What do you want to see in a new CBA?

[Dirtbag59]

Wanted to get a feel for what everyone is looking for in a new CBA. For example do you want the cap to come back? How should rookie contracts be handled? Basically anything you can think of. Heres my wish list

- No Salary Cap

- No Final 8 Free Agent Rule

- No Franchising players for more then 1 year

- Revenue sharing and luxury tax to help smaller market teams, though unlike baseball, teams will be forced to spend a large portion of that money specifically on player salaries, rather then "improving the product on the field."

- Rookie pay scale. I personally thought of something similar to a combination of draft position and a percentage of the franchise tag for a rookies respective position. So for example with QB's the first pick would be a 3 year contract at 25% of the franchise tag the second pick would be 24% and so on. 3 year contracts would also give small market teams one extra year to try to sign young players.

- Minimum payroll. No going Florida Marlins on the league fielding an entire team for $10 million. This kind of goes hand and hand with the revenue sharing and luxury tax.

- No extra games or playoff teams. This part of the system is fine.

- No poison pills.

- Increased emphasis on retired players.

[dmek25]

salary high and low limits
rookie salary cap/ max amount. not to make more then x amount
Larry Bird rule. able to keep a player, like an Emmitt Smith, with only a percentage counting against the cap

[AYJAX]

A couple of things i would like to see is;

-Rookie salary caps, they are getting crazier every year. pretty soon #1 draft picks are going to cripple teams trying to stay under the team salary cap. which brings me to,

-Salary cap,there has to be an equilizer here to keep teams from just letting the most profitable teams buy there way into the playoffs.

[Chico23231]

1. Salary cap...it does keep balance and easily my biggest must have of the CBA
2. Rookie Salary cap...man this has gotten out of hand, its just stupid money for unproven players. Players union I think will give this without much of a fight
3. Can franchise tag player for only 1 year is a good one I hadnt thought of Bag. Nice

[Paintrain]

-Salary cap is fine with me but I'd like to see a 'Larry Bird' type rule replace the franchise tag. You can pay your own players by a certain percentage to exceed the cap but not restrict them from free movement.
-Rookie salary scale
-Salary floor
-Leave the season at 16 regular season games, reduce preseason to 3 games
-Allow prospective free agents to have preliminary discussions after the final game but before the start of the next league year.

[Lotus]

1) Rookie pay scale
2) Much better benefits for retired players

[NYCskinfan82]

More profit shareing
Rookie salary cap they make to much money for a unproven product
Better benefits for retired

[MTK]

Just get a deal done, I'll dissect the particulars after that

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

- No Salary Cap

- Minimum payroll. No going Florida Marlins on the league fielding an entire team for $10 million. This kind of goes hand and hand with the revenue sharing and luxury tax.

These two don't go together. The owner's might shut the league down before they accepted a pay floor without a pay cap.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by dmek25

salary high and low limits
rookie salary cap/ max amount. not to make more then x amount
Larry Bird rule. able to keep a player, like an Emmitt Smith, with only a percentage counting against the cap

I like this idea the best. I've often wondered if the nflpa & owners would find common ground on this. Seems they would, the only down side is the potential competitive advantage for teams to hold on to players, but even then we're talking about older guys. I would like it too if it allowed a few extra roster spaces for these guys.

Also agree that the season should remain 16 games, 6 playoff teams. Don't over supply the market demand by expanding. Some teams already had a hard time selling tickets this year.

[Daseal]

- Salary Cap/Floor. This is important to keep balance in the league. Granted the non-capped year gives teams more way to retain players (two tags, etc), but this will keep cheap teams from dumping all their decent players for money.

- Rookie slotted pay scale. Make them prove it. Every rookie gets a 3 year deal. Hell, the first deal shouldn't even require an agent. Let them keep it all. 3 years is enough time to prove yourself and get a full contract.

- Dump 2 preseason games, add two regular season, and extend the size of the roster to 60 players to count for attrition. Even without the extra games, recently rosters have been too bare late in the season.

- Plus a lot of other things people mentioned.

[SBXVII]

I think we all are on the same page saying kinda the same stuff but here's mine....

1) A Rookie CAP. Let the Rookie prove himself for 2-3 yrs before giving him so much $$.

2) Some sort of soft salary CAP, meaning if a team goes over the limit they pay a monitary fine (like baseball) which goes into the kitty to be distributed to the smaller market teams.

I know the players want more of the pie which I'm not sure how you adjust for that but in the end it's a business and the owners are trying to make money not just provide entertainment. I mean what if you owned a business and all your workers said we are going to stop working unless you pay us more. I know many of bosses that would say "don't let the good door hit you where the good lord split you". However the players are Unionized so who knows. I just think with out the hard CAP teams will be able to sign or give better value to their players instead of having to tell a player they are not going to pay them and lose them to another team.

Plus prior to the CAP players were team players not money players. The Darrel Green's out there played cause they loved the team and the team was able to keep them. Then the CAP came along and players started jumping all over the place looking for the money or anyone who could pay them. The "Team" mentality is lost to the money.

[GTripp0012]

No cap. No floor. If you want to luxury tax the big spenders, go right ahead. I doubt they care.

I don't know if I'd like to have players be under team control for 6 seasons like they are in baseball, but maybe after this year, I'll support that idea as well. The difference is that in baseball, you can develop a player slowly before his major league clock starts at an advanced age. In football, a guy is pretty much as talented as he is going to get when he arrives in the league, at that point, it's about trying to develop useful skills before he gets costly.

[Monkeydad]

Rookie cap or pay scale is the most urgent need. Other than that...don't really care.

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by Daseal

- Salary Cap/Floor. This is important to keep balance in the league. Granted the non-capped year gives teams more way to retain players (two tags, etc), but this will keep cheap teams from dumping all their decent players for money.

- Rookie slotted pay scale. Make them prove it. Every rookie gets a 3 year deal. Hell, the first deal shouldn't even require an agent. Let them keep it all. 3 years is enough time to prove yourself and get a full contract.

- Dump 2 preseason games, add two regular season, and extend the size of the roster to 60 players to count for attrition. Even without the extra games, recently rosters have been too bare late in the season.

- Plus a lot of other things people mentioned.

I agree with all of your points, although I don't necessarily think 2 regular season games need to be added. I think one neutral site game should be sufficient. Also, i agree with increasing the roster to 60 players, but I don't think there should be a practice squad or smaller gameday rosters. Each team should have a 60-player roster and all 60 players should be able to play on Sundays.

Other things i'd like to see:

-Get rid of the franchise tag completely. If it stays, it should only be for 1 year, at the average of the top 5 players at any position in the league.

-Set short contract-term limits. contracts longer than 4 years should not be allowed, period. all too often, players will hold out 1-2 years after signing 6-8 year contract because they're playing at a higher level than their current contract dictates. its a distraction that the league doesnt need. capping contracts at 4 years should ensure that contracts remain appropriate for a players performance.