Collective Bargaining Agreement - Pro Football Rumors

17-Game Schedule Holding Up CBA?

January 11th, 2020 at 4:48pm CST by Sam Robinson

Introduced during these collective bargaining agreement discussions, the 17-game schedule has become one of the central components of the negotiations. It appears the talks are progressing, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports (on Twitter) the revised schedule is likely to be part of the next CBA.

However, were the 17-game schedule not included in these discussions, Florio adds it is believed the league and the NFLPA would have a deal by now (Twitter link). It could then be inferred the parties have agreed to a revenue split figure, which would be a critical barrier cleared.

The owners, who recently proposed a new revenue-split figure, are confident the extra game will be added to schedules. While the 17-game season would not necessarily become a reality in the CBA’s first year, it can be assumed that would be an early-2020s change.

The prospect of a 17-game season surfaced in late September, and we’ve steadily learned what this would mean for the league. Having used a 16-game schedule for 42 years, the NFL moved off its 18-game pursuit during these talks and is attempting to structure a 19-week season (two byes) with a Super Bowl that moves into late February. Each team’s extra game would come at neutral sites, both domestic and international, with the preseason being shortened.

A longer season obviously isn’t an especially popular proposition for the players, though the extra bye week and the NFL’s (known) concessions on marijuana and Roger Goodell‘s disciplinary powers would seemingly help. As would greater cap spikes generated by additional revenue. But it remains to be seen what effect an extra game would have on contracts.

Owners Confident CBA Will Include 17-Game Season?

January 6th, 2020 at 7:38pm CST by Sam Robinson

The owners and the NFLPA are making “incremental” progress toward finalizing a collective bargaining agreement, and Mark Maske of the Washington Post notes the goal of the process being finalized by Super Bowl LIV remains attainable.

While the revenue split continues to be the central issue, the prospect of a 17-game season persists. Owners appear “increasingly convinced” the 17-game schedule will be included in the next CBA, Maske adds. However, the addition of a game to the schedule would not have to take effect in the first year of the new agreement.

This topic has been on the table for months, and the owners have shown willingness to bend on Roger Goodell‘s disciplinary power and the issue of marijuana to make it happen. The sides indeed are continuing to discuss marijuana testing, per Maske.

A 17-game schedule becoming reality would alter the NFL calendar, with the preseason being reduced and the playoffs stretching well into February. A return to the double-bye setup — only used once, in 1993 — is believed to be attached to the 17-game proposal. That would mean a 19-week regular season. The NFL has used the 16-game schedule for 42 seasons — far longer than the 12- or 14-game formats lasted.

The prospect of the playoffs expanding from 12 to 14 teams remains a possibility, with Maske noting some owners believe the field will expand by two teams at some point during the next CBA. So it appears the sides may be setting up gradual shifts in the schedule and playoff bracket structure for the 2020s.

Latest On CBA Negotiations

December 19th, 2019 at 4:23pm CST by Sam Robinson

Negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement resumed a few weeks ago, and the NFL is believed to have upped its offer in a key area. The league offered the players an increased revenue split, according to Josina Anderson of ESPN.com (Twitter link).

The latest NFL proposal includes a figure closer to 48% revenue share for the players’ side, according to Anderson. Players are currently guaranteed at least 47% of league revenue. The owners would collect 51.5%, with Anderson adding 1.5% would go to stadium credits. The revenue split has been a central component of these CBA discussions; the sides were far apart on this deal point during their July talks. The players are pursuing a 50-50 split.

The current CBA has between 47-48.5% going to the players. From 2012-14, the labor force took back 47-48% of the pie, with the higher-end figure increasing to 48.5% from 2015-20. It’s unclear if Anderson’s report indicates the players’ revenue floor will move toward roughly 48%, though that would be the logical progression. The players received a 51% revenue split in the previous CBA, but the cap has ballooned by greater percentages during the life of the current 10-year agreement and is expected to approach or surpass $200MM in 2020.

The league has injected the prospect of a 17-game season into the negotiations and was reportedly ready to bend on key issues like marijuana and the personal conduct policy to entice the players on this front. A revenue-split concession may be another sign the owners are serious about increasing the schedule by a game.

