Great story on the details of what may happen when the CBA expires

[X-Era]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/12/ten-things-to-know-about-the-labor-situation/

[Forward_Lateral]

Well, this offseason is going to suck.

[Beebe's Kid]

Come on, dude, this isn't real!! It's line politics, or something.

Newton or Mallet....wait for poll!!!

[BillsFever21]

Hopefully they can come to an agreement so none of this crap occurs. The game is going too good right now for a lockout/strike to occur.

[X-Era]

Hopefully they can come to an agreement so none of this crap occurs. The game is going too good right now for a lockout/strike to occur.Greed.

[YardRat]

Regardless of the issues and agendas at play, a concern has emerged that the ranks of NFL ownership are being overrun by men whose personal financial interests supersede the best interests of the game. Combined with the possibility that union leadership is being influenced, directly or indirectly, by concerns unrelated to the long-term health and well-being of the game, damage to the sport seems to be inevitable.

Bullsye.

[Goobylal]

Regardless of the issues and agendas at play, a concern has emerged that the ranks of NFL ownership are being overrun by men whose personal financial interests supersede the best interests of the game. Combined with the possibility that union leadership is being influenced, directly or indirectly, by concerns unrelated to the long-term health and well-being of the game, damage to the sport seems to be inevitable.

Bullsye.
That's exactly the problem. The owners should have threatened a lockout back in 2006 (it wouldn't have happened, whereas it is a foregone conclusion now), rather than give the players a billion more dollars over the past 5 seasons. But they didn't want to have to cut players to fit under the old, lower cap, and guys like Kraft and Jones had money tied into their new playgrounds.

[Extremebillsfan247]

Ralph Wilson and Cincy's owner Mike Brown saw this coming a couple years ago when they were the only 2 to vote against the revenue sharing deal that Owners like Jerry Jones wanted implemented. It's not the only problem but one of the core issues here. It's all about the splitting up of the money and who gets what. I don't remember all of it but it had something to do with the bigger market teams not wanting to share their earnings with the smaller markets, and since no one could agree on a solution to the money problem, they figured a quick fix was to cut out the players by 18% to cover the spread. So, the players are essentially being forced to take a pay cut, and play an addition 2 more games per year all so the Owners can all make a profit. That's my understanding of all this the way Florio explains it.

[Forward_Lateral]

If there is no season in 2011, the NFL will suffer more than Baseball and Hockey did, IMO.

[mikemac2001]

Ralph Wilson and Cincy's owner Mike Brown saw this coming a couple years ago when they were the only 2 to vote against the revenue sharing deal that Owners like Jerry Jones wanted implemented. It's not the only problem but one of the core issues here. It's all about the splitting up of the money and who gets what. I don't remember all of it but it had something to do with the bigger market teams not wanting to share their earnings with the smaller markets, and since no one could agree on a solution to the money problem, they figured a quick fix was to cut out the players by 18% to cover the spread. So, the players are essentially being forced to take a pay cut, and play an addition 2 more games per year all so the Owners can all make a profit. That's my understanding of all this the way Florio explains it.


Was just about to say

Was Ralph right?

I mean most people.ripped him apart because of it saying he was stubburn and time passed him by.

[Extremebillsfan247]

Was just about to say

Was Ralph right?

I mean most people.ripped him apart because of it saying he was stubburn and time passed him by.Yeah, he and Mike Brown were both heavily criticized for it.

[OpIv37]

Was just about to say

Was Ralph right?

I mean most people.ripped him apart because of it saying he was stubburn and time passed him by.
Ralph voted against the agreement because he "didn't understand it.". Those were his own words. So, enough of the revisionist history trying to give him credit, please.

And BTW, the new agreement may negatively affect revenue sharing, which would hurt ralphs position.

[justasportsfan]

Ralph voted against the agreement because he "didn't understand it.". Those were his own words. So, enough of the revisionist history trying to give him credit, please.

And BTW, the new agreement may negatively affect revenue sharing, which would hurt ralphs position.


so there's some advantage to being senile.

[BillsFever21]

If there is no season in 2011, the NFL will suffer more than Baseball and Hockey did, IMO.

It might take a small hit by casual fans but the day they started playing football again all the diehards would be sitting up the night before like it's Christmas waiting for the season to start.

[PromoTheRobot]

Ralph voted against the agreement because he "didn't understand it.". Those were his own words. So, enough of the revisionist history trying to give him credit, please.

And BTW, the new agreement may negatively affect revenue sharing, which would hurt ralphs position.


What he "didn't understand" was why the other NFL owners were so quick to agree to something without studying it closer. Sorry, Op. I know you want to *****t on RW every chance you get but you're off base here.

