Labor talks break down again
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2348417
Upshaw says NFL labor talks break down again
ESPN.com news services

NFL labor talks broke off Tuesday three days before the start of free agency, leaving teams and players in a quandary about negotiating new contracts.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, spent the last three days meeting in New York and Washington with commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

"We're deadlocked. There's nowhere to go," Upshaw said. "There's no reason to continue meeting."

Although the contract does not expire until after the 2007 season, this is a critical period in the negotiations to extend the 12-year-old contract. Talks have been going on for more than a year.

Without an extension, the 2007 season would become a so-called uncapped year with no spending limit and no minimum, and players could potentially face a lockout in 2008.

Hopefully its just something simple like a disagreement over dental or health benefits.

Those $20 co-pays really add up when you're an NFL player with multiple illegitmate children.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns


The sides have agreed on a number of issues. The biggest one is changing the formula for the amount of money to go to the players from "designated gross revenues" -- primarily television and ticket sales -- to "total gross revenues," which include almost every bit a money a a team generates.

However, they differ on the percentage of revenues to be allocated to the players -- the union is asking for 60 percent and the league's current offer is 56.2 percent.

However, there are also disputes among groups of owners on that issue, too. Tagliabue has called a league meeting in New York for Thursday to try to resolve them.

Teams with lower revenues -- mostly small-market clubs -- say that if the contributions to the players' fund are equally apportioned among 32 franchises, they will have to pay a substantially larger proportion of their nontelevision and ticket money because they have less. Owners of high-revenue teams, like Dallas' Jerry Jones, claim spreading the load equally would force some teams to work harder to generate new sources of money.

Another high-revenue owner, New England's Robert Kraft, says the formula does not take stadium debt into account, as he has on Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass

re:
 

Free agency starts Friday, right?

I think Upshaw is just trying to play hardball one last time. He knows that there will be chaos, confusion, and uncertainty if an agreement is not reached by the time free agency starts.

He's probably hoping the players can get an extra percentage point or two, and that the owners will give in due to time constraints.

.

For the longterm health of the league, it would be good to get an agreement. But, purely from the standpoint of an interesting off-season, it would be entertaining to watch the scrambling as a result of no new deal.

There are a bunch of teams that have banked on a "get out of jail free" card (the Colts being top of the list). I'd love to see the roosters come home to roost and teams be forced to dismantle their teams. My guess is that the Pats would be in a better position than most. Losing Givens and Vinatieri would be childs play compared to not being able to sign your draft picks or afford a 53 man roster. It would certainly be interesting.

You sadist! :D

I hate this crap!
 

I'm starting to think that the players might be over-playing their hand here. Not only do they want a bigger pie (Total vs Designated Gross Revenues) They want a substantially bigger slice of the bigger pie. I hate to mix metaphors but they seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. Plus they are giving up nothing on the issue of a rookie salary scale.

The small market owners are saying that they can't afford to give away both a bigger pie and a bigger slice unless the big revenue owners give them some of their pie. The big market owners are saying:

1. It's my pie, leave it alone.

2. You small market guys don't spend enough time at the bakery making more pie.

3. I gotta new bakery, you have to let me keep more of my pie to pay for it..

As you can tell, I like pie!

Will we lose Givens? Without an extention, won't players need six years to be FAs? Won't he be playing for fifth year rookie minimum for the Pats this year? Tough break for all the players with three and four years of service if I understand the rules correctly (50-50 chance). Bet they're on the phone right now to Upshaw!

I think that's for players like Branch who are FA after 2006. But I could be wrong too :)

Seems to me that the owners are in the driver's seat right now. Sure, no extension means a lot of pain and suffering to their roster plans. But, at the end of the day, they will be spending less money on players this year and next year with no agreement than with an agreement.

Meanwhile, the players are going to take an immediate hit as as tons and tons of them get released on Friday in cap purges. So they hit free agency, right? Yeah, but nobody is going to have any cap room to sign them.

An uncapped situation sounds great, right? But, the minimum cap goes out the window, too. I see a lot more teams who would go the cheap route in unrestricted free agency. What the heck, if you can't beat the big market teams, why bother spending in futility?