Additionally, the status of NFLPA president Eric Winston may be a key point in these winter talks. The NFLPA will vote to either re-elect Winston or name a new chief at end of the league year in March, and Anderson tweets the NFL’s familiarity with the current leader may explain the increased activity toward getting a deal done before March rather than potentially starting over in talks with a new chief. Winston has served as NFLPA president since 2014.

Extra Points: CBA, Marijuana, Draft

December 13th, 2019 at 3:59pm CST by Sam Robinson

While CBA negotiations have been on the January schedule for a while, the NFL and NFLPA have already resumed talks. The sides convened for negotiations last week, Judy Battista of NFL.com reports (on Twitter), adding the goal remains to have a new agreement finalized by season’s end. The NFL initially sought to have this done before Week 1, an unrealistic scenario since the current CBA does not expire until March 2021, and has since inserted a 17-game season into the talks.

Roger Goodell said he and the owners discussed the CBA for roughly an hour at this week’s league meetings, but the 13th-year commissioner is uncertain how far apart the owners and players are. Should a deal not be completed by March, new elections of an NFLPA president and new members on the union’s executive committee could change the tenor of the months-long negotiations, per Pro Football Talk’s Michael David Smith.

Here is the latest from around the league:

Shortly after Major League Baseball announced marijuana will not be on its banned substances list, Jerry Jones said the NFL will likely further amend its policy, Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News tweets. The league has already shown leniency on this front, years ago raising the threshold for what results in a marijuana-based suspension. Owners are reportedly ready to make marijuana a bargaining chip in exchange for the players’ side agreeing to an extra regular-season game. Jones has said in the past he’s in favor of marijuana not residing on the NFL’s banned substances list.
Two running backs will skip their final collegiate seasons to enter the draft. Boston College’s A.J. Dillon and Mississippi State’s Kylin Hill announced they will enter the 2020 draft pool. At 250 pounds and with 13 career receptions, Dillon profiles as an old-school back. Boston College’s all-time leading rusher gained 4,382 yards (5.2 per carry) and, per Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, is expected to time in the 4.4-second range in the 40-yard dash. The 215-pound Hill did not fare nearly as well in college but will enter the draft on the heels of his lone 1,000-yard season — a 1,347-yard, 10-touchdown slate — and do so with only 430 college carries under his belt. Hill will play in the Bulldogs’ bowl game; Dillon will skip the Eagles’ postseason tilt.
Louisiana Tech cornerback Amik Robertson will join the backs in declaring early, Tony Pauline of the Pro Football Network tweets. An All-American this season, Robertson intercepted five passes and ranked second in passes defensed with 21.

NFL Projects ~$200MM Salary Cap For 2020

December 10th, 2019 at 3:56pm CST by Zachary Links

NFL revenue continues to rise and, in turn, the salary cap continues to climb. On Tuesday, the league office informed club officials that the salary cap is projected fall somewhere between $196.8MM and $201.2MM in 2020 (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero). This year, the cap is at $188.2MM, so that marks a significant jump in potential pay for players league-wide.

The expected increase marks a ~40% jump from five years ago in the 2015 season, when the cap was set at $143.3MM. It’s the seventh straight year in which cap is projected to climb more than $10MM per team, year over year. Since 2011, the cap has increased roughly 65 percent and $76 million per club.

The final cap number will likely set by the NFL and NFLPA in late February or early March, just before free agency gets underway. What we know is this – projected player costs, including benefits, will total more than $7.7 billion in 2020.

The NFLPA is undoubtedly happy about the jump, but the players’ union is expected to seek a larger share of the pie in the next collective bargaining agreement. The 2020 season marks the final year of the current labor contract.

For many teams, the cap increase will provide a bit of extra breathing room for the offseason. However, six clubs will still have to trim payroll between now and the new league year, as Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. The Jaguars ($208MM), Falcons ($206MM), Bears ($205MM), Vikings ($203MM), Saints ($202MM), and Chiefs ($201MM) are all past the $200M mark for 2020, as of this writing.

