Schefter reveals the framework of the new deal

[Deus Irae]

Well if Schefter is right that today was a rough day, we now know why. Today marked the return of Jeffrey "I won't be happy until I destroy the NFL" Kessler returned to the meetings.

Kessler returns to the labor talks on Thursday | ProFootballTalk

I really wish the players would keep this guy away and use another attorney.

You do realize that the owners are using the same lawyer who orchestrated the hockey lockout, right?

 

[Rob0729]

As a follow up:



Reduction of free agency to four years may be harder than it looks | ProFootballTalk


Things could get very interesting, and there could be a lot of players yelling about this.

The right of first refusal will probably pass since the Jets need it really bad with Santonio Holmes, Brad Smith, Antonio Cromartie and a few others turning from RFAs to UFAs. Besides, it doesn't stop a player to get a great deal.

As for the second bite at the franchise tag, I think it is a pipe dream from a handful of owners that will quickly get shot down. The fact that several teams put franchise tags on 4 & 5 year players rather than the RFA tag shows that teams knew that this could be an issue if they went back to pre-2010 rules for restricted free agency. Besides, 14 teams have already used their franchise tag. That means there are only 18 teams who still have a franchise tag to use. Half of them would have to have players that they gave RFA tenders who would be now free agents and are important enough that the team would want to place the franchise tag on them and pay the the average of the top 5 players in their position to vote down any agreement that doesn't include a second bite at the franchise tage apple. I doubt there is.

Either way, I don't see either of these issues being anything significant to hold up the deal. I can see the players giving in with allowing at least a player or two a defacto transition tag since they can still go out and get the best deal they can. I am sure that there aren't even enough owners who want a second shot to franchise players to get far.

 

[Rob0729]

You do realize that the owners are using the same lawyer who orchestrated the hockey lockout, right?

Kessler's conflict of interest with the NBA is not the reason he is a pariah and hinderance to the discussion. Besides, there was no word the NFL's lawyers were involved today.

Kessler has been forever trying to push the antitrust suit to the brink to get a fair market NFL with 32 separate organizations. He has been doing this since the last CBA in 2006.

The last time Kessler was in the room, he was such a negative force that DeMaurice Smith kicked him out himself.

Kessler wants an NFL where the Peyton Mannings of the world make A Rod money or more while the Matthew Slaters of the world make so little that they have to get offseason jobs to suppliment their income like players did prior to the late 80s where they started to get real money.

I mean it isn't a coincidence that the only days where there is any reports of a rough day of negotiations since they started to talk seriously a few weeks ago are days when Kessler is part of the negotiations. Every other day there are glowing reports about the progress getting done. It is quite clear he wants to litigate over negotiate where everyone else in the room are looking to negotiate.

 

[Deus Irae]

Kessler's conflict of interest with the NBA is not the reason he is a pariah and hinderance to the discussion. Besides, there was no word the NFL's lawyers were involved today.

Kessler has been forever trying to push the antitrust suit to the brink to get a fair market NFL with 32 separate organizations. He has been doing this since the last CBA in 2006.

The last time Kessler was in the room, he was such a negative force that DeMaurice Smith kicked him out himself.

Kessler wants an NFL where the Peyton Mannings of the world make A Rod money or more while the Matthew Slaters of the world make so little that they have to get offseason jobs to suppliment their income like players did prior to the late 80s where they started to get real money.

You're acting as if Kessler's been the only lawyer tossed out. That's not correct. The NFL lawyers got the boot, too. Also, my point about Batterman is that the NFL has its own hired pitbull.

 

[Rob0729]

You're acting as if Kessler's been the only lawyer tossed out. That's not correct. The NFL lawyers got the boot, too. Also, my point about Batterman is that the NFL has its own hired pitbull.

Well, all the lawyers were taken out of the process, but De Smith had to tell Kessler and Quinn to "stand down".

I am sure lawyers on both sides have hindered the process, but Kessler is pure evil when it comes to this process. He has his own agenda and has frequently (as far back as when Upshaw was negotiating) gone beyond where his clients want them to and pushed to try to blow up the NFL. Now the owners' lawyers could be pitbulls, but we have yet to hear one incident where they overstepped their bounds or did anything outside what their clients' agenda is. Also, David Boies who is the owners' antitrust lawyer is universally considered one of the best and most respected lawyers in the country.

