Projected 2021 Salary Cap Decrease of $30-80 million

Ring 6 said:

No a good analogy pulls out one vital similarity to emphasize it. That’s why it’s an analogy. If it were the same thing it wouldn’t be an analogy.
In this case you have employees who can it be afforded who must be cut free and rehired for less. You could use any profession. Police officers works because you have a finite workforce, a loss of funds required to pay them and a clearly defined group of candidates for rehire.

I’m any event, you believe the owners should just eat a billion dollars and I have never seen a single action by nfl ownership ever that would suggest they would willingly do that and would take the opportunity to cut players and rehire them at pennies on the dollar and think that is a terrible disadvantage to them so they would rather pay them a billion more than they can afford it they have collectively bargained because players switching teams for a billion less payroll is worse for the owners than keeping them on the same teams and paying them a billion more.
We have reached the point where a reasonable discussion clearly can’t happen so I will move on.

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lol!! You said you would “move on” 3 posts ago. Nothing more pathetic than someone who says they’re done and can’t even hold to their own word.

Obviously, for some reason, your eyes completely glaze over the fact that the owners wouldn’t lose a single penny long term in my suggestion. You keep misrepresenting what I’ve said. Owners won’t lose a single penny in the long run.

XLIX said:

lol!! You said you would “move on” 3 posts ago. Nothing more pathetic than someone who says they’re done and can’t even hold to their own word.

Obviously, for some reason, your eyes completely glaze over the fact that the owners wouldn’t lose a single penny long term in my suggestion. You keep misrepresenting what I’ve said. Owners won’t lose a single penny in the long run.

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No I said I would move on from discussing with you, and then responded to a post you made that I hadn’t seen.

Ring 6 said:

That’s not what you said, you said the players have a right within the cba to renegotiate the split if revenue decreases. They can always strike.

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That's not what I said. I said "it specifically calls for both sides to negotiate in the event that revenue falls year-over-year."

It’s economics. You cannot convince me that owners would prefer to pay an extra billion dollars that they can’t afford over and above what they agreed to, because it’s just too hard to cut players you can’t afford and then resign them for pennies on the dollar so they can afford them.
And where is this billion supposed to come from? The owners will almost surely lose money this year.

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And you can't convince me that (A) the players will just accept it and move on in future years as if nothing ever happened or (B) that the owners are a monolith who all view this exactly the way you describe.

Hell, if both sides want, not only can they borrow cap room from future cap years, both sides could agree to have some of the resulting salary be deferred to future years. They've agreed to postpone CBA-mandated Performance Based Pool payments (~$4M/team/year) for multiple years in the past.

Ross12 said:

Puts a team like NE in an interesting spot. Will have cap flexibility and an ability to pay a little more for priority FAs as opposed to many other teams who will have to make many cuts just to get to a safe zone and may still be strapped for space and unable to extend much.

For a good player who wants to take that 1 year deal, doing so for $3m in NE with Belichick will look a lot more appealing than doing it for $1.5m with many other lesser-known teams. Get paid more, play with a winning coach and organization, play for a team that gets a lot of eyes on it. Win-win-win.

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Belichick majored in economics at Wesleyan, yet another advantage he has over his rivals.

ctpatsfan77 said:

That's not what I said. I said "it specifically calls for both sides to negotiate in the event that revenue falls year-over-year."

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And that is still totally different than what you are saying now.
But maybe I am mistaken, just direct me to the part of the cba that requires a renegotiation if revenue falls.

And you can't convince me that (A) the players will just accept it and move on in future years as if nothing ever happened or (B) that the owners are a monolith who all view this exactly the way you describe.

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The players have no choice, it’s the cba they agreed to.
Which owners do you expect to want to lose 80 million on revenue and then pay the players 73% of the revenue that’s lost? Which owners are in this to lose money?

Hell, if both sides want, not only can they borrow cap room from future cap years, both sides could agree to have some of the resulting salary be deferred to future years. They've agreed to postpone CBA-mandated Performance Based Pool payments (~$4M/team/year) for multiple years in the past.

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It’s not cap room that’s the issue it’s payroll.
Do you think the packers will agree to losing $70,000,000 because they will get a cap rebate in the future?
In fact they are going to lose 70,000,000 this year and you are saying they should be fine with paying 40,000,000 more in 2021 than the cba says? Where is it coming from?

Ring 6 said:

Didn’t see this so I will rapid before moving on.
Owners bargain collectively. 40 mill per team is about 1.3 billion.
His will they recover it?
To recover 1.3 bill over 5 years will probably require almost 2 bill of reductions to account for the time value of money.

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Where the heck did you learn math? UMass?

If every team borrowed $40 million against the cap, at 5% cost of money, they would pay it down in 5 years at $9.25 million per team.

