010. Looking at 2000 - 2008, the Bucs had total salary expenditures of about 93% of the total salary cap, well above the cap floor.

In other words, depending on exactly what the "guaranteed spend" winds up at, the lowest-spending teams might have to fork out a little extra, but the main effect will be to smooth out the salary payouts. A lot of teams used to "save up" cap for a few years and blow it on a playoff run (about half of all SB participants were among the top teams in salary expense that year). A good example would be after the 2008 season when the Steelers and Cardinals met in the SB. The salary cap that year was just shy of $117M, yet the Cardinals spent $122M and the Steelers $129M. That's not going to be possible in the future. The one recent exception to this was when the Giants won after the 2007 season, despite a team payroll of less than $76M (compared to a salary cap of $109M, a floor of $93, and the Patriots' expenditure of $118M). The Bears the year before that were pretty cheap as well, although not nearly as extreme, but no one got even remotely close to the SB champs of that year, the Colts ($131M, compared to a $102M cap, $86M floor, and $92M spent by the Bears).

Lets see what happens at 8pm!!

At least the owners have voted to approve. Now we need the 32 player reps to vote, then the 10 named defendants to agree, then the NFLPA to recertify, and then vote to actually approve the deal. Hopefully, the rumors of a lockout lift after the named defendants agree is real and we won't have to wait for the NFLPA to regain union status.

I know...this has been a long summer with just the thought of no football.. they need to get this done tonight so we can all get ready for the season!

Does the union have to recertify for the lockout to end?  I don't think so.  If I recall correctly there were times when the union was not certified back in the 80's. 

Boys, get your pads on and get ready to sweat!!!!!

The owners can lift the lockout whenever they damn well please.

They initially insisted on the NFLPA reestablishing itself as a union first, but then the NFLPA said that it could takes a few weeks to do... especially if they had to mail those ballots out... it would be a lot faster if the players could just get them at team facilities *cough* *cough*

Anyway, if the NFL trusts the NFLPA to recommend a "yes", they'll probably lift the lockout.

The latest rumors are ugly.

From what I am seeing on TV and all the reports, you won't see players in NFL Facilites till Wednesday at the earliest. They won't agree to anything until the union is back in place. Which will take a few days. They don't trust the owners and I can't blame them.

They can't agree to anything until the union is in place. By definition. If there is no union, the individual teams must negotiate individually with players according the local laws of the state the team is located in.

Like I said above, the latest rumors are ugly. It's completely impossible to know WTF is going on with all the spin out there. Looks like it'll be tomorrow before we have any idea what happened (other than no deal). Lots of players are apparently pissed that owners voted on a new revenue-sharing agreement. Hello! That's revenue shared between teams... wtf do you care? It doesn't affect total revenue, it doesn't affect your cut.

Jesus... you just don't get things sometimes. The player reps have to agree to things first. Until that happens, nothing can progress. I detailed the process above. Go read it.

Well, yesterday was a clusterf*ck of epic proportions.

I'm going to blame communication most of all, especially on the player-side of things. You had the leaked NFLPA lawyer email saying that the proposal voted on by the owners contained some extra stuff that the players hadn't agreed to and some details on that extra stuff. Later, the player reps claimed they hadn't even seen the proposal, which clearly their lawyers had. Then you had player reps complaining about specifics, like 2-a-days, claiming that this was unresolved when both negotiating parties clearly said that they would be banned.

It really seems like the player reps didn't get the information they needed from their negotiating committee. If you look at the stuff that's being said (mainly on Twitter), the player reps who were in on the negotiations are the ones making sense, so there really appears to have been a dramatic lack of communication.

Now, all that said, it's certainly possible that the owners tried to pull a fast one on the players. None of us have the full document, so we really don't know.

What we do know is that the owners ratified the deal with certain strings (just as the player rep will, if they ratify at all):

- The player reps have to agree before Saturday in order for the lockout to be lifted Saturday.
- The Union has to recertify by Wednesday morning in order for free agency to begin Wednesday.

Those are really "no shit, Sherlock" and any outrage at this is ridiculous.

Then there's the string that the players might reasonably have objections to: All the remaining items, the stuff that cannot legally be negotiated before the recertification (mainly workers' comp and drug testing), will need to be negotiated and agreed to by both sides by next Friday at the latest. If no agreement is reached, the corresponding terms of the last CBA will be in effect.

To me, that's not entirely unreasonable, but I'm assuming this has been touched on in negotiations -- or at least during the several calls between Goodell and Smith late Wednesday.

Lawyers for the NFLPA are also complaining (in leaked emails), and this is being picked up by player reps, that they were not a party to negotiations between NFL clubs and a new system for redistributing revenue to help small-market teams. Basically, I'm not sure why the players care or feel they should have any say in the matter. Hopefully, it's just the lawyers getting in the way, as has been the case on both sides numerous times during the lockout.

ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning have had some really excellent and level-headed coverage this morning of the whole mess, including several key people like Takeo Spikes, the 49ers' player rep. It was interesting to hear Mike and Mike call out, by name, a specific lawyer for the owners. This guy seems to have rubbed everyone the wrong way all through the process and he has a significant part in the communications mess that contributed to yesterday's clusterf*ck.

