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NFL labor talks

Frayed Knot Mar 06 2006 12:05 AM

Pennington has re-signed with the Jets despite all the uncertainty. In the meantime they keep pushing their deadline/FA season back -- and just pushed it back another 3 days. Personally, I'm rooting for chaos, it could be fun to watch. It would be interesting to see what happens in that league w/o a hard cap and a soft union although I have little faith in the players' union getting a stiff backbone anytime soon. I also wouldn't mind hearing someone from the media who will quit acting as a public relations flack for the league and admit what the salary cap is; a device for ensuring really, really large profits for the owners and has little to do with the so-called parity which exists in the league. a) actual results show that they DON'T have more parity than baseball despite the hallowed hard cap b) it's the HUGE central revenue source (TV money) that's mostly responsible for the lack of "runaway" franchises. But now that new sources of revenue are growing, some individual owners not only don't want to share them with the other teams but also don't want them to count towards the pie that the players get a piece of.

cooby Mar 07 2006 01:12 PM

Party time in Pittsburgh: ]PITTSBURGH (AP) - Tommy Maddox, who lost his starting quarterback's job shortly after Ben Roethlisberger's arrival in 2004, was released Friday by the Pittsburgh Steelers in a long-expected salary cap move

Edgy DC Mar 07 2006 01:25 PM

I don't like the notion that parity is, by definition, something good. Sometimes the same guys controlling the marketplace is a sign of anti-competitive behavior. Other times, organizations taking turns on top is a sign of anti-competitive behavior. I disagree, however, that baseball has been shown to have as much parity as football. It depends on how you define it. Large market teams continue, on average, their tendency to outspend and outperform their small-market brethren, despite the Mets best efforts to subvert the pattern.

Nymr83 Mar 07 2006 01:52 PM

Parity in baseball might exist as much as in football if you're looking solely at "how many teams have won it all in the past ten years"....but if you're looking at other factors like year to year turnover in division winners/playoff participants i'd think football has the edge. I'd also put forward the argument that parity is in the eye of the beholder, in this case the fans. As long as the fans believe that their team can compete you've done your job in establishing "parity." On the other hand, if the fans of half the teams enter the season thinking "we can't make the playoffs" you haven't done your job.

seawolf17 Mar 07 2006 02:19 PM

Edgy DC wrote: Large market teams continue, on average, their tendency to outspend and outperform their small-market brethren, despite the Mets best efforts to subvert the pattern. And the Dodgers and the Orioles.

Willets Point Mar 07 2006 02:30 PM

Seawolf said what I was thinking. You could probably throw the Rangers in there too.

Frayed Knot Mar 07 2006 03:37 PM

Here's my data for arguing that parity is no more prevelant in football than in baseball: Not just the 6 winners in last 6 years stat, but also: Last 20 years: Different Champions: MLB = 14, NFL = 10 (NBA = 6 !! btw) Different Finalists: MLB = 20, NFL = 20 Diff franchises not reaching at least a League/Conf final: MLB = 5, NFL = 4 Last 10 seasons stats are also very similar: MLB = 6, NFL = 7 MLB = 11, NFL = 13 MLB = 13, NFL = 13 So if the NFL system does indeed promote "parity", it's certainly not showing up in the results. Also consider that; - a similar number in the NFL means a smaller pct since there are more teams in football - and mostly ... the NFL has an extremely more permissive playoff system (50% more teams) which adds to the odds of a team advancing in post-season: The Steelers, for instance, are a "new" SB Champ this year (would not have made the 'last 10' or 'last 20' list) who would not even have been in the mix if not for the NFL's triple Wild Card system. And my main point about this whole thing is that when the media types who simply repeat the mantra that 'football is so balanced while the same teams win every year in baseball' - as if checking on the facts is too tough for them contemplate - are acting as pr-flacks for the NFL and their attempt to portray the cap system as the reason. The purpose of the cap is to keep costs under control plus the profits at a guaranteed level and therefore the franchise values high. I certainly don't blame the NFL for wanting to keep things status quo, I just wish someone whose job it is to supposedly report on this stuff would actually grow a set and say so.

