Is 2010 the unfloored year?

Thank you for a plan talk explanation

First, you are extending an uncapped YEAR analysis to an uncapped SYSTEM analysis. Very different things. Owners may restrain spending for a year to gain leverage for CBA negotiations, but if the cap disappeared, the incentive to coordinate vanishes ... which is why every major sports league would institute a cap if owners had their way.

Second, if NFL owners are so desperate for an unfloored year, why have zero owners, to my knowledge, ever even come close to the floor under the current rules? They can spend less right now ... but don't. They are almost all much closer to the cap than the floor, and many are above the nominal cap by a significant amount.

The reality is that this whole unfloored thing as a legitimate issue is just crazy-talk by management shills.

Completely agree. I gotta believe that, if anything, this is going to be a race to the bottom, since certain revenue streams, like TV money, are going to remain constant even if you are fielding an inferior team.

But you also have to reconsider the "assumption" that serious cost-cutting from the current paradigm is going to lead to inferior teams. In an "unfloored" year, where teams are going to be able to jettison unfavorable contracts without consequences, where are all the players under those contracts going to go? You gotta believe that all the teams are going to dump some underperforming contracts on the market, and a few teams are going to seriously dump even performing contracts. The current assumption is that there will be teams that will try to "buy a championship" by picking up those players. This may be true, but in the current environment it seems likely that there will be alot more "dumping" teams than "buying" teams.

Add into the equation that the top eight teams are precluded from buying a free agent until they have lost one of their own, and you can see a situation where player supply is GREATLY outstripping demand. Even if a team is in "buying" mode, the supply is going to be so great that those teams won't need to break the bank to get good players.

Finally, teams are going to be able to preserve the performing "core" of their teams because of the four to six year requirement for unrestricted free agency. Let's face it, the salary numbers for restricted free agents are CHEAP in comparison to the numbers a comparable player usually gets in UFA. If a team gets the first six years of all of its players on relatively friendly economic terms, then where is the need for a team to spend big on free agents. Relatively more roster spots are going to be locked up with exclusive rights players, meaning fewer roster spots to fill with free agents.

The players definitely got hoodwinked on the promise of an uncapped year. Given the restrictions in the CBA, there was never much hope that it would be the Bonanza they were promised. Throw in the fact that the uncapped year will coincide with a time when many owners are under severe economic constraints, and we have a race to the bottom for sure.

First, you are extending an uncapped YEAR analysis to an uncapped SYSTEM analysis. Very different things. Owners may restrain spending for a year to gain leverage for CBA negotiations, but if the cap disappeared, the incentive to coordinate vanishes ... which is why every major sports league would institute a cap if owners had their way.

Second, if NFL owners are so desperate for an unfloored year, why have zero owners, to my knowledge, ever even come close to the floor under the current rules? They can spend less right now ... but don't. They are almost all much closer to the cap than the floor, and many are above the nominal cap by a significant amount.

The reality is that this whole unfloored thing as a legitimate issue is just crazy-talk by management shills.

And what do you do for the NFLPA, Sam?

I do realize that this post may actually detail an argument management is sure to make but at least on this issue they have something of a point, that the current cap system rises not on the success of everyone as it did under the old CBA but on a minority which drives the market upward under the 2006 CBA. The NFLPA's solution is more revenue sharing and the wealthy minority of owners dislike that. But all I am describing is the thought that five years ago the prospect of going uncapped terrified most owners with smaller markets. Now I am not so sure any are really afraid. Whether that is Sam says a one year phenomenon because all the big spenders are coincidentally out of the game or a broader trend which Scot asserts, I am not sure. But at least today in the NFL and NHL there would be significant support from owners for getting rid of a revenue-based cap system entirely provided no salary arbitration or minumum guarantee took its place.

I really like the tremendous thought the commenters have given this issue and I am kind of flattered that the term management shill might be applied to me even tangentially.

