Collective Bargaining Agreement News & Rumors

Another round of collective bargaining agreement talks will transpire this week. The NFL and NFLPA will meet on Monday night and into Tuesday in Chicago for what will be the seventh round of discussions regarding the league’s next CBA, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.

While the talks are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, it is not a guarantee this will be a two-day event. Earlier this summer, the parties ended a round of negotiations scheduled for three days after one.

These talks have all taken place over the past few months, and they are believed to be less contentious than those that led up to the 2011 CBA’s completion. Neither side anticipates a 2021 work stoppage, though the NFLPA has consistently attempted to prepare players for that reality.

The frequent meetings represent progress, but we have not heard much in the way of actual steps being taken toward a new agreement. The sides’ pre-Week 1 goal no longer appears to be in the picture, and while the league initially did not want CBA talks interfering with its 100th season, that looks almost certain to happen.

The current agreement expires after the 2020 season. However, if the NFL enters the 2020 offseason without a new CBA, uncapped rules — like teams being able to use both the franchise and transition tags — would be in place next year.

While the NFL and the NFLPA continue to set up meetings, the sides still look to have a long way to go toward finalizing the league’s next collective bargaining agreement.

The parties will reconvene on Monday, and ESPN.com’s Dan Graziano reports another session is scheduled for Tuesday (Twitter link). However, for a process both sides once set out to finish before Week 1, no immediate end is in sight. The talks throughout this offseason have yielded little in the way of progress, Graziano adds, with the revenue split being the main point of contention.

As of late July, the league and the union were far apart on the central component of these discussions. It does not appear that has changed, but Graziano notes both sides do not believe a 2021 work stoppage is likely. The players’ current share of league revenue cannot fall below 47%, and they would like that figure to rise under the next CBA. Discussing the raising of the league’s spending floor, or reformatting it, represents another way the union has attempted to increase salaries for the next NFL era.

The current CBA covers the 2019 and ’20 seasons, and the NFLPA has consistently warned its talent base about the prospect of another stoppage. The union again issued some pointers to prepare players in the event this happens again. Every scheduled regular-season game has unfolded since 1987, the last in-season stoppage. Fifteen games occurred that year, although only 12 involved the league’s full workforce. In 2011, the lockout ended in late July.

While the NFL and the NFLPA met multiple times before the recent summit, the most recent meeting provided the clearest picture as to the status of the next collective bargaining agreement. This may not be progressing as both sides hope.

The session in Chicago represented the first time during this CBA negotiation cycle that the parties exchanged proposals, Albert Breer of SI.com notes. With the revenue split entering the equation, a 4 1/2-hour meeting led to the rest of that week’s powwows being nixed because the sides were too far apart. Monday’s follow-up meeting morphed from a key negotiating session to a meeting based around more peripheral matters. The revenue split subject was not on today’s agenda.

The league and the union are still slated to meet Tuesday, Breer adds, but it’s unclear if the big-picture subjects will be discussed. The parties’ next summit is scheduled for mid-August. League owners wanted more time to plan a new proposal, having seen the players’ for the first time, according to Breer. The players are also planning to amend their initial proposal.

While categorizing this round of talks as more productive than where the parties were at this point of the previous CBA cycle, Breer does not expect a new deal to be in place by the owners’ unofficial pre-Week 1 target date. The owners have backed off the goal of having the next collective bargaining agreement in place by then.

With the current CBA not set to expire until after next season, this process being completed in 2019 may be difficult. The union continues to prepare players for a possible 2021 work stoppage, sending out a “work stoppage worksheet” (Twitter link) themed around saving money in the event another lockout comes. Without a new deal in place, next offseason will include new contract and salary cap rules specific to the final year of the CBA, which means no June 1 release designations and the ability of teams to use both the franchise and transition tags to keep players off the free agent market.

The enduring subject of an 18-game schedule has resurfaced. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith confirmed a Wall Street Journal report (subscription required) indicating the NFL has broached the subject of an 18-game season, with 16-game limits per player, during the CBA talks.

As has been the case for years when this subject has emerged, the union is not on board with adding two more regular-season games.

“I don’t see an 18-game schedule — under any circumstance — being in the best interest of our players,” Smith said, via ESPN.com’s Cameron Wolfe. “If somebody wants to make an 18-game proposal, we’ll look at it. I haven’t seen anything that makes me think that it would be good for the players.”

The NFL has used a 16-game schedule since 1978. It moved from 12 to 14 in 1961. Packers president Mark Murphy (via Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio) floated the idea of a 17-game compromise, with teams having eight home games, eight road games and one neutral-site contest — which would be a gateway to more international games. The Packers president, however, is not in favor of a 17- or 18-game schedule that limits players’ participation to 16 dates, calling it “gimmicky.”

Murphy added that he would not rule out the prospect of two byes, which the league tried in 1993, and a revised schedule moving the Super Bowl to President’s Day weekend — which Florio adds the NFL has long supported. All of this would be contingent on the preseason being slashed by at least one game.

Potential issues with salaries, roster construction, additional work commitments and players’ pensions could arise with the 18/16 format, not to mention certain fan dissatisfaction for when top players must sit out certain games.

“Why is it our job to figure out how to make 18 games work as players? You tell someone you’re going to work longer and you figure out how to make it work? That doesn’t work,” Smith said. “It’s not our job to put that square peg in the round hole.

“If a coal miner is willing to spend more time in the hole, does it likely result in more money? Yeah. Is that a good thing for him as a person? Probably not. That’s the question nobody confronts. It’s easy to say it’s more money. But is it good for us? The answer is no.”

The NFL and NFLPA will reconvene from July 17-19 on their latest round of talks. Smith characterized the talks as “positive” but would not provide a timeline on their prospective conclusion. The sides want to reach an agreement before this season begins. This would come after years of Smith warning his workforce to save money in the likely event of a 2021 lockout.