Originally Posted by
Mojouw
In what world does ANYONE agree to that? I mean look at the last several CBA negotiations. Players want way more of the revenue pie and owners are insistent on giving far far less.
There are two totally antithetical approaches. Ownership only cares about maximizing their profits. If that means they play with lesser players or a lower quality on field product, the majority of owners don't give a crap. Because what are the fans going to do -- watch the other trash football leagues? We, the fans, have demonstrated that we aren't going to do that! Players just want to get paid the most amount possible every year because they (rightly?) feel that with the high injury risk and the non guaranteed nature of most NFL contracts that they are one play away from never seeing another dime.
For this season, the original proposal by the owners was a 8-10% cap rollback with no mechanism to allow teams to get in compliance. That was a 15-20 million reduction in salary cap that the owners were just fine with. That would've meant almost every team in the league would have been forced to cut critical players in order to get compliant. Then have a shortened camp and no preseason to figure out how to make the new roster work. In the Steelers case that would have likely meant no Vance McDonald/Eric Ebron (pick one) and several other depth guys. Likely no D. Watt signing. Bottom line is that the original ownership proposal was made solely to protect their bottom line and with no regard to the impact on the on field product. The 2021+ salary cap floor compromise is more of the same, it just attempts to give teams and players a fighting chance to plan for it.
A more realistic approach would be a series of amnesty provisions:
1. Each team can designate a "face of the franchise" and only have so much percent of the contract count towards the cap. Make the percentage the difference in what the 2021 cap is and what it would have been with normal revenues. So in the Steelers case, they wiggle out from Ben R's. massive contract hit.
2. Be able to designate one player who just doesn't count. Either in a release or honoring the contract. Set a cap on how much this can be used for. Say like $ 8million or something. I don't know their are enough math nerds out there that could figure it out. Call it a "Vet Exception". This saves guys like VW job's across the league.
3. Change the formula for franchise tag calculation. Take the average of the top 5 salaries like normal and then cut equal to the cap decrease. So if normally a $15 million franchise tag for OLB is 8% of total salary cap; then the 2021 would be whatever needs to bring the new # in line with that same 8% of total salary cap.
Smarter people than me can figure out the specifics and see if these are workable. What it would do is split NFL ownership into two camps. Those that are willing to spend money to win and put the best product on the field. And those that are just in this to make $$$.