We have yet to hear a single report of the owners' lawyers with their own agenda and/or personally hindering the process. We have heard many, many reports on Kessler though. I don't even know if most people even know Batterman's name, but virtually everyone watching this process knows Kessler.

I'm not giving Batterman a free pass. I just think Kessler is the biggest villian in all of this because his agenda is to bring a free market system to the NFL eventhough it would destroy the league since he feels otherwise because he thinks it would be a windfall for the players. He doesn't seem to get that the mid and low tier players as a whole would get screwed in a free market NFL. Batterman might have his own agenda, but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve like Kessler does with his agenda.

 

[Shelterdog]

The right of first refusal will probably pass since the Jets need it really bad with Santonio Holmes, Brad Smith, Antonio Cromartie and a few others turning from RFAs to UFAs. Besides, it doesn't stop a player to get a great deal.

The right of first refusal (at least a normal right of first refusal) doesn't help if you don't have the cap space to exercise the right or if the person can use "poison pills" to make it hard for you to match the offer.

 

[Rob0729]

The right of first refusal (at least a normal right of first refusal) doesn't help if you don't have the cap space to exercise the right or if the person can use "poison pills" to make it hard for you to match the offer.

Well, that is the case now with the transition tag. If you don't have the salary cap room to match another team's offer, you weren't going to resign the free agent anyway if he was unrestricted. I don't know how the right of first refusal changes whether you have the cap money to resign an UFA if someone else is offering them more and they aren't going to take a hometown discount to stay.

With so many free agents on the market come July and such a short window to get them signed, it might be a good thing to have for teams that are trying to resign multiple high priority free agents since you might not be able to negotiate with all of them at once and you let the player set his price and give you a chance to match it.

Personally, I think this rule could benefit both the players and teams with possibly a two week window of free agency or even less before the start of camp. It benefits the player because if he is waiting for a deal from his old team and they have higher priorities, he doesn't have to sit around until they get to him. He can negotiate a deal with another team and have his old team just take it or leave it. It could blow up in his face if he wants to stay with his old team and they don't match, but it is better than waiting around until August and find out the market has dried up and his old team went in another direction. I don't know if it would be as beneficial to a player in a regular lengthed free agency, but in a short free agency it might be very beneficial.

As for a poison pill, the player has to agree to a contract with a poison pill. That means he doesn't want to resign with his old team anyway. Which means that if the team didn't have the right of first refusal, they were going to lose this player anyway. What id does do is makes it harder for another team to sign them because poison pill rules have been revised and are looked down on by the league.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Well, that is the case now with the transition tag. If you don't have the salary cap room to match another team's offer, you weren't going to resign the free agent anyway if he was unrestricted. I don't know how the right of first refusal changes whether you have the cap money to resign an UFA if someone else is offering them more and they aren't going to take a hometown discount to stay.

With so many free agents on the market come July and such a short window to get them signed, it might be a good thing to have for teams that are trying to resign multiple high priority free agents since you might not be able to negotiate with all of them at once and you let the player set his price and give you a chance to match it.

Personally, I think this rule could benefit both the players and teams with possibly a two week window of free agency or even less before the start of camp. It benefits the player because if he is waiting for a deal from his old team and they have higher priorities, he doesn't have to sit around until they get to him. He can negotiate a deal with another team and have his old team just take it or leave it. It could blow up in his face if he wants to stay with his old team and they don't match, but it is better than waiting around until August and find out the market has dried up and his old team went in another direction. I don't know if it would be as beneficial to a player in a regular lengthed free agency, but in a short free agency it might be very beneficial.

As for a poison pill, the player has to agree to a contract with a poison pill. That means he doesn't want to resign with his old team anyway. Which means that if the team didn't have the right of first refusal, they were going to lose this player anyway. What id does do is makes it harder for another team to sign them because poison pill rules have been revised and are looked down on by the league.

I agree. Before the lockout even started there was talk of the league and union potentially agreeing to keep RFA rules in place in the event of a protracted lockout simply because 500 UFA hitting the market just before camp doesn't really work well for either side. And it's almost a given the poison pill loophole was going to be closed in this CBA since it hasn't been used in a while simply because it was increasingly frowned on by Park Ave.

 

[lamafist]

That establishes the floor. It does not indicate that teams were at the floor, or how many were.
This is like saying the minimum salary in the CBA is 300,000 so many teams are only paying their players 300,000.

"as Miguel's prior post showed, these floors weren't even being met."