PTR

[BillsFever21]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AqoOw8wvdY5Jjf_5R0hErX1DubYF?slug=ap-nfllabor
WASHINGTON (AP)—The NFL and its players’ union acknowledged Thursday they have not held a large-group negotiating session since November—and there are no formal meetings scheduled to work toward a new collective bargaining agreement.
Thursday marked seven weeks until the current CBA is set to expire, and while the private talks are seemingly at a standstill, the public rhetoric is not.
“The negotiations are not proceeding very vigorously. No one’s booking dates right now,” Bob Batterman, an outside lawyer for the league, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.
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“You need a serious negotiating partner to have a negotiation,” added Batterman, a lawyer for the NHL when it lost its entire 2004-05 season to a lockout. “And what we’ve been getting back in terms of responses are not conducive to making a deal.”
Batterman said the union’s “strategy is not to expedite this, but to slow it down, so that they can file an antitrust lawsuit.” That echoed his comments to The Washington Post a day earlier, when Batterman said: “This is a union waiting for a lockout to occur.”
In response to that story, the union arranged a conference call for media on Thursday, and its general counsel, Richard Berthelsen, said: “Any suggestion that we want a lockout is coming from outer space.”
“I can tell you one thing, being involved as long as I have been: The word ‘lockout’ was never even in the NFL’s vocabulary until Mr. Batterman came aboard, and after he came aboard, the continuing theme has been ‘lockout’ from the owners’ side of the table,” Berthelsen said. “The continuing theme from our side of the table is that the players want to play.”
Union spokesman George Atallah, meanwhile, referred to the NFL’s “desperate attempt to point the finger back at us.” The union long has said it believes the owners have been preparing for a lockout.
“Players want to play. So we’re not doing anything until we’re locked out by the owners. Everything we would have to do would be because owners put us in a situation to have to react,” Indianapolis Colts (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/ind/) center Jeff Saturday (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/4953/)(notes) (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/4953/news), a member of the union’s executive committee, said on the conference call. “We are waiting on the owners.”
Batterman insisted the owners would prefer not to lock out players.
“Nobody’s looking for a lockout; we’re looking for a deal. Is that deal going to require some concessions from the players? Yes … because the balance has gotten out of whack. And the owners are going to make concessions, too,” Batterman said.

[HHURRICANE]

What he "didn't understand" was why the other NFL owners were so quick to agree to something without studying it closer. Sorry, Op. I know you want to *****t on RW every chance you get but you're off base here.

PTR

I think it is really hard to defend what Ralph "really meant" when he has demonstrated over and over again that he understands very little.

Do you want me to list all of the mistakes he has made over the last 15 years?

How about the last 5 years?

The owners of teams like Dallas don't understand the value that is brough t by smaller markets but at the same time Ralph has refused to change with the times and embrace other areas of revenue that helps protect the community.

[OpIv37]

What he "didn't understand" was why the other NFL owners were so quick to agree to something without studying it closer. Sorry, Op. I know you want to *****t on RW every chance you get but you're off base here.

PTR

What he didn't understand was the text of the agreement, but hey, feel free to spin it however you want.

Sorry, PTR, I know you love to defend Ralph despite the fact that the team has been an epic failure for the overwhelming majority of his ownership, but you're off base here.

[Mad Max]

so there's some advantage to being senile.

http://www.moviepostershop.com/the-near-sighted-mr-magoo-movie-poster-1020143815.jpg

Not so advantageous for us poor masochistic schmucks that love the product that he owns/mismanages.

[Spiderweb]

Ralph voted against the agreement because he "didn't understand it.". Those were his own words. So, enough of the revisionist history trying to give him credit, please.

And BTW, the new agreement may negatively affect revenue sharing, which would hurt ralphs position.


Ah, ever the Ralph basher. Same old song....

One who says they don't understand something, could be for multiple reasons, far removed from the actual verbiage of an agreement. I don't understand how this is in the best interests of the league, I don't understand how the ramifications have been portrayed (maybe a bit more study of them was in order), etc.

Ralph may no longer have his full capacities, but I suspect he understood far more than you or I when it came to that last contract.

That the owners themselves, said, "whoa, we need to undo this deal", lends far more support to Ralph's questioning it than not.

But hey, bashing Wilson is one of your favorite pastimes so carry on in the same old tired harangue you pull out far too frequently.

[Ingtar33]

Was just about to say

Was Ralph right?

I mean most people.ripped him apart because of it saying he was stubburn and time passed him by.


i defended him at the time.

It was patently clear that the CBA would brutalize the bills and other small market teams.

[Buddo]

The last CBA was pretty well railroaded through by Upshaw and Tagliabue. The likes of Jones, got some concessions, especially in respect of revenue for 'boxes', but were more interested in furthering their own plans, especially as regards building new stadia, that they didn't look closely enough at all they were giving the players.

To that extent, the Owners have themselves to blame, and are now going to try to rectify the situation.
If they had actually spent more time going through the agreement in the first place, we may not be heading to the impasse that seems to be looming. If the Players had been made to take less through the last CBA, the Owners could well be still 'happy' with that agreement, even with the vagaries of the economic climate atm.

[X-Era]

Even better article from Forbes:

http://blogs.forbes.com/sportsmoney/2011/01/10/numbers-show-nfls-economic-realities-for-lockout-unwarranted/?partner=dailycrux