The NFL is expected to play 2010 without a salary cap in place. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said that once that genie is out of the bottle, it will be “virtually impossible” to go back to a capped environment.
If Florio were here, he would write “Wow.”
It’s the first time Smith has used words that strong about the salary cap. Whether it’s rhetoric or not, the battle lines here are being drawn. According to Smith, the salary cap system as we know it may be done for good one month from now.
Why would it be “virtually impossible” to go back to a capped system? That is total rhetoric. It doesn’t even make sense.
Brilliant. Let’s just retract the league down to New York, Chicago and L.A.
Vomit.
They are going to kill the golden goose.
“DeMaurice Smith said that once that genie is out of the bottle, it will be “virtually impossible” to go back to a capped environment.”
Smith has just proved he is an idiot of epic proportions. Boy did the union make a huge huge mistake when they put him in charge.
Nothing more than posturing. What do you expect him to say? What you media types don’t understand, or do understand but refuse to acknowledge, is that you are nothing but a tool to be exploited by people with an agenda.
That would undermine the entire league.
I, for one, do not want to see a MLB-sized mess.
Goodbye NFL, it was nice knowing you while you were successful.
All these rich greedy bastards are going to kill football.
Hard to believe that they won’t figure out a way to get the cap back in place. That is one of the main things that makes the NFL the best pro league out there.
It would be a total disaster for the cap to go away for anything more than a year.
I’ll add to my previous comment:
Greed is depressing when it blinds the reality that everyone assumes they are fighting over an ever-existent pie. The truth is, if they do something so stupid as to have a work stoppage over money during or immediately following such an economic downturn, it will turn off so many people that they pie they thought they were fighting over will be miniscule in comparison to what they have now.
WAKE UP, GOODELL AND SMITH!
Lol. Yeah right. Ok players, no cap. Good luck with anything else you want to get from the owners. In exchange for no cap be prepared to accept:
- Reduced cut of total revenues
- 6-7 year rookie contracts
- No salary floor
- Multiple franchise tags per team
Have fun with all that.
And unions continue to prove they will kill any business they manage to seep into
“Smitty” is bluffing and sounds quit desperate. Once the league decided to negotiate the union WILL ACCEPT whatever crumbs are thrown their way. As the union is notorious for only catering to the top 10% of their membership, the remaining 90% without a stockpile of cash in their bank accounts will never agree to simply not work.
Baseball here we come!
Looks like he learned how to use false rhetoric while working with Obama. Much like most, and I want to stress MOST, unions, they will be the downfall of thier organization.
@ Rosenthal,
Is he saying this from the players perspective or the owners?
If from the players perspective, it’s retarded.
If from the owners perspective, it’s obvious. Some teams will have $15 mil payrolls and just rake in the cash. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Ralph Wilson, Mike Brown, Wayne Weaver…
Hell, Al Davis might just pay dudes from the Black Hole a dollar a game to suit up. It’s gonna be hilarious.
what a bunch of greedy douchebags
The NFL will die without the cap. The only competitive division will be the NFC East, and I don’t care about any of those teams.
Unions are nothing more than a parasite on the teet of freedom. Sucking the viability and prosperity out of everything they touch.
No cap = NBA, MLB, BORING.
Sounds like Smith is turning the players union into another SEIU.
Aside from the millions of meaningless games, “uncapped” is the other big reason I don’t watch baseball. If it happens to pro football, I’m very concerned that my love for the game will only extend to the college ranks…
Now, that “OTHER” newly formed league, THE UFL, just gained my interest a bit. In fact, I can’t wait until my state gets a team!
F-off with this major BS you NFL people. Makes me absolutely sick…
F’n greedy bastards…
The reason why the NFL is what it has become is because of its self described “parity.” There is no way it becomes forever uncapped. They know that and we know that. No secret.
Man this whole thing looks like it could go nuclear this time next year. If it is this contenious now, wait for a year to go by.
The guy obviously hasn’t been to PR school, let alone recalled any logic from law school. Yeah, lets go back to a MLB format with all the financial equities the Yankees and Red Sox enjoy.
No salary cap – no salary floor. That’s fewer teams bidding on players = lower salaries.
Riiiight. I bet you just made that up.
De Smith’s comments are practically a word for word quote of what I’ve complained about several times on here.
Once that genie is out of the bottle, it’s not going to be possible to shove it back in.
I have no idea why Florio seems to think waiting until the CBA expires next yr is fine. If there’s no CBA in place before March 5th of THIS year, I can guarantee you the NFL will become exactly like MLB….
No Salary cap.
Small market teams???? Yeah. You will be the minor league feeders of the same 4-6 big market teams.