Please link where you got what their payroll was and what the cap numbers for each year was.

"Using 'total payroll' figures from the USA Today database,"

If your previous comment that the floor was 56% of the cap, then that has a large impact on these figures, and that is not the scenario we are comparing to. Also, these are surface numbers, with some pieces of the puzzle missing. What unamortized signing bonus and dead money did they carry forward into 2000, and out of 2009? Were they actually under the cap in these seasons by a significant amount, or are there dead money issues occuring?

Why don't you go ahead and show me the "large impact" that had on these figures, then. While your at it, be a dear and look into their dead space going into 2000 and coming out of 2009.

All that aside, one teams history is not evidence that a cash floor, even at 100% would guarantee teams spending more.

Um, yes it does. A cash cap at 100% of the cap in that time period would have guaranteed that at least one team would have had to spend more.

And if you don't like the empirical example, why don't we look at it arithmetically.

What we're looking to see whether teams would have been capable of spending less under the previous CBA than the current rumored CBA.

Set four year revenue at X. Under the 2006-2009 CBA, the cap would have been set at (on average) 0.513X, and the floor at (again, on average) 0.858(0.513X), which comes out to .44X

Under the new CBA, the floor would have been set at .48X.

.48X > .44X. QED

As I said before -- it's not about the cash vs. cap figure, it's the fact that the floor is being raised by so much more than the total is being lowered.

By the way, I severely doubt that the floor will be 100% of the cap. It seems that it would be impossible to navigate.
If you have a 120,000,000 cap, and 40,000,000 is yet unamortized signing bonus, then you would have 80,000,000 left under the cap for salaries and new players 1st year cap hit. However, you MUST spend 120,000,000 in current year payroll. If you do not match the unamortized and future amortized bonusses exactly, you end up either over the cap or under the 100% cash floor. In other words, it is almost impossible to hit the cash floor without exceeding the cap except in certain circumstances where you would be doomed to not be able to accomplish it the next year.

As I said this is just a rumor, and expanding the rumor to 100% of cash to cap makes it virtually impossible.
I do not think it is feasible.

Doubt as severely as you want. That's what's being reported.

I don't disagree that it could make things very tricky for teams that end up with a lot of dead space.

That said, players seldom have complaints about converting salary to bonus, which, if done in the right proportions with enough players, would enable teams to hit the sweet spot without affecting total payroll obligations, outside of needing to pay some accountants overtime.

 

[Deus Irae]

Breer:

And sorry for everyone I confused earlier. Again, deal is NOT "close" b/c there are hurdles left. But it is "within striking distance". ...

Twitter

Nowhere have I read that it's because of Kessler, BTW

 

[Ring 6]

"as Miguel's prior post showed, these floors weren't even being met."

I have already commented that this is not what Miguel's post showed.

"Using 'total payroll' figures from the USA Today database,"

Why don't you go ahead and show me the "large impact" that had on these figures, then. While your at it, be a dear and look into their dead space going into 2000 and coming out of 2009.

Not interested. As I said one team is not going to tell us much, and Im confident that this effort would not disprove my point that
There is no certainty that low revenue teams will spend more if the floor is changed from cap to cash.

Um, yes it does. A cash cap at 100% of the cap in that time period would have guaranteed that at least one team would have had to spend more.

But it does not account for teams that would have spent less.

And if you don't like the empirical example, why don't we look at it arithmetically.

What we're looking to see whether teams would have been capable of spending less under the previous CBA than the current rumored CBA.

Set four year revenue at X. Under the 2006-2009 CBA, the cap would have been set at (on average) 0.513X, and the floor at (again, on average) 0.858(0.513X), which comes out to .44X

Under the new CBA, the floor would have been set at .48X.

.48X > .44X. QED

No because cap expenditure and cash expenditure are different things.
They cant both be X. Cash is cash, cap is a formula based on counting all of this years salaries, some of this years bonuses and some of previous year bonusses.

As I said before -- it's not about the cash vs. cap figure, it's the fact that the floor is being raised by so much more than the total is being lowered.

