Salary Cap Analysis

[70Chip]

It looks like the NFLPA is taking an extremely tough line. They haven't been this bellicose since '87. I know they like to talk smack right up to the end, but I am starting to worry.....


Upshaw Schedules Rare Meeting With Agents


by Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 16, 2006; 12:36 PM


NFL Players Association chief Gene Upshaw has not addressed players agents as a group in years, but he's scheduled to do so next week in Indianapolis at the scouting combine. The meeting will come as the agents prepare to begin negotiating contracts for players at a time of great uncertainty, with the union and the league's team owners still significantly apart in their negotiations on an extension of the sport's collective bargaining agreement.

The free-agent market is scheduled to open March 3. There has been talk league-wide of pushing the opening of the market back until April 1 if there's sufficient progress in the labor talks to warrant such a delay. But union officials say that, at this point, there's no need to consider pushing back free agency because there hasn't been progress in the labor negotiations.

The union regards Feb. 24 as the deadline for a labor deal. Union officials say if that deadline passes without a deal, the free-agent market will open as scheduled March 3. Upshaw has said if there's no deal by the time the union's executive board meets March 9, he'll recommend to the players then that they put in motion the process to decertify the union as a tactic to prevent a future lockout by the owners.

The current labor deal runs through the 2007 season. But under the deal, the 2006 season would be the final one with the current salary-cap system in place. The 2007 season would be played without a salary cap.