Seriously, how did the union come up with THIS guy?
He’s a moron, plain and simple.
smith, don’t F this thing up…….
I guess the saints and colts should enjoy there time at the super bowl. It this guy has his way it will be the Cowboys and New England from here on out.
The pro bowl will be like going to the super market for ol Jerry Jones.
What planet do you guys live on? Why would the union ever agree to a cap again? In fact, once the owners lock them out, the players will disband the union (like they did last time). No union, no cap, no draft, no minimum, no maximum, lots of freedom of movement, lots of owners on the hook for long term deals, tons of workplace liability for the owners.
The one thing that makes Football’s offseason more enjoyable than baseball’s is not going to be ruined. wow.
What a joke! Of course one year will make next season very interesting, but if the union thinks the NFL would be good without it they are crazy. If the cap goes away for good the NFL will follow!
I stopped watching professional baseball when I realized how unlikely it was that my Reds would go to the World Series when bigger market teams could buy their way in. If the NFL permanently drops the salary cap, I’m dropping the NFL in favor of college ball.
DE Smith is doing his best to ruin the most financial viable sporting league of all time. Congrats, a$$hole. Way to ruin it for all of us!
EGGSCELLEEENNNNNTTTTTT!!!!
HAIL!
De should ask the unemployed UAW members if they think this is a good idea.
The Motor City was overflowing with happy camper auto workers. And a lot of people evaded the eventual implosion that the UAW was responsible for. Nobody thought it could happen to them and most of them were right. The problem was it happened to their children and grand children.
Smitty is going to look like a hero to the players who play in the league for the next 10 or so years. But mark my words when those 10 – 20 years are up and the league is looking to contract teams like MLB did a few years ago, De is going to look like the worlds biggest moron.
With Goodell and Smith leading the way, I think now is a good time to get familiar with hockey and basketball. Then I won’t feel like I have a hole in my life when there is no NFL for the years between the lockout and when these two goobers get shitcanned.
As a Cowboys fan, this is fantastic news. As an NFL fan it’s pretty lame though. I really enjoy the off-season the way it is, with an exciting free agency period. This year is going to be boring as hell, and if that is how it’s going to be from now on, that sucks.
Can we invest in the UFL? I think that has a shot to be the premier football league 20 or so years down the road and I want in now so I can retire in luxury. Let’s face it, the NFL won’t fold overnight….but do a strike in 2011, come back with no cap so only three or four teams have a shot every year, and move a team over to England (which are all extremely likely)…this league is done. Over time fans will just tune out and lower revenue teams (god, sounds like a baseball term) may move over to the “upstart” UFL.
Am I wrong?
Somewhere, Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder and Robert Kraft are comparing erections.
Thanks De! I didn’t realize you too came from the same “Leadership-for-idiots-school-of-Chicago” our fearless leader did.
Your brother has wrecked the economy, so its only fitting that you would take down one of the last good things our country has going for it. Fortunately he’s gonna be out in 3 more years, and it looks like your not gonna make it that long.
Leave the NFL the F#@$ alone!
And unions continue to prove they will kill any business they manage to seep into
Yep, Caldon you are 100% correct. WORST THING EVER!!! UNIONS!!!
De Smith has no leverage so he’s trying to create some. It won’t work. The owners hold all the cards. DirecTV pays even if there is no 2011.
I don’t have much sympathy for either side… But ultimately the players need to bite the bullet here. They’re still going to be overpaid multimillionaires even after they take a 20% paycut (and ultimately I doubt the cut will be that high).
There isn’t a person in America outside of the NFL who doesn’t think players salaries are out of control. Catastrophic injuries are part of the inherent risk. Hell, I don’t see police officers making unreasonable demands and they actually risk their lives on a daily basis.
Get over yourselves you greedy rich bastards!
This is what happens when the players lets a political hack like Smith run their union…
I am sure SMith is a smart man and wont let this happen. While some players salaries will go up, the overall spending by teams will decline. In addition, the days of big signing bonuses will be a thing of the past. No need to spread the money out over 8 years, pay them well on a 4 yr deal and make them work for it each year.
Once the cap was gone if I was the players I would never bring it back. Better buckle up because the owners already know that they are willing to go to War this time, the players better be ready to do same.
So how about you get your heads out of your asses and get something done?
Hey OJ! I heard De Smith is hiding some memorabilia he stole from you. You should pay him a visit.
all this time i thought this guys ultimate claim to fame was going to be that he was friends with a one term president. but ol’ de smith proved me wrong…his claim to fame is going to be that he killed the nfl instead!!!