The floor isnt being raised, it is being based on different numbers. A high percentage of cash spent vs attaining a percentage of a cap number are entirely different calculations.
You are assuming because the cash number is higher, the team spends more money, but that is nt necessarily the case.
With a 100,000,000 cap, I could give Tom Brady a 50,000,000 bonis spread over 10 years then have total salaries of 50,000,000.
I meet the cash requirement of 100,000,000 with a cap of 55,000,0000.
Under the old rules I would have had to pay another 30,000,000 or so to other players, but with the new rules, I don't have to.
By the same token when I pay those bonusses, next year they do not count toward cash cost so under the old system my cash cost next year is much lower than my cap, in this example. Thats why you cant just compare the 2 and call them both apples.

Doubt as severely as you want. That's what's being reported.

Source?
It is really pretty much impossible to run a capped league by requiring 100% of the cap spent in cash unless you pay salary only and no signing bonus. Whoever is reporting a 100% cash to cap floor will have to turn out to be wrong, or either bonusses will be eliminated, players cant be cut because of dead money or teams will have to be allowed to go over the cap.
Look at the Patriots cap page and tell me how they could meet the 100% cash floor without exceeding the cap.

I don't disagree that it could make things very tricky for teams that end up with a lot of dead space.

I dont think any team can meet that even 2 consecutive years without exceeding the cap. The cash you must spend this year to hit the floor would be amortized into the future, which would put you over the cap if you spend that cash then.

That said, players seldom have complaints about converting salary to bonus, which, if done in the right proportions with enough players, would enable teams to hit the sweet spot without affecting total payroll obligations, outside of needing to pay some accountants overtime.

That wont do it. Because those bills will come due. As they do, and as some retire, get cut, or injured there wont be room to fit everyone.
By the way, if you really think the owners are going to agree to a system where they have to hand out a plethora of bonusses every year because the only way to meet both requirements is to mortgage the future more severely than any team has, you must expect this group of owners to be on their way to bankrupting the game.

 

[Ring 6]

By the way, I have a feeling that if there actually is an agreement to a cash cost minimum, it will be something different than just a rule where every team must spend 90% or whatever of the cap in cash.
I would imagine IF there is such a rule it will probably apply only to teams that are under a cap floor, making it an alternative to a cap floor. Such as the cap is 120,000,000 the floor is 100,000,000 or you must spend 120,000,000 cash (or 108 at 90%) if and only if you are below the floor.
Or it could be a league wide minimum. If you look at the salary history of teams, you will see such wide swings (if you are near the top you eventually are near the bottom later because the cap forces it) that it would appear impossible to maintain cash at 100%, or even 90% of cap without exceeding the cap along the way.

 

[Miguel]

Those issues don't mean teams were under the floor. They couldnt be by rule.
Again, you have forgotten more about this than I know, but those adjustments are made when actual results exceed projected. I find it very different to say revenue was higher than expected and the cap was raised than to say teams were below the floor.
Also, could you please clarify the relation between 59.5%, the cap, and the individual teams floor?

Did you look at Appendix P of the CBA?
http://www.patscap.com/cba.pdf

 

[lamafist]

I have already commented that this is not what Miguel's post showed.

But Miguel was right.

Not interested. As I said one team is not going to tell us much, and Im confident that this effort would not disprove my point that
There is no certainty that low revenue teams will spend more if the floor is changed from cap to cash.

Of course not. Why both to subject your own thinking to the same level of rigor you demand from others?

But it does not account for teams that would have spent less.

What are you talking about? They don't need accounting for. If it's possible for any one team to spend less under the old CBA than it would have been possible to under the new one, it's possible for every team.

No because cap expenditure and cash expenditure are different things.
They cant both be X. Cash is cash, cap is a formula based on counting all of this years salaries, some of this years bonuses and some of previous year bonusses.


The floor isnt being raised, it is being based on different numbers. A high percentage of cash spent vs attaining a percentage of a cap number are entirely different calculations.
You are assuming because the cash number is higher, the team spends more money, but that is nt necessarily the case.
With a 100,000,000 cap, I could give Tom Brady a 50,000,000 bonis spread over 10 years then have total salaries of 50,000,000.
I meet the cash requirement of 100,000,000 with a cap of 55,000,0000.
Under the old rules I would have had to pay another 30,000,000 or so to other players, but with the new rules, I don't have to.
By the same token when I pay those bonusses, next year they do not count toward cash cost so under the old system my cash cost next year is much lower than my cap, in this example. Thats why you cant just compare the 2 and call them both apples.

Seriously, do you really think I need that Salary Cap 101 lesson? I get how the cap works. What you don't seem to understand is that just because the cap calculations get a little complicated doesn't mean that we have to pretend that a team's "cash" and "cap" expenditutres are two entirely unrelated values. They're clearly not. The latter is a function of the former, with various amounts pushed forward.