That means the league as a whole would borrow $1.28 billion and repay $1.48 billion. Not even remotely close to your "almost 2 billion of reductions".

Ring 6 said:

Do you really believe players will agree to give back 40-50% more than they get due to this.

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Neither the owners as a group nor the players as a group lose a penny according to my idea above and beyond what they've lost due to 2020's revenue shortfall.

Ring 6 said:

You also haven’t put any thought at all to his owners can pay that extra billion when their revenues are decreased by 2 billion. (Whatever the cap reduction is the revenue reduction is double).

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The NFL has been making money hand over fist for decades now. They could afford it.

Ring 6 said:

So to summarize you want the nfl to do the following.
The “norm” is about 6.4 billion in revenue of which the owners pay 3.2 billion in player payroll. They feel that number is profitable enough for them. That leaves 3.2 bill for all of their expenses and whatever profit they make.

now when their revenues fall to 4.4 billion, under a cba that says that would result in payrolls falling to 2.2, so that their 3.2 bill left for expense and profit only falls by 35% to 2.2 bill, you expect them to keep payrolls the same so that they remaining revenue after payroll drops by 63% to 1.2 billion.

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Your summary - like your analogy - is another epic fail. It's hilarious how you completely leave out the part when the owners get all that money back in future years. That's totally the key part of my argument.

Let's assume 2020 has no fans, and use projected salary cap amounts for 2021 and all subsequent years. The NFL has 2 choices for salary caps from 2021 to 2026 (numbers in millions of dollars per team):

(A) $140, $220, $230, $240, $250, $260
(B) $180, $211, $221, $231, $241, $251

Both options cost owners the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.
Both options players (as a group) receive the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

Option (A) creates a free agent frenzy that we've never seen before, shifting control to the players.
Option (B) creates roster stability and gives management far more control.

Ring 6 said:

That’s not what you said, you said the players have a right within the cba to renegotiate the split if revenue decreases. They can always strike.

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No, genius, they can't. Strikes are forbidden under both the old CBA (ending after 2020) and also the new CBA which has already been ratified.

If the NFLPA went on strike, it would be financial suicide. They would be legally liable for all financial damages suffered by ownership.

XLIX said:

Where the heck did you learn math? UMass?

If every team borrowed $40 million against the cap, at 5% cost of money, they would pay it down in 5 years at $9.25 million per team.

That means the league as a whole would borrow $1.28 billion and repay $1.48 billion. Not even remotely close to your "almost 2 billion of reductions".

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you need to read.
If the cap goes down by 40 mill per team that means revenue went down by 80 million per team with is over 2.5 BILLION
Good luck thinking that owners who just lost 2.5 billion are going to take the whole payroll hit, when they have a cba that says they don’t have to, in return for 5% more.
The packers will be happy to lose 70,000,000, let the players lose nothing, then make it up 10,000,000 a year?
Why would they do that?

Neither the owners as a group nor the players as a group lose a penny according to my idea above and beyond what they've lost due to 2020's revenue shortfall.

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You are asking the owners to loan the players every penny if their share of the hit in return fir future cap reductions, coming off a season where they list their shirts.
Why would they do that?

The NFL has been making money hand over fist for decades now. They could afford it.

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No they can’t. They are going to lose their shirts in 2020.

Your summary - like your analogy - is another epic fail. It's hilarious how you completely leave out the part when the owners get all that money back in future years. That's totally the key part of my argument.

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Why would they give it away today to get it back in the future? There is no gain for them. Just as the players won’t accept future reductions on more than a dollar for dollar basis. Why would they?

Let's assume 2020 has no fans, and use projected salary cap amounts for 2021 and all subsequent years. The NFL has 2 choices for salary caps from 2021 to 2026 (numbers in millions of dollars per team):

(A) $140, $220, $230, $240, $250, $260
(B) $180, $211, $221, $231, $241, $251

Both options cost owners the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

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If you owned a business that had a payroll cost of 50% and your revenues dropped by 25% and you are now losing money, are you willing to increase your payroll cost to 73% because your employees tell you they won’t take raises for 5 years?
Your plan is horrible for owners and pretending they get made whole doesn’t make it true.
There are a few facts here. based upon the assumption that the cap goes down 40 mill
1) revenues go down 80 mill per team 2.5 bill for the league
2) the collective bargaining agreement states that the players receive roughly 50% of revenue
3) this would mean, just as they share revenue, they share the loss of revenue.
4) most nfl teams would lose a lot of money, as there is no chance that they are operating at a 25% profit margin with 50% payroll cost, just to players.


Yoir suggestion is that despite losing money, the owners will willingly over pay players so players suffer no financial consequence and the owners bear all of it, and it’s all good because they will get it back someday in the future.