Latest On NFL’s Push For 17-Game Season

November 18th, 2019 at 1:16pm CST by Sam Robinson

Over the past two months, the prospect of a 17-game season has gained steam. While the NFL has ditched the concept of an 18-game season, a longtime fringe talking point, the league is serious about adding one game to the schedule.

The NFL plans on presenting its revised CBA proposal to the NFLPA after this season, and Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports “momentum is growing” among owners to make this happen. Additionally, some within the NFLPA may be warming to it as well.

The most notable part of this push: a radical adjustment to the NFL’s calendar. The league’s new plan still features the season beginning after Labor Day, but the fall schedule would grow from 17 weeks to 19. The double-bye structure (used only once, in 1993) was not previously mentioned in these talks, but the 17-game plan now includes it. The playoffs would be pushed well into February, with La Canfora adding the new schedule would slide Super Bowl Sunday into the final weekend of February.

Each team’s extra game would be an out-of-market event, with the league wanting to push its United Kingdom schedule to eight games. The Jaguars would be featured in two of those London tilts, per La Canfora, who adds other international locales like Mexico, Germany and Brazil are on the table. Roger Goodell has indicated strong support for the eight-game London slate, JLC adds. This would seemingly represent an expanded trial balloon for a full-fledged London team. More domestic sites would also be included in a 17-game season. Support has surfaced for holding games at Notre Dame, in Alabama and potentially in Canada and Hawaii.

A 14-team playoff bracket has been rumored as well, though it is not included in this report. The NFLPA has voiced opposition to an expanded postseason field. The preseason would be condensed into a two-game slate, but La Canfora reports, though the notion of intersquad scrimmages held at stadiums has come up.

With the NFL having used a 16-game schedule for the past 42 seasons, featuring home sites almost exclusively, this proposal becoming reality would be one of the most significant changes in league history. It would also mean pushing the Combine back, with free agency’s start date presumably being slid further into March as well.

The NFL is willing to bend on some issues — like marijuana and Goodell’s power over investigations — to make this happen. The next window for the CBA to be finalized looks like the days around Super Bowl LIV, with La Canfora adding negotiations are scheduled to take place throughout January.

NFC East Notes: Williams, Gettleman, Hill

November 1st, 2019 at 6:45pm CST by Marc Delucchi

The NFL and NFLPA will conduct a joint investigation into claims made by Washington’s LT Trent Williams, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. Williams has been one of the best left tackles in football since entering the league in 2010. After solidifying the blindside in Washington for nearly a decade, Williams had been holding out for all of the 2019 season.

The team refused to move Williams before the trade deadline, but the tackle finally reported to the team on Tuesday. However, he has since failed his physical and publicly accused the team of failing to recognize the severity of a cancerous growth on his head this past summer. The team has since denied Williams’ claims of wrongdoing and called for a third-party evaluation. According to Rapoport, the collective bargaining agreement calls for a joint investigation amidst such accusations.

Here’s more from around the NFC East:

Giants general manager Dave Gettleman needs to answer for his trade deadline decisions, according to Darryl Slater of NJ.com. Since the second day of training camp in late July, Gettleman has not answered questions from any reporters. Even more concerning, a Giants spokesperson said he is not currently scheduled to address the media again this season, per Slater. Currently at 2-6, many were surprised to see the team give up draft assets for impending free agent Leonard Williams. Moreover, the team recouped no draft capital for any of their veteran players. Slater maintains it is “part of the job” for Gettleman to take questions from the media regardless of how popular his decisions are.
Cowboys rookie second-round pick Trysten Hill has become a problem, according to Calvin Watkins of The Dallas Morning News. Per Watkins report, the defensive tackle has recently been sent home after arriving late to practice and fell asleep in the middle of a speech by Hall of Fame basketball player Isiah Thomas. Dallas has not been publicly critical of Hill, but Watkins notes that even after losing starting defensive tackle Tyrone Crawford for the season, Hill remains outside the rotation.

Latest On NFL’s CBA Talks

October 18th, 2019 at 8:34pm CST by Zachary Links

The NFL’s owners want 17-game seasons and they’re willing to bend on at least some issues to get them. Among those points: many owners seem willing to make the league’s marijuana policy less punitive towards players, Mark Maske of The Washington Post tweets.

