A new collective bargaining agreement could be coming soon, which means the godforsaken lockout, court cases and he said/she said bullshit that has been this NFL offseason might finally be over.
Commissioner Roger Goodell presented the details of the proposed labor agreement to the owners on Tuesday. Although no vote was taken, the details make it clear we’re close to concluding this mess.
Here are the particulars.
- Players will get 48 percent of all revenue. They received around 60 percent of total revenue in the previous agreement, but that did not include a $1 billion expense credit.
- Teams will be required to spend close to 100 percent of the salary cap.
- There will be a rookie wage scale, but the details are still being worked out.
- Players will be eligible for unrestricted free agency after four years.
- The league will play a 16-game Thursday night schedule beginning in 2012.
- Owners will still be eligible for expense credits to fund new stadiums.
- Retired players will get improved benefits and health care.
Once the owners and players reach an agreement in principle, each side will take the agreement to their constituencies for a vote. The two sides are expected to resume negotiations on Wednesday.
As far as the Green Bay Packers are concerned, they now know which free agents will be unrestricted when the league year begins. Those players are linebacker Matt Wilhelm, defensive end [intlink id=”163″ type=”category”]Cullen Jenkins[/intlink], safeties [intlink id=”188″ type=”category”]Atari Bigby[/intlink] and [intlink id=”375″ type=”category”]Anthony Smith[/intlink], guards [intlink id=”94″ type=”category”]Daryn Colledge[/intlink] and [intlink id=”91″ type=”category”]Jason Spitz[/intlink], fullbacks [intlink id=”251″ type=”category”]John Kuhn[/intlink] and [intlink id=”965″ type=”category”]Korey Hall[/intlink], running back [intlink id=”77″ type=”category”]Brandon Jackson[/intlink], receiver [intlink id=”204″ type=”category”]James Jones[/intlink] and kicker [intlink id=”152″ type=”category”]Mason Crosby[/intlink].
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That all sounds good to me. A huge detail is the salary floor they are instating, forcing teams to spend a certain amount of money. That will stop teams like the Bengals from spending no money and then sitting back and making a profit off of the shared TV revenue. That will mean more money in the pot for players even while they give some revenue back to the owners.
As far as the Packer free agents go, they can all take the train except for Kuhn and Crosby. For the rest, enjoy your Super Bowl rings and the paychecks you’ll get elsewhere. Adios.
I’d like to see them keep College around as well.
You mean the guy with the false start on 3rd and 5 in the last 5 minutes of the Super Bowl?? We could do without him.