Why would owners give away so much to get back nothing?

Both options players (as a group) receive the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

Option (A) creates a free agent frenzy that we've never seen before, shifting control to the players.
Option (B) creates roster stability and gives management far more control.

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Option A created pay cuts to get payroll in line with revenue.
Option B is knowing you need to and can cut labor costs but just decide money isn’t what it’s about.

There is no way in earth any owner would go for this.

They stand, in this example to lose 2.5 BILLION in revenue. They aren’t giving out gifts after that.

XLIX said:

No, genius, they can't. Strikes are forbidden under both the old CBA (ending after 2020) and also the new CBA which has already been ratified.

If the NFLPA went on strike, it would be financial suicide. They would be legally liable for all financial damages suffered by ownership.

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It’s still their only option.

Ring 6 said:

It benefits the owners who will have lost billions in revenue.

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I strongly disagree.

A large decrease in cap would likely reduce the value of almost all teams, since so many veterans would be cut, and the games made much poorer for it.

Ring 6 said:

It’s still their only option.

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For someone who has *twice* promised us he was done here, you just can’t help yourself...

Your ideas are moronic. The fact that you don’t understand the consequences of the players striking when they agreed in the CBA not to only proves it.

There are 2 salary cap options in our hypothetical:

(A): $140, $220, $230, $240, $250, $260
(B) $180, $211, $221, $231, $241, $251

Both options cost owners the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.
Both options players (as a group) receive the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

Option (A) creates a free agent frenzy that we've never seen before, shifting control to the players.
Option (B) creates roster stability and gives management far more control.

mgteich said:

I strongly disagree.

A large decrease in cap would likely reduce the value of almost all teams, since so many veterans would be cut, and the games made much poorer for it.

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The players cut would be resigned to fit under the cap.

Do you feel bankruptcy would increase the value of the franchises?

XLIX said:

For someone who has *twice* promised us he was done here, you just can’t help yourself...

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No because you keep responding like this.

Your ideas are moronic. The fact that you don’t understand the consequences of the players striking when they agreed in the CBA not to only proves it.

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I did not say there weren’t consequences, I said they are obligated to the cba and their only recourse would be to walk out.

There are 2 salary cap options in our hypothetical:

(A): $140, $220, $230, $240, $250, $260
(B) $180, $211, $221, $231, $241, $251

Both options cost owners the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

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You keep saying this like it’s a fact and it’s not.
There is absolutely no way that owners who just lost 2.5 billion in revenue are willing to absorb 1.3 billion more by agreeing to pay more than they are obligated to in order to get a break of 280 million for 5 years. You are asking the Packers for example, to go from 8 mill in profit to 70 mill in lost, then pay 40 mill more than they have to for labor cost so that they can make an extra 9 million for 5 years in the future. 40,000,000 today is worth a ton more than 45,000,000 spread over 5 years to an organization that just finished 70,000,000 in the hole.
Where do you expect them to get it from?

Both options players (as a group) receive the exact same amount in the long run after adjusting for cost of money.

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the players and owners both receive the same thing under the CBA.

Option (A) creates a free agent frenzy that we've never seen before, shifting control to the players.

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Cutting overpaid players and offering them less money dies not shift power to the players.

Option (B) creates roster stability and gives management far more control.

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Not in any way at all. Players can never gain more control under a cap because a higher percentage of them are free agents. There are still the exact same number of jobs and exact same money to spend.

You have argued with a slew of logical fallacies. As I said I see no point in continuing this because either can’t or don’t want to understand that the owners would laugh at your proposal that they take 100% of the hit as some sort of welfare payment to players in return for a minimal reduction in future caps, then after they stopped laughing they would explain to you that your plan would bankrupt their franchises.

Miguel said:

Recommend listening to the first 30 minutes of this podcast
OTC Podcast: Are the 49ers the Best at Contracts? | Over the Cap
since Jason Fitzgerald talks about the 2021 cap.

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Thank you; a really good discussion.

Ring 6 said:

I did not say there weren’t consequences, I said they are obligated to the cba and their only recourse would be to walk out.

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You're not even making sense now. They are obligated to the CBA and, as such, are not allowed to strike. The CBA's - both the old one expiring after this season and the new one already agreed to - has a mutual no strike/no lockout clause.

You make no sense whatsoever saying the players are obligated to the CBA but can still strike/walk out.

Ring 6 said:

You keep saying this like it’s a fact and it’s not.
There is absolutely no way that owners who just lost 2.5 billion in revenue are willing to absorb 1.3 billion more by agreeing to pay more than they are obligated to in order to get a break of 280 million for 5 years.

