Collective Bargaining Agreement News & Rumors

Work continues on the collective bargaining agreement, which has yet to be officially sent out for a vote. A potential goal of a ratification vote occurring by late next week exists, but Mark Maske of the Washington Post notes (via Twitter) this could spill into the second week of March. That will keep teams’ tag plans complicated. The tag window opened Thursday and will close March 12. Here is the latest on the CBA front:

• The expectation of the 2020 salary cap coming in at around $200MM remains, according to NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero (on Twitter). However, the expanded playoffs and next round of TV deals are expected to increase the cap spikes considerably in the near future.
• The TV contracts could well make an enormous impact on the game, with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk indicating the networks’ cash infusion will mean a $3.2 billion-per-year increase per team. Teams would then see an estimated $100MM in additional funds per year. While not all of that will go toward players, 48.5% of it will when the season expands to 17 games. The prospect of the cap climbing closer to $300MM by 2023 is in play. That would change the NFL’s financial landscape.
• Under this CBA proposal, teams will be permitted to bring three players off injured reserve, per CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin. That is up from the current IR-return setup, which allows teams to bring two players off their injured lists annually. This marks a key change, as it was not long ago placing a player on IR meant his season was over.
• While teams will be allowed 12 practice squad slots (up from 10) starting in 2020, that number increases to 14 in 2022, per Benjamin. This would create more jobs and potentially hurt the XFL’s talent base, though it’s obviously uncertain if the league will be in operation by then. Like the IR setup, the practice squad format has undergone a notable overhaul. Prior to 2014, teams could only carry eight players on taxi squads.
• Rounding out the bullet points in the CBA proposal, teams cannot practice in pads for more than three straight days during training camp, per CBS.

The CBA proposal has not yet been sent to players, with Tom Pelissero of NFL.com reporting (via Twitter) the NFL and NFLPA are working to finalize the document before players can vote on it. The earliest any player will be able to vote on the proposal will be next week. That throws a wrench into the franchise-transition tag process, among other matters. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith is confident this CBA will pass, per Todd Archer of ESPN.com. Smith and NFLPA president Eric Winston are on board with this offer, though some notable NFLers — including union reps Aaron Rodgers and Richard Sherman — are not.

Here is the latest from the CBA front:

• While some All-Pros and Pro Bowlers have voiced opposition to this proposal, roughly 60% of the NFL earns a league-minimum salary. That could sway the vote. League minimums for players with zero to three years of service time will see their pay spike in Year 1 of this new CBA, with Pelissero reporting (via Twitter) rookies will see $610K minimums and three-year vets on minimum deals will make $825K in 2019. Those are approximately $100K spikes. Rookies would make $510K this season under the 2011 CBA. Additionally, by 2029, every NFL salary will be at least $1MM, Pelissero adds.
• Veterans on low salaries could benefit under this CBA as well. Vested vets on low-cost deals of around $1.75MM AAV would not be subject to the compensatory formula, Pelissero adds (via Twitter). The goal here is for teams not to wait on signing “core veterans,” thus helping them get work earlier in the offseason or merely land with teams. These type of players are often forced to languish in free agency until after the compensatory pick deadline ends in early May or subject to the in-season workout circuit.
• Practice squad players would, however, lose an avenue toward higher salaries. This CBA would allow teams to demote players to practice squads twice without the player being subject to waivers, Pelissero tweets. This would prevent other teams from poaching P-squad talent while also impeding these players from seeing league-minimum salaries elsewhere. This appears similar to Major League Baseball, where younger players can be directly optioned to the minors.

The path to a new collective bargaining agreement is almost as complex as the deal itself. Recently, there’s been some confusion surrounding the process on the NFLPA’s side.

In order for the CBA to advance to a union-wide vote, the NFLPA’s 32 player representatives will have to sign off with a majority vote, as Mike Florio of PFT writes. If it gets less than 50% approval from the reps, the NFLPA says it will not pass it along to the entire player body. If it garners two-thirds, the proposal will be forwarded with a formal recommendation for a yes vote.

This has been confirmed by the union in a memo sent to all NFL agents. The CBA bylaws do not mandate player rep approval before the general union vote, but the NFLPA says this will be the procedure and there’s no realistic way for players to challenge it right now.

If 17 player reps approve, players will get their turn at the ballot box, where they’ll have to weigh the perks of more revenue, less discipline, and other changes against the increased hazards that would come with a 17-game season. The union may be warming up to the latest iteration put forward by owners, but there’s nothing close to a consensus on their side – many remain staunchly opposed to the extra regular season game and a debate continues to rage internally. Players, historically, have folded when faced with the prospect of a labor stoppage, but many have said that they’re ready and willing to continue the stare-down in order to get what they want.

The NFL and NFLPA will discuss the many moving parts of the deal at this week’s draft combine.

