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Something I've thought about for a while is whether or not it would be good for the league to offer teams a cap discount for re-signing or extending their own players. While I think the salary cap and free agency are overall good concepts, I've always wished that teams would keep their own players for longer. The Patriots have thirteen players remaining from Super Bowl 49, which was a mere four seasons ago: Brady, White, Edelman, Slater, Gronkowski, Cannon, Hightower, Chung, Ebner, Harmon, McCourty, Allen, and Gostkowski.. That's less than 25% of the 53-man roster.
I've always enjoyed continuity in sports; it's great to have some interesting shakeups in the offseason with some major free agent signings and some journeymen changing teams, but I've always thought it would be better to have more guys who spend their career - or a large portion of it - with the same franchise. We hear about the pre-free agency sports leagues from our parents generation and part of that is appealing as a fan.
As a compromise, what if the league allowed a 10% cap discount (just throwing out a number, could be different) to a team who is either extending a player or re-signing them in free agency (they'd need to have played for them last.) For example, if the Patriots had matched the Dolphins offer to Amendola, they would still be actually paying him the same amount, but there would be a 10% discount on books when it comes to the salary cap.
I'm sure the owners would absolutely hate the idea since it would likely cost them more money, but I'm curious if people like this concept, in a perfect world (where Roger Goodell was never born and Archie Manning had a vasectomy at age 20).
I've always enjoyed continuity in sports; it's great to have some interesting shakeups in the offseason with some major free agent signings and some journeymen changing teams, but I've always thought it would be better to have more guys who spend their career - or a large portion of it - with the same franchise. We hear about the pre-free agency sports leagues from our parents generation and part of that is appealing as a fan.
As a compromise, what if the league allowed a 10% cap discount (just throwing out a number, could be different) to a team who is either extending a player or re-signing them in free agency (they'd need to have played for them last.) For example, if the Patriots had matched the Dolphins offer to Amendola, they would still be actually paying him the same amount, but there would be a 10% discount on books when it comes to the salary cap.
I'm sure the owners would absolutely hate the idea since it would likely cost them more money, but I'm curious if people like this concept, in a perfect world (where Roger Goodell was never born and Archie Manning had a vasectomy at age 20).