Many league owners are also in favor of potentially altering, or weakening, Roger Goodell‘s power structure (link). That would mean neutral arbitration for appeals of discipline imposed by the NFL for off-field misbehavior, though Goodell would retain his power for integrity-of-the-game issues.

The NFL is reportedly “very serious” about adding another game to the regular season schedule. Part of the tradeoff would involve the shortening of the preseason schedule, though it’s unclear if that means a larger portion of the pie for the league’s players.

Earlier this week, Goodell discussed the possibility of a 17-game slate with reporters and disclosed that his proposed plan would push the Super Bowl into mid-February, with the same September start time.l

Latest On CBA, 17-Game Season

October 17th, 2019 at 3:45pm CST by Sam Robinson

Roger Goodell confirmed these CBA talks feature the previously reported prospect of a 17-game season. The 13th-year commissioner said a 17-game season would start at the same time the league’s current 16-game model does — after Labor Day — but end a week later, pushing the season into mid-February.

The league is making a greater effort to make this happen as well, offering the NFLPA more financially in hopes of making the 17-game schedule a reality, Albert Breer of SI.com notes. It’s not certain if that means the players will see a greater revenue split — a point of contention when the CBA talks accelerated over the summer — but Breer believes the NFL is “very serious” about a 17-game season happening.

A reduction in the NFL’s preseason slate would commence as well, and the subject of a 14-team playoff bracket has been broached. The prospect of a second bye week, a setup the league tried only in 1993, has not surfaced yet. But after 42 seasons of the 16-game slate, the NFL has perhaps the most momentum yet to add a game. Owners have largely given up on the long-rumored 18-game season, at least in these CBA talks.

The sides hope to have a deal by season’s end, with the league and the union believing a deal before 2019 ends would be the best way to avoid a 2021 work stoppage, per Mike Jones of USA Today.

“The deal’s not done. I don’t have optimism; I don’t have pessimism,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said, via Jones. “The reality is, we’re talking, but we’re far apart. … Either the deal is done and you could relax and not prepare for a work stoppage or the deal isn’t done and you can’t relax and you need to prepare for a work stoppage.”

Along with the pursuit of an even revenue split, the players’ side wants to increase the league-minimum salary and that of practice squad payouts, Jones adds. Negotiations are set to resume soon.

Owners Now Seeking 17-Game Schedule

September 26th, 2019 at 2:12pm CST by Sam Robinson

After years of this subject lingering, the NFL is no longer pushing an 18-game season. Instead, they’ve shifted focus to a 17-game proposal, Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic reports (subscription required).

Proposals for an outright 18-game schedule, and the convoluted idea about an 18-game slate with a 16-game cap for players, have not necessarily been shelved. But with ownership support for 18 games not as widespread as it appeared to be, and the NFLPA remained staunchly opposed to it, it’s been effectively moved to the back-burner, Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports (Twitter links).

Part of the 17-game proposal would be a one- or two-game reduction in the preseason schedule, per Kaplan. A three-game preseason schedule is the most likely course of action, per Maske (on Twitter).

Packers president Mark Murphy floated the 17-game idea over the summer. The concept included eight home games, eight road games and one neutral-site contest. The league has five neutral-site games scheduled this season — four in England, one in Mexico City — so ballooning that to 16 would be a notable change. It’s unclear if that component is still being discussed, but it would likely need to be in play to prevent some teams from having nine home games and others not.

Another item that remains in play: expanding the playoff field to seven teams per conference. The NFL has used six-team brackets since 1990 but has seen the league grow by four teams since that format was implemented. The NFLPA is also opposed to this idea, Kaplan adds, but Maske tweets a 14-team playoff field being thrown into the mix is a “strong” possibility. The 12-team setup has lasted longer than either the four- or five-team fields the NFL previously used since the 1970 merger.

No additional CBA talks have been scheduled; they are expected to resume later this year or at 2020’s outset. It’s a good bet the 17-game season and seven-team playoff prospects will be talking points when they resume. The current CBA expires after the 2020 season.

Collective Bargaining Agreement News & Rumors