W/o a cap the Packers,Vikings and Jags become the Brewers,Twins and Royals for about 5 yars before they FOLD. Other than Vegas and LA there aren’t many cities left that could support a team well enough to compete w/ Dallas,NE,NY,Washington in an uncapped environment.
I personally would love to go back to 1988 where there is no cap but your guys are yours forever. Back then guys would hold out but there was no fear of losing them. Fine with me.
You can’t have FA AND no cap. How is that fair?
If the players want no cap then I want:
- no free agency until after your 6th year.
-lux-tax dollar for dollar on top 9 spenders shared with bottom 7 revenue teams. Teams that are truely ‘poor’ would get the money…don’t reward cheap owners but try to keep the Jags and the like on par.
-free agency would last 15 days…from April 1-April 15. After April 15th your rights revert back to your previous team until April 1 of the following year.
-Any team spending more than 50 mil on new contracts (keeping your own doesnt count) would give up their first round pick. So,lets say on one swoop Dallas signs Shawne Merriman,Aaron Kampman,Nick Collins,LaDanian Tomlinson and Brian Westbrook for 70 million they would lose their #1. Sure,you might say a single #1 for all that is pretty good but do that too often and you’ll get old in a hurry. Would make teams think twice about pigging out every offseason. At least this way you spread it around and prevent a Yankees style massacre on the market.
-no more up front bonuses. Your pay is your pay. You get paid week 1-week 17. if you want a portion of that money guaranteed then you negotiate that into the deal. None of this walking out of the office with a check for 25 mil in March. You earn your pay on the field. Doing this might actually allow a trade market to form. With no cap and no bonuses to worry about maybe we could get an in-season trade of some significance for a change.
If the players think it would be impossible to go back to a capped system then maybe the owners might find it hard to keep offering any sort of free agency system.
The more DeMaurice Smith talks, the more I hate him.
Granted, I figure it’s all rhetoric but this guy is a moron.
Plus, if the owners lock out the players for an extended period of time, the players will be begging the owners for any deal…too many of them just spend all their money and have nothing to fall back on.
If I were a union guy and trying to raise the salary floor, I’d start by saying that if the cap goes away, it would be “virtually” impossible to put back.
Just a thought.
# dashoe says: February 4, 2010 5:21 PM
Unions are nothing more than a parasite on the teet of freedom. Sucking the viability and prosperity out of everything they touch.
No cap = NBA, MLB, BORING.
Sounds like Smith is turning the players union into another SEIU.
——————————————————WOW, dashoe wrote something smart. I am shocked.
Although:
The NBA has a cap, but yes it is boring.
The NFL needs to open their books, plain and simple.
Every Union knows what the owners profits are when they negotiate, it’s right in their balance sheets.
If the owners open up the books, they will see the players will be willing to negotiate off those.
Why should the owners negotiate with all the knowledge of what the players currently make but not vice versa?
I’d be super greedy too if I have no idea about how much these teams are really making.
The Browns Owner gave himself a mill for being a General Manager!!!
NFL has by far the best ratings, contracts all over, huge fan bases, and revenue sharing.
Maybe the Jagwads and Bucs are failing, open up the books and have revenue sharing, keep the cap, play the players 47%.
There is no way these owners are losing money, no effing way!!!!!
Thanks De! I didn’t realize you too came from the same “Leadership-for-idiots-school-of-Chicago” our fearless leader did.
Your brother has wrecked the economy, so its only fitting that you would take down one of the last good things our country has going for it. Fortunately he’s gonna be out in 3 more years, and it looks like your not gonna make it that long.
Leave the NFL the F#@$ alone!
“If Florio were here, he would write “Wow.”"
um, no he wouldnt. he has posted probably 10 articles in the past year that have said the union feels if the cap goes away it wont come back. its not the strongest thing De has said, it just repeating old crap.
I think it’s virtually impossible for De to say something that makes sense…..this is the voice of the players?
This is what happens when you put liberal, bleeding heart, socialist, stupid imbecile Democrats in charge of everything. Hopeless fu*king idiots.
Funny thing is DE is just repeating Upshaw. Upshaw made the exact same remark shortly before passing.
Somewhere, Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder and Robert Kraft are comparing erections.
———————————————-
LMFAO
I hate all this crap going on, but that comment was hilarious. Thanks Bud.
NFL needs a cap, and needs to avoid a strike. I stopped following MLB because seeing the same 3-4 teams win every year and buy titles is disgusting. The year of the NHL strike left a lot of fans with free time to do things other than watch hockey, and many didn’t come back (I don’t even bother with highlights anymore, and used to watch a few games a week).
I don’t see myself stopping watching the NFL even if theres a strike, but at the time I never thought that about the NHL either.
