The ability of guys like Julius Peppers to cash in come March could be affected by forces other than the final eight
plan. With the union constantly banging the drum regarding a possible lockout in 2011, teams could choose not to hand out huge money in 2010.
Think about it for a second. Who has been talking about a lockout, the NFL or the NFLPA? The owners have expressed nothing publicly other than a desire to do a fair deal; the union has repeatedly proclaimed that a lockout is coming.
As a result, a league source tells us that some teams are beginning to prepare for the possibility of the inevitability of a lockout, in part by making free agency plans with the understanding that there might not be football in 2011.
Said the source, “The owners’ thinking is that if players are being told to save their money for a lockout, then owners should save their money, too. This is already evident in coaches’ contracts with some teams, where salary increases have been less than in previous years and where ‘lockout’ clauses provide owners with savings and an option to terminate the contracts. There have also been rumblings that a new round of layoffs is coming at the team and league levels. Next, owners will try to save money on player salaries.”
The source predicts that a claim of owner collusion is “almost certain.” The teams believe that such charges can be avoided based on evidence of reduced spending in all other areas of the business and the agreed-to removal of the salary floor in 2010.
Basically, then, the owners’ lockout fund will be bolstered not only by $4 billion in television money that will be paid regardless of whether there’s football in 2011 but also by any money that can be pocketed given the evaporation of the spending minimums.