Extension for labor talks

[Deus Irae]

PFT is reporting (based upon other reports) that there has been another extension, of one week, to March 11th:

Multiple reports indicate that the NFL and the players’ union have decided to extend the expiration of the current labor deal by one week, from March 4 until March 11.

The drop-or-get-off-the-dropper moment currently is March 11 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

Deadline extended until March 11 | ProFootballTalk

 

[DarrylS]

Walking away from the table is not a good thing and will only polarize the issues more, as long as they agree to talk there may be a fan friendly outcome.

 

[jmt57]

It Is What It Is - NFL players and owners agree on seven-day extension for CBA talks - Christopher Price, WEEI.com

“This will advise that, at the request of FMCS Director George Cohen, we have agreed to extend the expiration of the CBA for seven days through next Friday, March 11, 2011,” the NFL informed teams in a statement. “During that time, further negotiations will take place under the auspices of Mr. Cohen and his colleagues.”

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, no roster moves will be permitted during deadline extension.

 

[Boston Boxer]

another week is a very good sign

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

It Is What It Is - NFL players and owners agree on seven-day extension for CBA talks - Christopher Price, WEEI.com

This, no wait, THIS is the line of death!

 

[BradyManny]

Particularly when the one public set of books around shows that the Packers had less than a 10% profit margin. The owners don't really have a whole helluva lot more to give.

Just something to think about.
There are approximately 1500 players in the union. Their split is currently 4.76 billion dollars. At the Salary Cap floor (85%?) I believe that is a little over 4 billion. 4 Billion divided by 1500 is 2.66 million dollars, on average.

I don't think that the Union lawyers are going to be able to find a lot of sympathetic people to listen to how "hard" the players have it when they are averaging 2.66 million dollars in this time of recession. And I don't believe that there are going to be a lot of people who are sympathetic to the players when it comes to health care and pensions. Especially when the 2.66 million average gets taken into consideration.

The numbers you use here are a little misleading, IMO - the average has little meaning here when you have guys like Brady & Manning making near $20 million. Take 10 players, for the sake of argument, if nine of them are making zero dollars, and one is making $20 million, suddenly they all average $2 million salaries.

Admittedly, I know very little about statistics, but I think you'd probably want the median salary for it to mean anything. I don't know what that median is, but - if you take a look at patscaps, look at just how many players on that roster make under $1 million. The large majority.

The average NFL career is about 4 years, right?

So the average NFL player making the median salary isn't going to make enough in the course of his career to live off of. But he very well may have debilitated his body to the point where he's going to struggle to earn money for the rest of his life.

That is a very sympathetic situation.

As for the Packers profits - first off, it dipped from $20 to $10 million, so it's important to note that this is a sudden dropoff, well before the owners even made their decision to opt out. Just four years ago, the profit was $35 million. Obviously the state of our economy has something to do with this.

Lastly, it's way too small a sample size to read anything into. The Packers have to report their profits since they are public owned, but the other 31 teams do not. With such a small market, I would wager the Packers are middle of the pack (no pun intended...) in revenue to begin with.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

I said it in my other thread about decertification possibly backfiring on the union. I believe the owners want the union to decertify. I believe that the owners are in the best position they've ever been in to win litigation against the players. Particularly when the one public set of books around shows that the Packers had less than a 10% profit margin. The owners don't really have a whole helluva lot more to give.

Just something to think about.
There are approximately 1500 players in the union. Their split is currently 4.76 billion dollars. At the Salary Cap floor (85%?) I believe that is a little over 4 billion. 4 Billion divided by 1500 is 2.66 million dollars, on average.

I don't think that the Union lawyers are going to be able to find a lot of sympathetic people to listen to how "hard" the players have it when they are averaging 2.66 million dollars in this time of recession. And I don't believe that there are going to be a lot of people who are sympathetic to the players when it comes to health care and pensions. Especially when the 2.66 million average gets taken into consideration.

The key thing is this: whichever side makes the first "punitive move" is likely to lose the PR war. In other words, if the owners lock the players out, the owners lose. If the players file a lawsuit, they lose. It is millionaires (players) v. billionaires (owners), and the public really is rather hostile to either of them whining.

 

[vyrago]

Should we assume that the Packers books reflect the books of the other 31? Is there an excellent reason why the owners do not want to open their books to the NFLPA? Or is that an unbelievably naive question?

It leads me to believe that the books would not support the poor-mouth crying. But there could be other reasons I guess.

 

[BradyFTW!]

The numbers you use here are a little misleading, IMO - the average has little meaning here when you have guys like Brady & Manning making near $20 million. Take 10 players, for the sake of argument, if nine of them are making zero dollars, and one is making $20 million, suddenly they all average $2 million salaries.

Admittedly, I know very little about statistics, but I think you'd probably want the median salary for it to mean anything. I don't know what that median is, but - if you take a look at patscaps, look at just how many players on that roster make under $1 million. The large majority.

The average NFL career is about 4 years, right?

So the average NFL player making the median salary isn't going to make enough in the course of his career to live off of. But he very well may have debilitated his body to the point where he's going to struggle to earn money for the rest of his life.

That is a very sympathetic situation.

As for the Packers profits - first off, it dipped from $20 to $10 million, so it's important to note that this is a sudden dropoff, well before the owners even made their decision to opt out. Just four years ago, the profit was $35 million. Obviously the state of our economy has something to do with this.

Lastly, it's way too small a sample size to read anything into. The Packers have to report their profits since they are public owned, but the other 31 teams do not. With such a small market, I would wager the Packers are middle of the pack (no pun intended...) in revenue to begin with.

Statistically, you're spot on. Mean salary doesn't tell us much of anything. If we had a standard deviation to attach to it, that would be interesting, but median salary is far more telling. Recalculating the mean after filtering out outliers (+/- 2 or 3 standard deviations) could work too, but it would probably end up giving you something fairly close to the median.

Because of the top-heavy nature of NFL contract spreads, I think we all recognize that the average NFL player makes a whole lot less than $2.66 million per year. Even then, we should frame that up in the context of:

1) the average NFL career is only a few years in duration
2) the post-career healthcare costs for NFL players are often extremely high.

Personally, I think it would be in everyone's best interest for the players to take significantly less money in the here and now, and in exchange have the union use that money to cover healthcare + pensions for all current + future players. I doubt that that will ever happen, though.

 

[jmt57]

This, no wait, THIS is the line of death!

Ha ha, good one.


I saw this quote and thought it was worth repeating:

"If I had seven days to determine the future of a $9 billion business, I wouldn't take those first two days off."

 

[signbabybrady]

Ha ha, good one.


I saw this quote and thought it was worth repeating:

"If I had seven days to determine the future of a $9 billion business, I wouldn't take those first two days off."

If I had 7 days to determine the future of a $9 billion business I would probably take the first 6 days off and party my ass off and then on the 7th day come in and say sounds good to me.