The Start Of Free Agency To Be Delayed? (CBA Extension Talk)

[Diomedes]

So it's really not wise to risk pissing us all off.

Hollow words if ever I heard them.  The NFL has as little to fear from its fans as NASCAR or Pat Robertson do.  They'll pay anything, and never stop watching.  These dickheads can keep screwing the fans all they want, and everyone knows it.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

I got more of a chuckle out of that than I guess most will. It seems as though the people over at PFT were slightly jaded that they were putting it out there that the CBA was almost a sealed deal when everyone else was reporting it looks more like a sinking ship.

[ice grillin you]

blillionaire slave owners bickering over money is funny stuff

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

blillionaire slave owners bickering over money is funny stuff

As long as you're including the NFLPA side in "slave owners", I agree.  The whole lot of them are crazy... but I'm inclined to side with the owners.  Any CBA which is wholly different than the last one is a bad idea, because the last one saw interest in the league as compared to other sports climb dramatically and was getting the players record-setting deals.

[hunt]

the man is definitely holding the nfl players down.

[MURP]

Updated: March 5, 2006, 10:44 AM ET

NFL, NFLPA to resume labor negotiations in N.Y.
ESPN.com news services


The NFL owners and the players' union have until midnight Sunday to agree on an extension to the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement. And just when the talks looked dead, there might be a glimmer of hope.

Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, told ESPN's Chris Mortensen that the two sides are meeting in New York again Sunday and that the two sides communicated via e-mail on Saturday night after face-to-face talks broke down Saturday.

In an e-mail to the Washington Post, Gene Upshaw said the two sides were "now in the area where we will get a deal. I think it may be there. It comes down to a few final points."

This is a stark contrast from how things ended Saturday. Union attorney Jeffrey Kessler, one of the lead negotiators for the NFLPA and part of a small group that huddled with league representatives, termed the negotiations "as dead as a doornail."

Barring a dramatic reversal of negotiating stances, free agency will begin on Monday at 12:01 a.m. ET. The league will operate with a salary cap of $94.5 million for 2006, and the two sides will go forward with 2007 scheduled to be an "uncapped" year.

Identifying a cause of death, given the veil of secrecy under which the negotiations were conducted for a total of 10-11 hours on Friday and Saturday, might be difficult. But the inability to bridge the differences over two key issues -- the internal revenue sharing among the league's 32 teams and the so-called "cash over cap" problem -- were almost certainly among the components which forced the end to negotiations.

One prominent owner strongly suggested to ESPN.com that those two issues, which he lumped under the umbrella category of "revenue sharing-related things," indeed led to the collapse of discussions.

It was difficult, however, in the immediate wake of Saturday afternoon's events, to even get the two sides to agree on what had transpired during two days at the bargaining table.

For example, two league sources told ESPN and ESPN.com on Saturday that the NFL had increased its offer on how much revenue would be split with players from 56.2 percent to between 58.2 and 58.5 percent. If true, that would have represented a predictable middle-ground compromise, given that NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw had been seeking 60.3 percent. An NFLPA source insisted, though, that the league's best offer never got to the 58-percent range.

Late Saturday night, Upshaw told Mortensen that the union did come down "a little" from the 60 percent cut of the revenue pie they were demanding. Earlier Upshaw denied that the owners had raised their ante by two points. Mortensen reports that the owners' last offer was 56.6 percent.

When informed late Saturday afternoon of the breakdown in talks, one frustrated owner resonded: "When we can't even agree on what the disagreements are on some issues, well, that just shows you how [messed] up the situation really is, right?"

As reported earlier this week by ESPN.com, there is a bloc of nine to 10 low-revenue franchises, very solid in their convictions, and prepared to veto any extension to the collective bargaining agreement that does not sufficiently address their own local needs. Owners of those teams view the internal revenue-sharing issue as critical to their financial viability in coming years.

But the low-revenue franchises aren't the only clubs currently opposed to a deal. The owner of one high-revenue franchise told ESPN.com on Saturday night that, counting teams at both ends of the spectrum, he projected that half of the 32 clubs would not endorse an extension to the collective bargaining agreement without further addressing revenue-sharing issues.

Asked if resuming negotiations on Sunday might break the impasse, that owner, who is actually in favor of moving ahead without a deal and seeing how the resultant system functions, said: "At this point, the gap is so wide, we could meet for a month of Sundays and not get anything done."

As Mortensen reported on Friday, the cash over cap component, which in many ways ties into the disparity between the league's "haves" and "have-nots" in terms of how money is calculated, also continues to divide NFL owners. Of course, the issue of cash over cap has always been a hot-button item for low-revenue franchises.

To comprehend the concept of cash over cap, one has to understand that the salary cap is just a bookkeeping number, one that can be massaged by amortizing signing bonuses, among other mechanisms. The cap has never been indicative of a team's payroll. The taterskin organization, believed to be the highest revenue-producing machine in the league, has had payrolls well over $100 million the last few seasons, even while the highest salary cap level ever was in 2005, at $85.5 million. The difference between a team's true payroll and its salary cap number is essentially what "cash over cap" means.

Sources said Saturday that, as part of the weekend discussions, the NFL proposed limiting the amount of cash over cap, per team, to 2 percent. While Upshaw has expressed concern in the past about cash over cap, he likely viewed the 2 percent limit as too low, and as potentially taking money away from players.

The day's events left teams and players not only frustrated, but concerned about what lies ahead.