Listening to Takeo, it's amazingly clear how little these sides trust each other. The owners voted on two issues, the CBA and a supplemental revenue-sharing agreement. The latter stole the headlines and because the NFL had failed to communicate anything about this intent, DeMaurice and Co didn't learn about it until the league sent the papers over (which happened prior to the conference call, prior to Goodell's press conference announcing the ratification, even). After having slept on it, what the players appear to want is to read through the whole thing and make sure the owners haven't changed anything.

Takeo then started talking about workers' comp and how that needed to be addressed first as well. That's a lack of communication on DeMaurice Smith and the executive negotiation team's part (which includes several player reps, but not Takeo). These issues CANNOT be dealt with until the league recertifies, so clearly this cannot be handled now. I have to assume that the formulation about keeping the old CBA stance on these issues unless other things are agreed to is part of that "handshake agreement" between DeMaurice Smith and Roger Goodell. From various leaks, it actually seems like there are several changes (like blood tests for HGH) that have been agreed upon in principle, but no formal negotiation on that can be done until the NFLPA recertifies.

It seems like the owners honestly believe that the deal they ratified is the deal they had a handshake agreement with DeMaurice Smith on. Unless they are putting on one hell of an act, the deal presented to the players is probably exactly what Smith and Goodell agreed on and the main thing that happened was a communications snafu.

Then there's the part that's not the deal. The timeline the league set for recertification. That really rubbed the players the wrong way. Hopefully, they'll figure out a way to vote on the deal today and present it without feeling like they lose face in doing so. There's a lot of testosterone going...

The supplemental revenue sharing agreement shouldn't be an issue. At all.

I know the players got locked out by the owners,but do we know what the players have gained from this proposed CBA agreement...

What did the players gain in their "horse trading"...My example would be like...They agreed to HGH blood tests,for no two a day practices...

(sorry I'm lazy ass,and don't feel like reading through this whole thread...)

Never mind, I kind of see what I wanted in Armando's blog....
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2011/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-nfl-agreement.html (http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2011/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-nfl-agreement.html)

1) you aren't the final word on the subject. Sorry if I take it with a grain of salt

2) You just re-stated the main point of what I said, and went off on some tangent!

The Owners LOCKED-OUT the players in March. Now they they are gonna lose money as games are around the corner. So they can't rush the players into signing on to a new deal without giving the players a little time to double check everything.

The players (also their lawyers, agents..etc) should do what they need to. Read the whole deal over, cover to cover, make sure it has everything to there liking and no last mintue games were played and stuff was put in without their knowing. No monkey business took place.  If something isn't to their liking, go back into talks and hash out the little details. If that takes a day, or two, or a week, or more. SO BE IT!!

The owners started this mess, they can't rush it now at the end when they have had since March to figure this out. Hopefully it gets done in the next couple days, but if it takes longer. At this point, so be it!

Mike, you've insisted from the beginning that the players would "win" and owners "lose". You've taken every scrap of information that could further your point and gone with it, while completely ignoring the mountain of evidence to the contrary. That's your MO, so I'm not surprised. I'm also not going to argue it with you, since you NEVER admit that you are wrong, even when it is *proven*.

What evidence is going against me? Not one bit. The players have won from all the reports of the  details that have come out! When you stack up what little they gave up and what they have gained. Even down to the minor stuff they have won. Now its just come down to crossing the T's and dotting the I's and making sure the owners aren't pulling a fast one by trying to sneak stuff in.

Spin it all ya want, the players won! I wouldn't argue this wtih me either .And I'm not here trying to convince you that im right. Believe what you want, live in whatever reality you want.

The players will get a smaller percentage of the money from the new CBA than the old.

Simple as that.

Do you dispute this?

yes!

But why go in circles. You aren't changing my mind. I'm not changing yours.

So if you admit that the players are getting less money, clearly you were wrong when saying there was "not one bit" of evidence pointing to the players not being the "winners".

Anyway, someone needs to explain something to me -- and I mean this quite sincerely:

Why do/should the owners care if two-a-days are outlawed? As long as its the same for all teams and there's no threat of a substantially worse "product" (which would hurt revenue and thus both sides about the same, since revenues are fairly evenly split), I don't see that it makes the slightest bit of difference to the owners. Quite the opposite, I'd expect owners to generally be in favor of anything that reduces injury risk to their precious commodities...

I said "YES" I dispute what you are saying.

Like i  said, believe what you want. I'm not here to change your mind.

Then you're just delusional. EVERY media outlet is reporting that the players are getting less money (and the percentages clearly show this) -- and progressively less (compared to the old CBA) the higher the revenue.

They used to get 60% after $1B was taken off the top. At $9.2B, that's $4.9B for the players.

The new deal gives them less than 50% of the total. At $9.2B, that's less than $4.6B for the players.

(Estimates range from 46.5% to 48%. It's somewhat more complicated than a straight percentage.)

If total revenue increases 50%, the players would have gotten: (9.2*1.5 - 1) * 0.6 = $7.7B under the old CBA.

With the new CBA, the players would get about: (9.2*1.5)*0.5 = $6.9B.

for someone who didn't want to argue with me you are doing a poor job! Let it go man. We disagree. Move on!

There is more to it than the "numbers"  you are throwing out. You are ignoring a lot of things tha also come into play. But I'm not gonna go in circles with you.  Believe what you want. I will believe what I want. And thats it.

I am locking this up.  It is not about CBA anymore.  It is just a pissing contest between MikeO and FYO.