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Published on 05/20/2008 at Tue May 20 11:33.
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NFL Owners Opt Out of Labor Deal

Posted Tue May 20th by

[Pat Bowlen]

NFL owners have agreed unanimously to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement. 2008 and 2009 should go off without a hitch, but 2010 will present the first uncapped year in the NFL in over a decade. The owners insist that, worst case scenario, 2011 would be the first year of labor stoppage.

In a statement released to the media and Player’s Union, the owners also made it clear they have no plans to let that happen. They will continue to negotiate between the players to find a balance that is more suited to their needs.

The players also have something at stake here – 2010 may seem to bring a pot of gold in the form of an uncapped year, but that’s only at face value. Dig deeper and you’ll see that the players have plenty to fear if that happens as well, including a 50% longer period before they can become a free agent, and less teams able to dip into the free agent pool. More on the subject via the terrific April Peter King article here.

No one likes to hear about labor disputes – it seems like only yesterday when Union Head Gene Upshaw was leaving some official-looking building declaring that the talks are off and we’re heading for an uncapped year – but expect this to take hold of the sports headlines for the next few years.

  • http://merlinofchaos.livejournal.com E. Halsey Miles

    My feeling is that this isn’t really a labor dispute. The teams have declared that the current CBA isn’t working, and they decided to opt out of it earlier rather than later, giving them a 2 year period for negotiating. Goodell commented that nothing is achieved in this world without a deadline, so now they have one. They probably need that entire 2 years to work out a deal so that 2010 isn’t an uncapped year.

    As I see it, the real problems are: 1) The NFLPA doesn’t necessarily agree that teams are really hurting because of the CBA. So there’s going to have to be some financial perusal to get the NFLPA to believe they’re not just being fed a line of baloney. 2) It’s really, really hard to give back something they already have, so something is going to have to give. It’ll be a slightly different position for the PA than usual.

    Lots of people were calling Gene Upshaw Goodell’s pet, but if that’s so, how did the NFL end up in a deal that is too player heavy? Y’gotta wonder.

  • AZ1BroncoFan

    Both owners and veteran players want to see the boat loads of money on 1st rounders reeled-in and distributed to those that have already proven themselves in the NFL. $72Mil to Matt Ryan from Boston College before one snap for the Falcons is whacked.

    Owners want to play 17 games apparently, with one less preseason one. For the same salary structure. Players likely will want to be paid since threat of injury is higher than the preseason game being replaced where they would have only played a fraction anyway.

    Owners want repaid from guys that dont play out their contract et cetera. It is probably healthy to do this now rather than in the middle of the season. The have some time to work on it

    There will be posturing and finally they will adjust some things and tweak some and keep on keepin-on without reinventing the wheel, in my occaisionally humble opinion.