I guess the players really are a bunch of dumb jocks
They hired this mouth peice lawyer scum
The owners laugh everytime he gets up and talks he will force the players to get rid of the nflpa and start a new union
Before he ruins the game I hope the players wake up and fire his ass pay him off and get rid of him Gene Upshaw is rolling over in his grave
For all the good work the comish has done…if he drops the ball on this one it will tarnish him and this era of football forever.
No cap in baseball ruined baseball.
Baseball is ruined because of not having a salary cap. The NFL will go the same way. So much for parity…
Can’t wait to see Dallas and Washington buy their titles in this decade…what a joke.
Smith is clearly in over his head and the political environment no longer favors him getting any help from Barry Hussein. Methinks the NFLPA is about to get owned.
I swear, some of you act as if the sky is falling…LOL! Relax, this is going to be fun. But can someone explain to me how College is any different? I mean, not every college team has the same opportunity so what would be the difference? Just inquiring.
Baseball’s parity is better then the NFL for anyone who does the math, just look at the last ten years and the playoff and championship teams, baseball only had two teams repeat redsox and yankees, with small market teams like florida, arizona winning championships and multiple changes in division winners and playoff teams, I hate the cap and I am a pirates fan not a yankees fan, teams need to be able to be free to keep or let go of the players they want, the small market teams make plenty of money, they just dont spend it on the players, the owners pocket it, that is their choice, we dont have to buy tickets, the NFL is just one big 8-8 league, its time for their owners to put up or shut up
Someone please make sense of this to me. There never was a salary cap back in the 80′s, 90′s? And now there’s one. If we lose it, what’s the reasoning of why we can’t get it again? Also, regarding revenue sharing, why should big market teams reward small market teams when they’ve done nothing to better their teams since the salary cap? Aren’t the owners and to some extent the fans to blame for not supporting their team?
You mean JaBust Russell gets even more money from revenue sharing??????? The system IS broken.
DeMaurice Smith makes me ill.
The NFL is a business, not a ‘non-profit’ organization, not a employee-owned corporation.
I think its time for a pay-freeze, especially for rookies, but they don’t want to do that… so scrw them, let them spend a year or two trying out for the CFL and Arena football league while the NFL ‘re-organizes’.
OK first things first. There’s no such thing as “buying” a championship. Every team signs high-priced free agents and that’s not going to change.
Also, I think in the future we’re going to see a different salary cap that applies to established free agents only. Teams will be allowed to spend as much as they want to retain their home-grown players and castoffs that they pick up. Draftees, undrafted guys, guys that were waived by other teams. Teams will be restricted on how much they can spend on established free agents whose contracts have simply been allowed to expire either by team inaction or player unwillingness to re-up with their incumbent teams. There will also be a rookie cap and restrictive years for players that don’t have a certain amount of time in the league. Say 5 years?
Abe 71,
There was no Free Agency in the 80′s and very early 90′s. The only way a player could change teams was trade or by being released. Once free agency came into play (Reggie White) the NFL had to come up with a way to try to balance the league… hello salary cap.
Abe71 says:
Someone please make sense of this to me. There never was a salary cap back in the 80′s, 90′s? And now there’s one. If we lose it, what’s the reasoning of why we can’t get it again? Also, regarding revenue sharing, why should big market teams reward small market teams when they’ve done nothing to better their teams since the salary cap? Aren’t the owners and to some extent the fans to blame for not supporting their team?
*****************************
The reasoning is that the salary cap was the invention of the owners and it was thrust upon the players when free agency became a reality. Judge Doty told both sides to come to an agreement or he’d come to one for them and neither side would like it and so we have the cap and the players got the floor because of cheap franchises like Cincinnati.
The reason why we have revenue sharing is because of the AFL. The AFL started it so that their weaker franchises could survive and some of the richer ones even divided up their portion to the weaker brethren, as well. Rozelle saw that the only way to survive was to get the richer franchises to give up their TV money and share other revenue or else the poorer franchises would go under. Since that time, NO franchise has ever moved because they had to but because they felt the lure of more money.
Jerry Jones and his ilk want to use the MLB model so he can get as much money as possible except he doesn’t understand that if New York (both teams) got to keep their portion of the TV revenue, he couldn’t even begin to compete with them and the same thing could be said for Chicago and whatever team or teams that would beat a path to LA. Most people who think that Jerry is a marketing genius don’t take into account that his Arena Football League team was the poorest attended franchise among those that were owned by an NFL owner and several original AFL teams were kicking his butt as well. He owes everything to NFL Films and their proclamation of Dallas being “America’s Team” and wouldn’t have have the box office success if it wasn’t for them.