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WTF are you talking about? Did you even read what I wrote? They would pay an extra $40 million per team in 2021, and then get a break of $9 million per team per year for 5 years.

Or, if you look at the league as a whole, they pay an extra $1.3 billion up front to get a grand total break of $1.5 billion over the next 5 years.

Ring 6 said:

As I said I see no point in continuing this

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LOL!! You said "you see no point in continuing this" about 9 posts ago. You just can't help yourself.

XLIX said:

You're not even making sense now. They are obligated to the CBA and, as such, are not allowed to strike. The CBA's - both the old one expiring after this season and the new one already agreed to - has a mutual no strike/no lockout clause.

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thid is totally out of context and had nothing to do with the discussion

You make no sense whatsoever saying the players are obligated to the CBA but can still strike/walk out.
WTF are you talking about? Did you even read what I wrote? They would pay an extra $40 million per team in 2021, and then get a break of $9 million per team per year for 5 years.

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wow. 40,000,000 x 32= 1.3 bill
9000000 x 32 = 288 mill

we can just end it here.

if you believe that owners who lose 2.5 billion in revenue will happily pay players 1.3 billion more than they collectively bargained for TODAY in order to get 1.44 billion in reductions over 5 years you literally have no concept of finance.
Just answer that you really think the owners would sit in a room and say hey revenue is down 2.5 billion, and we are losing money. Luckily the cap helps us by reducing costs by 1.3 billion. But some teams are over the cap and sold have to cut players. So let’s call the union and tell them we will pay the 1.3 billion more than we agreed to, so 100% of the loss in revenue falls on us. Let’s pay the players 50% of the revenue we never got.
In order to do that we can take the 1.3 billion we are literally gifting to them and we can get 2.25% interest on it.
So let’s band together. We were only 2 billion in the hole this year. Let’s donate 1.3 billion more to the players. Sure we will have to borrow it because we are all broke, but look at that whopping 2.25% interest rate. If the league survives 5 years we made 2.25% on our investment and after all that’s what we got into this for.
Just tell me you think owners will agree to that and you will prove to me there is no reason to have a discussion.

Or, if you look at the league as a whole, they pay an extra $1.3 billion up front to get a grand total break of $1.5 billion over the next 5 years.
LOL!! You said "you see no point in continuing this" about 9 posts ago. You just can't help yourself.

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You keep saying stupid things and drawing me back.
The packers lose 70 mill and pony up another 40 mill (Over and above the labor agreement they negotiated) that they don’t have to, probably going broke so the can make back and extra 5 million spread over 5 years which due to inflation is a loss.
Surely you can’t think that is good business.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Neither side benefits, in the long run, from a capocalypse [sic].

My guess is that both sides will work out a deal that "borrows" cap increases from future years. For example, the 2020 cap is $198.2M/team. The two sides might agree to something like this:

• Let's say the calculated value for the 2021 cap, based on revenues, is $162.2M. That's $36M beneath the 2020 value. [I'm picking this number arbitrarily to make the math a bit easier.]
• Both sides agree that the 2021 cap, the latter value notwithstanding, shall be $198.2M (the same as 2020). To do this, each team "borrows" $36M against future revenues.
• To compensate, the caps in 2022 to 2030 (nine seasons) are reduced by $36M/9 = $4M/year below what they would have otherwise been.

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That seems more generous than I expect from the owners. It is like giving a 1 bill loan over 9 years interest free. I think they balance it out some The league gets 40% of its revenue from ticket, concessions, parking etc. If 1/2 the games are missed the players share of that you say is 36 mill which I certainly agree. I would think a smoothing of 2 years is much more likely, remember the owners goal is to depress wages, and the better teams will be hurt more which aids in competitive parity.

mgteich said:

I strongly disagree.

A large decrease in cap would likely reduce the value of almost all teams, since so many veterans would be cut, and the games made much poorer for it.

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Why would the games be less viewable. The league has been striving for parity for as long as I can remember (Babe Parelli). The better teams on average would be harder hit. How does Dallas, Rams and KC keep the team together.

patman52 said:

That seems more generous than I expect from the owners. It is like giving a 1 bill loan over 9 years interest free. I think they balance it out some The league gets 40% of its revenue from ticket, concessions, parking etc. If 1/2 the games are missed the players share of that you say is 36 mill which I certainly agree. I would think a smoothing of 2 years is much more likely, remember the owners goal is to depress wages, and the better teams will be hurt more which aids in competitive parity.

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The bolded part can’t be overstated.
People are suggesting that after losing 2.5 billion in revenue in 2020 the owners will INCREASE wages by 1.3 billion in 2021 because owners think it would be horrible that they have to cut players and bring them back for less, and they will raise payroll cost by 1.3 billion rather than have players take paycuts corresponding to the revenue cuts.