The NFL and the NFLPA (now a trade association and not a union) will return to the negotiating table next week, per a mandate from the U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, who is hearing the player’s class-action antitrust lawsuit against the league.
There is hope for a 2011 season through this forced mediation.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press and ESPN reporters show that the league will come to the bargaining table with a reasonable proposal, perhaps a starting point for an eventual agreement.
The league is proposing to cut and cap first-round pay, which has dramatically inflated the last few years — you can blame owners for that.
Instead of simply pocketing all the savings from the salary cap structure, the league is compromising (that’s right, compromising).
By capping and cutting rookie bonuses and salaries, it will free more than a billion dollars over five years to teams across the league. Much of that money, it can be assumed, will shift to veteran’s salaries and benefits.
The vast majority of the league is comprised of players who receive playing time and contribute, but whose salaries pale in comparison to just the signing bonuses of rookies, many of whom are permanently glued to the bench behind those veterans.
Let’s remember that this “lock-out” was initiated by the owners, who in retrospect didn’t like the last collective bargaining agreement — just ‘cuz. You can’t call them sore losers because they, uh, made an agreement worse than the kid picking up the ball and running home.
They lost. They didn’t get enough. They planned and plotted for years on how they’d recoup what was ‘rightfully theirs’ in the next agreement.
Perhaps the league is beginning to realize how the current narrative paints them: truthfully. This one isn’t about greedy players.
Perhaps the league realizes that its customers side with the players, and that the owners, with their taxpayer-subsidized stadiums/increasing revenues, have no chance at winning in the public arena, or perhaps more appropriately, coming out even.
Perhaps the league even realizes that maybe some of the concessions already made by players will have to be enough this time, in this climate.
Players have fought tooth and nail over the years for disability and pension pay, and it seems for the sake of an agreement the league is acknowledging that. If there was ever a segment of the NFL system who gets the shaft it is non-star NFL veterans.
Not even the most cocksure NFL agent would approve of, in retrospect, the deals shelled out to JaMarcus Russell ($32 million guaranteed), Joey Harrington ($13.9 guaranteed) and David Carr ($15 million guaranteed).
So as long as the total revenue pie for the players isn’t cut (much), capping the ridiculous contracts and bonuses for rookies is something both sides can agree on.
It’s a starting point.
Reach the columnist at nick.ruland@asu.edu