At the end of the day, however, it comes down to simple calculus. If the NFL's revenues were fixed, the differential between cap number and cash expenditure approaches zero over time. Doesn't matter how much you play around with bonuses and dead space, if the NFL earned the same amount of money every year, then over time, cap and cash would be the same. Since the NFL's revenues are not fixed, however, there's a certain amount of total deviation, as the value of amortized bonus money as a function of percentage of the total cap depreciates as the cap gets larger -- e.g. $10 million in dead space in 2006 is a higher percentage of the cap than in 2009.

Under the rumored new CBA, with a cash floor set at close to %100 of the salary cap, this effectively ends the play teams had in terms of cash under cap. If cash floor = ~100% cap ceiling, the comparison in terms of minimum payroll becomes quite simple. The minimum a team can pay in terms of actual salary over any number of years is the sum of the cap values of those years. In the case of the new CBA, therefore, the comparison of cap and cash is very simple.

So, the question becomes, is it possible for the depreciation of the cap dollar to create enough permanent differential between cash and cap, after all of the inevitable balancing out. Well, $10 million cap dollars is 9.8% of the cap in '06, 9.1% of the cap in '07, 8.6% in '08 and 8.1% in '09. That's less than 2% over 5 years. There's just no way you could conceivably carry enough of a cash-under-cap balance for that level of depreciation to come close to bringing the 44% of revenue cap floor under the previous CBA in line with the 48% of revenue cash/cap floor/ceiling in the rumored new CBA.

Source?
It is really pretty much impossible to run a capped league by requiring 100% of the cap spent in cash unless you pay salary only and no signing bonus. Whoever is reporting a 100% cash to cap floor will have to turn out to be wrong, or either bonusses will be eliminated, players cant be cut because of dead money or teams will have to be allowed to go over the cap.
Look at the Patriots cap page and tell me how they could meet the 100% cash floor without exceeding the cap.


I dont think any team can meet that even 2 consecutive years without exceeding the cap. The cash you must spend this year to hit the floor would be amortized into the future, which would put you over the cap if you spend that cash then.


That wont do it. Because those bills will come due. As they do, and as some retire, get cut, or injured there wont be room to fit everyone.
By the way, if you really think the owners are going to agree to a system where they have to hand out a plethora of bonusses every year because the only way to meet both requirements is to mortgage the future more severely than any team has, you must expect this group of owners to be on their way to bankrupting the game.

It's not impossible, you just don't understand the math, it seems.

 

[Ring 6]

Did you look at Appendix P of the CBA?
http://www.patscap.com/cba.pdf

Is that not showing what I said? That the cap and floor are set based on projected revenue, and then adjusments are made and carried to the next year based upon the actual numbers?
If it doesnt say that, feel free to educate me, because I have never seen it before.

 

[Miguel]

Weren't the LTBE incentives used in season?

Yes.

Teams would have to be over the floor to start the season.

Please back up this assertion. Where does it say that in the CBA?

Are there really any cases of teams just barely making it over the floor.
You would know the facts better than me, but this seems like a hypothetical manipulation of the system that was never really used, sort of a conspiracy theory.

Please read this thread
Pash: Proposal to players offered unprecedented 90 percent of salary cap in cash - Dallas Cowboys Forums - CowboysZone.com

especially
"Some teams were carrying over almost 20 percent of their salary cap, which means that only 80 percent was actually spent. Under this rule, those teams would have to pay an additional 10 percent of the cap. That's a significant chunk of change to the players on those teams, I'm sure."

"but there were some teams that actually were carrying over far more than $18.5 million when the cap was far less than $135 million."

"The proposed rule would affect teams that underspend the 90 percent minimum within a rolling three-year period. For the 2007-2009 period, the combined league-wide cap minimum was $305,961,396. There were 10 teams that spent less than that -- by a combined $117 million. Some of those teams might not have had cap room to spend more than what they did because of prorated money paid before 2007, but depending on how the proposed rule would work, that might not be an excuse for some or all of it"

There is no one I respect more on cap matters than Adamjt13.

IMO, his statements refute your contention that this is a "hypothetical manipulation of the system that was never really used, sort of a conspiracy theory."

 

[Ring 6]

But Miguel was right.

You are entitled to agree with him. I do not.