Here are today’s reports concerning the current CBA negotiations:

• Players are still “majorly divided” over the prospect of a 17-game season, per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com. We previously heard that NFL ownership has agreed to meet with the union at the Combine on the evening of February 25, and Fowler says player reps could vote as early as February 26. However, a source told Fowler that “[a]nything is possible at this point.”
• Fowler reiterates that players want to go back to owners and continue negotiating, but the owners have said that no more negotiations will take place and that the current iteration of the CBA is the owners’ best and final offer.
• Ben Volin of the Boston Globe does a nice job of breaking down the major tenets of the current proposal, and he suggests the owners may not be merely posturing when they say the CBA is not going to get any better for the players. Indeed, players have historically folded under the prospect of a lockout, and if a new agreement is not in place by the time the current one expires in March 2021, the owners will have even more leverage than they currently do.
• Plus, as Volin points out, the average NFL career is three years, so while the league’s elite can perhaps afford to drive a hard bargain, the middle- and lower-classes want the new CBA and the immediate raises for younger players that it provides. On the other hand, Volin believes the owners did not really make any significant concessions in terms of major financial battlegrounds like the franchise tag formula or a quicker path to free agency, so the union’s reluctance to pull the trigger is understandable.
• The 17-game schedule is obviously the major sticking point, but the expanded playoff field is also a part of the equation. League owners believe that they don’t need player approval for the expansion, which they intend to move forward with in 2020 even if the players don’t ratify a new CBA, as Mark Maske of the Washington Post tweets. However, as Pro Football Talk notes (via Twitter), unless owners already have the right to expand the playoffs under the current CBA, it seems as if that issue would be one that needs to be collectively bargained.
• Under the proposed version of the new CBA, players would be capped at $250K for their 17th game check, as Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network tweets. Therefore, many players would play that game for less than they would usually make — a player with a $4.25MM annual salary earns $250K per week — which is obviously problematic.
• One of the benefits of getting a deal done quickly is the fact that it would help facilitate new broadcast deals, thereby allowing the league (and its players) to capitalize on the NFL’s recent ratings rise and avoid the possibility of networks getting cold feet over labor unrest. Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports says salary cap projections are already being made for as far out as the 2027 season, which suggests that broadcasting rights negotiations are already quite far along or the owners have agreeable proposals in front of them (Twitter link).

A significant development in the CBA negotiations was announced Saturday evening. The NFL and NFLPA have agreed to push back the franchise and transition tag windows, sources told Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). The tag window was supposed to be from February 25th to March 10th, but it’ll now be from February 27th to March 12th.

In a follow-up tweet, Pelissero noted that if no new CBA is agreed upon by then, teams will be able to use both the franchise and transition tags instead of the usual one tag per team. As he points out that’s potentially good news for teams like the Cowboys, who have more than one impending free agent they want control over. The push moves the window to after the full NFLPA vote on the proposed CBA is expected, so teams will be able to know where things stand before deciding who to tag.

Momentum toward a new CBA took a significant blow yesterday, although the two sides agreed to meet at this week’s combine to further negotiate. This is a move designed to give the sides a little bit more time to talk as deadlines rapidly approach, and to see if the Tuesday summit at the combine moves things in the right direction. The decision has many implications, and Jason Fitzgerald of Overthecap.com tweets that he thinks the union will now have to “indicate a pretty strong yes by the 26th” or else there won’t be new CBA rules this year.

It also gives teams like the Cowboys two extra days to negotiate long-term deals for players like Dak Prescott before they have to decide whether or not to use a tag. Interestingly, if progress is made on talks and it looks like there’s a deal to be reached, there is still a chance that the start of free agency is pushed back to accommodate the talks, Ralph Vacchiano of SNY hears (Twitter link). These next few days are going to be pivotal, and we should know a lot more soon.

The momentum toward a new CBA took a blow on Friday, but all hope is not lost, as the two sides have agreed to meet at the combine next week. As we await more word on where exactly the players union stands, here’s the latest on what was in the most recent proposal:

• One issue that players didn’t get what they wanted on is the ‘funding rule,’ per Dan Graziano of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The players wanted the rule eliminated, but instead Graziano notes the proposal only “weaken[ed] the rule somewhat.” The rule requires teams to put any amount of guaranteed money in a contract over $2MM into escrow. As Graziano points out, it’s an outdated rule from many years ago designed to prevent teams from being unable to make payroll. As the players have argued for years now, that makes owners less willing to give players large guarantees, since they have to put all the money into a bank account up front. Especially for owners that are more cash-strapped than others, it’s a significant deterrent. Graziano writes that the proposal increases the “funding rule threshold to $15 million in the first year of the deal and $17 million in 2029, the final year of the deal.”
• There’s been talk for a while about the new deal relaxing marijuana restrictions, and we have the full details on what that would look like, courtesy of Mark Maske of the Washington Post (Twitter link). The THC testing window would be reduced from a huge four-month period to just two weeks at the start of training camp. Additionally, players would no longer be suspended solely for positive marijuana tests, the number of players tested would be reduced, and the thresholds for positive tests would be increased. In other words, marijuana use will virtually never be an issue again for NFL players.
• Another smaller benefit for the players is they won’t have to pay as much money in fines, Maske tweets. The proposal will apparently reduce the fines from both teams and the league for on-field infractions. That means players won’t be fined as much for things like unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.