General managers and cap experts for teams that are still over the projected spending limit of $94.5 million for 2006 were scrambling again on Saturday night to conjure up ways to get into compliance. It is believed that about 10 franchises on Saturday still had gap overages. Those teams face a Sunday 6 p.m. ET deadline for getting under the spending limit.

At the same time, some players who might have been released had the league year commenced on Friday as scheduled will likely face the chopping block again.

[Rome]

Back and forth, back and forth... does anyone else this is nothing more than bullshtein on both sides?

I think the whole situation is nothing more than a PR stunt.  Keep the fans attention and keep the NFL as a league front and center in the media at all times.

I could be wrong but I have a feeling this is nothing more than an attentionwhoring stunt on both sides.

[MURP]

the start of FA gets enough attention, they dont need to manufacture it. 

[Rome]

But it's been going on for weeks on end, MURP.  The start of free agency would be an attention-grabber, sure, but nothing like the doom and gloom prognostications like we've seen lately.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I swear to christ....if these jerkoffs delay the start of FA one more goddamn time my head is going to explode.

[PhillyPhreak54]

NFL Labor Negotiations Resume, Deal Close

By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 5, 2006; 12:24 PM



Labor negotiations between representatives of the NFL's team owners and the players' union resumed late this morning in New York amid renewed optimism that a settlement was within reach, a day after the talks had collapsed yet again.

A union official said just before 11:15 a.m. that the bargaining session was about to begin. Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the Players Association, and Richard Berthelsen, the union's general counsel, traveled back to New York from Washington this morning after leaving New York when talks broke down yesterday.

Upshaw said via e-mail early this morning that the parties were "now in the area where we will get a deal. I think it may be there. It comes down to a few final points."

Another participant in the talks said just before today's bargaining session began that any optimism should be tempered, however, because the sides had not yet resumed face-to-face negotiations and there still was plenty of work to be done. He said he was hopeful but less than certain that a settlement was imminent.

It seemed possible that the two sides could agree to a second postponement of the opening of the free-agent market, scheduled for midnight, if they made progress today but could not complete a deal.

Even if the parties emerge from today's negotiations with a tentative agreement, the owners and players would have to ratify the deal. It could be particularly difficult for NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to get a consensus among the owners. The labor deal would have to be ratified by at least 24 of the 32 teams.

If the labor deal is accompanied by an agreement among the owners for clubs to increase the degree to which they share locally generated revenues, it's possible that nine high-revenue teams would band together to block approval of the labor settlement. If the labor deal isn't accompanied by a revenue-sharing accord among the owners, it's possible that nine low-revenue clubs could block it.

Tagliabue had informed the owners they would meet Tuesday in Dallas if there's a labor agreement with the union up for ratification.

The players' executive board is scheduled to meet this week in Hawaii, and the union could put any settlement with owners up for the players' approval then.

The negotiations broke off yesterday with Upshaw saying the owners were unable to compromise, and he left New York and returned to Washington. But the owners were meeting via conference call when Upshaw departed, and league spokesman Greg Aiello said the owners expected negotiations to resume today.

The talks ended yesterday with the owners offering 56.6 percent of an expanded pool of league revenues to the players as compensation under a salary-cap system. Upshaw had dropped his demand that the players receive at least 60 percent, but he would not specify exactly what percentage his latest proposal called for.

Upshaw has maintained that any labor deal between the players and owners would have to be accompanied by an agreement among the owners to increase the degree to which the 32 NFL teams share locally generated revenues. Otherwise, Upshaw has said, lower-revenue clubs could not afford the salary commitment they would be making to the players. Owners have said they could complete a labor deal with the players without finishing a revenue-sharing agreement immediately.

The compromise might be a provision in the labor deal to limit the amount of money that teams can spend above the flexible salary cap. That would address the concerns of lower-revenue teams that the high-revenue clubs could gain a competitive advantage by using their wealth to consistently outspend the salary cap and get better players. The sides had been negotiating about such "cash over cap" before talks broke off yesterday.

The league's free-agent market is scheduled to open at midnight. Teams must be under next season's $94.5 million salary cap by then. If they must release players to get under the cap, they must do so by 6 p.m.

But Upshaw and Tagliabue, facing a similar deadline, agreed Thursday to push back those deadlines by 72 hours, and they could agree to another postponement today if more time is needed to complete the deal or an agreement must be ratified.

The current labor deal keeps the salary-cap system in place through the 2006 season, then there would be a season without a salary cap in 2007 before the deal expires. Tagliabue said Thursday, just after the owners had a 57-minute meeting in New York to officially reject a players' proposal, that the owners had proposed an extension that would run through the 2011 season.

A labor settlement would push next season's salary cap as high as $108 million per team and would alleviate the salary-cap crunches being experienced by many teams.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Assmunchers.  All of them.

[Feva]

Bullshtein... I swear. 

[The BIGSTUD]

Jack Bauer told me he won't let them delay free agency again.

[PhillyPhreak54]

ATTENTION SHIFTS TO NEW EXTENSION



As the NFL and the NFLPA continue to discuss the final sticking points on a new CBA, we're told that the focus has now shifted to negotiating an extension to the start of the 2006 league year.



Under the extension to which both sides agreed on Thursday, the new league year begins at 12:01 a.m. Monday, and all teams must make any cuts aimed at getting under the salary cap by 6:00 p.m. EST Sunday.



That's roughly an hour from now.



We're told that the deadlines will be extended either by one or three days

Fargin shtein.