Post#16 » by Icness » Wed May 21, 2008 1:52 pm
Uncapping the salaries will not have all that much of an impact. The players are alloted 60% of total league revenues--the NFLPA will not go lower than that and the owners won't go more than .5% higher. So league-wide, salaries are in effect capped. Some teams already spend a lot more than others and circumvent the cap with all sorts of maneuvering like front- or back-loaded signing bonuses, roster bonuses, non-guaranteed $$, etc. In short, if the Skins want to sign lots of big-ticket free agents to outrageous money, they pretty much already could.
The issue is with the lower-revenue clubs. I can absolutely guarantee you those clubs will not agree to any new CBA without some form of revenue sharing, and that more streams of revenue will get pooled into that than what currently constitutes league-wide revenue--think stadium naming rights, PSL sales, individual team contracts with local adverts, etc.
There are enough teams that fit into that boat (PIT, BUF, STL, GB, CIN, KC, ATL--which makes less $$ than any other team most years, NO, JAX, OAK, MIN) to make for a powerful voting bloc. And the NFLPA will certainly support their position, because that will help the rank-and-file veterans earn more $$ and have more security. So I wouldn't worry all that much about losing competitive balance that exists today. Uncapping it just puts more pressure on GMs to make better decisions. Don't forget teams will have more ability to retain their own FAs (each team will get two franchise tags and two transition tags for the 2010 season) and contract length goes from 4 years to 6 years before free agency.
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how good you look playing the game