Of course not. Why both to subject your own thinking to the same level of rigor you demand from others?

You are making an affirmative statement which I asked you to back up. Your response left out many details. It is not my place to research your argument, and see if the facts you left out support it. Its your argument not mine. If I make a claim, feel free to ask me to back it up, and know that my response will not be to assign you work to fill in the pieces I left out.

What are you talking about? They don't need accounting for. If it's possible for any one team to spend less under the old CBA than it would have been possible to under the new one, it's possible for every team.

Thats not the argument that you jumped into.
My point was that it is not a certainly that using cash rather than cap will cause the lower revenue teams to have to spend more than they did under the old system.
My argument was never that it isn't possible to spend less under this system than the old, I am sure it is, because the criteria are tremendously different. I would venture under some circumstances it would be impossible for teams not to spend more under cash floor than a cap floor and in others it would be impossible for them to.
Giving me one example is not proof of the certainty of a result.
You are kind of arguing with yourself here, because you have created an argument that has little to do with the point I made that you jumped into the discussion on.

Seriously, do you really think I need that Salary Cap 101 lesson? I get how the cap works.

Honestly from your response it appeared that you did. You are interchanging cap and cash in your 'math problem' and you simply cannot do that.

What you don't seem to understand is that just because the cap calculations get a little complicated doesn't mean that we have to pretend that a team's "cash" and "cap" expenditutres are two entirely unrelated values. They're clearly not. The latter is a function of the former, with various amounts pushed forward.

Well they certainly are not unrelated, that would be foolish to suggest.
But you simply cannot say .48 of the cap in cash is greater than .43 of the cap in cap. That may be true. It may be true more often than not, but its the equivalent of saying 12 big widgets are more than 20 little widgets. Widgets" are certainly related but the 'math problem' doesnt hold up to scrutiny.

At the end of the day, however, it comes down to simple calculus. If the NFL's revenues were fixed, the differential between cap number and cash expenditure approaches zero over time. Doesn't matter how much you play around with bonuses and dead space, if the NFL earned the same amount of money every year, then over time, cap and cash would be the same. Since the NFL's revenues are not fixed, however, there's a certain amount of total deviation, as the value of amortized bonus money as a function of percentage of the total cap depreciates as the cap gets larger -- e.g. $10 million in dead space in 2006 is a higher percentage of the cap than in 2009.

None of that guarantees that low revenue teams will pay more under a cash floor system than under a cap floor system. In fact, it actaully says they will pay the same thing OVER TIME unless you cheat the equation by saying the league is going to raise the floor up to what the cap is.
The detail that every team is in a far different cap position than each other every year further indicates that in any given year there is no way you can guarantee that all low revenue teams would pay more that year under this rumor than the old system.
It would also be instructive to actually show whether teams were at the floor, since that was the old legislated minimum. If none or few teams even came close to the legislated minimum then we are really talking about a minor issue.

Under the rumored new CBA, with a cash floor set at close to %100 of the salary cap, this effectively ends the play teams had in terms of cash under cap. If cash floor = ~100% cap ceiling, the comparison in terms of minimum payroll becomes quite simple. The minimum a team can pay in terms of actual salary over any number of years is the sum of the cap values of those years. In the case of the new CBA, therefore, the comparison of cap and cash is very simple.

Again, read the example. If you pay large signing bonuses you can be far below the cap. A system that can allow a team to count all of the signing bonus paid this year toward the floor, allows it to spend a lot less in total dollars.
That example is extreme, but the point isnt in the extremity but the direction. Teams signing players to large contracts with large signing bonusses can spend less money under this rumored system than if the floor were based on the cap.
That qualifies as proving my argument because my argument is that using a cash floor does not make it a certainty that low revenue teams will spend more money than under the old system.

So, the question becomes, is it possible for the depreciation of the cap dollar to create enough permanent differential between cash and cap, after all of the inevitable balancing out. Well, $10 million cap dollars is 9.8% of the cap in '06, 9.1% of the cap in '07, 8.6% in '08 and 8.1% in '09. That's less than 2% over 5 years. There's just no way you could conceivably carry enough of a cash-under-cap balance for that level of depreciation to come close to bringing the 44% of revenue cap floor under the previous CBA in line with the 48% of revenue cash/cap floor/ceiling in the rumored new CBA.

Sorry, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about.
And again you are mixing your made up 44% cap number with a revenue split of 46%. Again is 44 apples better or worse than 48 oranges?