@ Sam - none of them come close to the "floor" in the CBA because they can spend "cap dollars" that do not reflect "real dollars." Thus, a team can have large contracts on the books in terms of averaged bonus over a large number of years, but never intend to pay 30-70% of the contract's "Value." (take Haynesworth, for example--his $100M deal will likely never pay out more than $45M in actual dollars...but it took the 'Skins right up near the cap value.)

The NFL owners are no different than major corporations right now who have been cutting payroll. Sure, they have to field a roster of 53 + 8PS players, but without a CBA, they can do it cheaper, which is effectively the same as cutting payroll costs. Just imagine how happy teams will be to release Russell or Gholston or some of the other major busts--without cap ramifications taht might have kept them paying real dollars for fear of tying up their cap dollars. It's not rocket science--at least 75% of NFL owners/GMs have to be thrilled at the thought of getting out from under the CBA so they can start over...plus, with a rich depth in the 2010 draft as underclassmen fear a rookie salary scale in a future CBA, they'll be able to restock their rosters even cheaper than ever!

One of your best Jack.

World's Largest House belongs to Sultan of Brunei and is a little more than 2 million square feet. Shanahan's barely qualifies as a tool shed.

Very good article.
Thanks

Don't work for the NFLPA, no ties to the business of professional sports at all. I just think the lack of a floor is the most overplayed fact out there. It just isn't that relevant, other than for theatrics, because nobody is really constrained by the floor. It just doesn't matter. (Virtually nobody is constrained by the cap either, which is why this whole looming labor battle is really kind of silly, but that is a side point. Players are making what they should make. Fix the details of the mechanics, but the current cap and floor level look pretty good, actually.)

If it is a problem that the current system is driven by a successful minority rather than the success of everyone, please explain why the players should not participate in the success of the minority, just the success of the majority? Either the costs are as individualized as team revenues or the revenues are leveled like the costs: that may be the NFLPA's position, but it is a pretty logical one, I think. The top earning teams won't like that, of course, but I'm sure the top earning players don't like having their salaries restrained by a level cap. No doubt that the NFLPA would be thrilled to have an uncapped system, and let the best players hit FA and get wooed by an uncapped Washington/Dallas/Philly/New York/New England/et al. But if you want the level salary structure, fine, but you have to pay for it by not making a capped system such an inferior choice in terms of aggregate compensation to players that they have an incentive to hold out for no cap, the negotiations of which would start as an extension of the uncapped year system. And if you want to pay for it to make it not worth the NFLPA's time to hold out for keeping an uncapped system, you have to level the revenue playing field such that the have nots continue to spend most of the money that the haves would have spent in an uncapped system.

@Greg -- The ultimate cap hit for players exactly equals the cash paid. You are just talking about a timing issue. If they spend phony money now on the cap (and it isn't clear to me that they are for Haynesworth, but the Eagles are for Vick, for example), they would get a cap credit in the future when those phony dollars aren't paid. Further, the floor is only a cap convention anyway. Teams are well below the cap and well over the cap in any given year based on cash paid.

Also, to your point about getting out from the burdens of crappy contracts, you are talking about an excuse to spend more, not less. You are giving a team the right to spend too much on a bonus AND then sign new additional players at more money. Old guy cut + new guy > old guy. Yes, you get more return for your dollars on the first option, but it would be a bigger dollar investment. The good money-after-bad part of it just wouldn't be that big for the guys you mention because such a large portion of the money they continue to be paid was guaranteed anyway. Clearly that is something that will be addressed in the next CBA.

Finally, the NFL teams are very different than major corps that have been cutting payroll in that they have the full right to reduce it NOW but haven't (or could have during the off-season, at any rate). Why aren't all the hurting teams at $1 above the floor right now? Or even within $1 million? If cutting payroll more is that important, why haven't they done it? And I will tell you, it isn't because of the Jamarcus Russells of the world. You can cost save on other players who you can control the costs of. That they haven't tells me that they really aren't being affected by this crisis in any material way. The marginal return from improving on-the-field talent must exceed its floored cost, even now.