Sources: Rookie pay system agreed to

NFL players and owners have agreed in principle to a new rookie wage system, sources on both sides told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

There remains a handful of other issues that need to be worked out and talks are continuing, but the sources told Schefter the rookie wage system is no longer considered an impediment to a new collective bargaining agreement.

A management negotiator told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen that the rookie system is "done," but expected there to be some "tweaking" when the deal is written out. The exact language of the system is being worked out by both side's lawyer, sources told Mortensen.

Sources told Mortensen the two sides expect to work late into Thursday night and return Friday morning to work on open issues that include workman's compensation, extra right-of-first-refusals on this year's free agent class, settlement on the television damages and the antitrust lawsuit and issues relating to commercial sponsorships............


read more @ http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/67...em-sources-say

I won't be satisfied 'till everything is finalized and it's a done deal.

It seems like July 15 was an imposed deadline by both sides. I am hopeful we will have a deal tomorrow. Training camp in a week? Then we can get excited about the new season. Steelers got some work to do, both on and off the field.

Looks like D. Smith pulled an ace out of his sleeve as he trumped the owners with an insurance policy that would pay each player $200,000. Lol...

Yep, it seems that this WAS a major sticking point.

http://www.steelersuniverse.com/foru...tiations/page2

Glad to see they are making progress! Hopefully they ride this momentum to getting a deal finalized soon.

I'm interested to see if they actually scaled the salaries themselves-or if they put a secondary cap on rookie salaries.