Elster88 Mar 07 2006 03:41 PM

Here we go again. Pick ten crappy teams in the NFL, then ten in MLB. Which league will have a higher percentage of those teams make the playoffs in the next ten years? The point is a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. There is one in the NFL. There is not in MLB.

Frayed Knot Mar 07 2006 03:46 PM

"Pick ten crappy teams in the NFL, then ten in MLB. Which league will have a higher percentage of those teams make the playoffs in the next ten years?" Well if making the playoffs is the only criteria than the NFL wins simply because they take 50% more playoff teams. And if you think the results would be lopsided even with an identical playoff system then you should explain why you think the next 10 years will be different than the previous 10 years or the 10 before that.

Elster88 Mar 07 2006 03:52 PM

You're missing the whole point. Teams like the Royals, Pirates, Reds, etc. who will not be making the playoffs any time soon. You can't say the same about teams in football. If you disagree, let's each take a certain number of teams and put a wager on it. My guess is that you'd rather take the MLB teams if that wager were to be made, even if you had to take 50% more teams to make up for the disparity in number of playoff teams Additonally, teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc. go into each season with more resources than most other teams. You can't say the same in football. I'm not sure how anyone can argue that the above is false.

Edgy DC Mar 07 2006 04:07 PM

A fair study would divide the teams in both leagues into three categories --- small-, medium-, and large-market --- based on the hometown population divided by the number of teams sharing the region. Calculate the net winning percentage of teams in each of these categories over ten years and I'd expect that, in baseball, the teams in the large-market group would more likely have the best winning percentage (and the small-market group have the worst) than in football. Acknowledging that many many other factors feed into a team's spending competitiveness (such as their success in squeezing a new revenue-generating staidum out of their locality), does anyone doubt the probability of this outcome? And I'm certainly no supporter of an NFL-style salary cap in either league.

Frayed Knot Mar 07 2006 04:12 PM

Hey, one league's KC Royals is another league's Ariz Cardinals ]...teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc. go into each season with more resources than most other teams. You can't say the same in football. I'm not saying that resources are equal. In fact, in my first post here, I specifically said that it's the equalization of resources - NOT the much lauded hard salary cap - that's the biggest factor in maintaining what parity football enjoys. The cap is there to protect profits. I just wish that the media who for the most part championed the cause of baseball players in their labor struggles (and rightfully so IMO) would quit carrying the water for the NFL owners and attributing "successes" to the cap that don't bear up to scrutiny.

metirish Mar 08 2006 10:55 PM

They have a deal..from the Times.. ] By CLIFTON BROWN Published: March 9, 2006 GRAPEVINE, Tex., March 8 — N.F.L. owners voted Wednesday night to accept a players union proposal to extend the collective bargaining agreement by six years, ensuring labor peace in the league through the 2011 season. The vote was 30 to 2, with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills voting against it. The deal put an end to a labor dispute that had threatened the stability of the N.F.L., which is enjoying its greatest period of prosperity and has not had a strike since 1987. Without an extension agreement, the league faced playing the 2007 season without a salary cap and the possibility of a strike in 2008. The agreement raises the salary cap to $102 million, from $94.5 million, in 2006, and to $109 million in 2007. The higher cap will let many teams avoid cutting high-priced veterans, and some will also have more money to offer free agents when the free-agent signing period begins. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said free agency would begin either Friday or Saturday.

Nymr83 Mar 08 2006 11:03 PM

glad this is done with and even gladder that they did it for 6 years now rather than take a short-sighted approach that would just have this all ack in the media again in a couple of years

Frayed Knot Mar 08 2006 11:58 PM

Damn! I was curious to see what a non-capped year would look like.