It's not impossible, you just don't understand the math, it seems.

I understand the math just fine, it just isnt math that is applicable to my comments, which you clearly did not understand.
It is virtually impossible in a capped league for a team to continue to spend 100% of the cap number in cash without exceeding the cap, unless the league has different policies and practices than the NFL regarding signing bonusses, cuts, amortization and accelration of signing bonusses, retirements, etc.

 

[BlueThunder]

I don't know about others here...but my head is about to EXPLODE

:bricks:

 

[Ring 6]

Yes.


Please back up this assertion. Where does it say that in the CBA?

I have not read the CBA cover to cover, so if your argument is if I cant quote where it appears in the CBA, I lose, then I guess I lose.
Perhaps you can explain to me how their can be a floor if you do not have to be above it. I considered that simple common sense.

Please read this thread
Pash: Proposal to players offered unprecedented 90 percent of salary cap in cash - Dallas Cowboys Forums - CowboysZone.com

especially
"Some teams were carrying over almost 20 percent of their salary cap, which means that only 80 percent was actually spent. Under this rule, those teams would have to pay an additional 10 percent of the cap. That's a significant chunk of change to the players on those teams, I'm sure."

"but there were some teams that actually were carrying over far more than $18.5 million when the cap was far less than $135 million."

"The proposed rule would affect teams that underspend the 90 percent minimum within a rolling three-year period. For the 2007-2009 period, the combined league-wide cap minimum was $305,961,396. There were 10 teams that spent less than that -- by a combined $117 million. Some of those teams might not have had cap room to spend more than what they did because of prorated money paid before 2007, but depending on how the proposed rule would work, that might not be an excuse for some or all of it"

There is no one I respect more on cap matters than Adamjt13.

IMO, his statements refute your contention that this is a "hypothetical manipulation of the system that was never really used, sort of a conspiracy theory."

That comment was in response to the idea that teams have used LTBEs to get over the cap floor. I just read that thread, Adams posts and the responses to them.
I don't know how the idea that LTBEs were used to skirt the floor is anything more than hypothetical, because he gave no examples. The closest he came was teams spending cash that was less than the cap floor, and he himself admitted there were other factors than LTBEs that could produce that.
If you can show me instances of teams that creeped just above the floor by using LTBEs that were not realistically attainable then that would indeed show that this manipulation was real and not hypothetical and I would stand corrected.
No need to inquisition me. I am not claiming to be an expert on the CBA and the cap, I am posting my understanding and opinion. I have never once heard of LTBEs used to skirt the cap floor, and have often heard them used to push money to the following year in order to spend it. We have had that discussion many times on this board. It would be foolhardy to not leave a cap cushion for in season needs. Throwing in a phony LTBE during the season does not address the cap floor, it would be done to allow more money to be spent next year rather than just lose it.
If teams have been putting them in contracts as a rule in order to blow up their cap number to the minimum, by all means educate me with examples, and I will stand corrected.

 

[Shelterdog]

Well, that is the case now with the transition tag. If you don't have the salary cap room to match another team's offer, you weren't going to resign the free agent anyway if he was unrestricted. I don't know how the right of first refusal changes whether you have the cap money to resign an UFA if someone else is offering them more and they aren't going to take a hometown discount to stay.

I think we're talking past each other.

The owners presumably want a right of first refusal to make free agency a little less chaotic, particularly in a year where there are so many free agents and free agency is going to happen so quickly, and it also allows the teams to be a little more coy in negotiating with their own players (e.g. the Pats might offer Light 1/3 and be willing to pay him 1/5 if they have a right of first refusal and St. Louis offers him 1/5). Players don't want it because it takes a negotiating tool away from them.

Whether the parties can agree on rules to eliminate poison pills is a really technical question that none of us know the answer to. You could get rid of most of them by agreement if you wanted to but you ultimately have to agree on a fact finder (e.g. the commisoner) who can very quickly say it's a poison pill or not.

Anyhow, right of first refusal, with no compensation, for one year isn't going to make or break the deal.

FWIW it looks like the Cowboys are the ones agitating for another chance to place franchise tags on players-the Cowboys gambled and (apparently) lost on the bet that he'd be a restricted free agent and now they want a chance to tag him. We'll see if it works. I'm not aware of any other franchise tag worthy 4 and 5 year players who weren't tagged but there could be others. Again, not a deal breaker one way or another.