How Much is To Much ? Will the NFL Ever Put a Limit on Contracts ?

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

39 minutes ago, billspro said:

that’s the biggest issue with the current system imo. Jordan Poyer is going through that right now.

 

When he was signed though everyone said we overpaid for an injury prone former brown so...

1 minute ago, Augie said:

How much do Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts earn for making a movie? We sure do like our entertainment and are willing to pay for it! 

 

The NFL (both owners and players) have a vested interest in finding the right balance. Pay the QB a ridiculous amount in terms of cap % and your team will stink. It’s still a team game, despite the emphasis on the QB and the passing game. Pay Mahomes 80% of the cap, and KC will sink to the bottom. They will become irrelevant and generate less income. 

 

Markets will generally set themselves. Smart people will generally find the right balance. Does it have to be limited in the CBA somewhere? Maybe, if it’s in the best interest of the game a max % or some other means will be needed eventually. In the meantime, a LOT of people are making a LOT of money, and I don’t begrudge anyone a single cent. Get it while you can!

 

yeah - if his oline is the same as allens in 2018 i think mahomes would have struggled. 

[Mr. WEO]

3 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Right.

 

Which is why it will stay the way it is. 

 

I said a few weeks ago, and I still believe it will happen, that Allen will give a hometown discount when he gets extended.   I think McBeane will be selling and Allen will buy the concept that if he takes $3-4-5 million less per year, the team will be better.   I know it sounds stupid to give up that kind of money but really, what's the difference between $25 million guaranteed for six years and $29 million?   Either way after taxes, he's got something like $50 million in the bank for his future, and the opportunity for one more contract.   In that dollar range, being on a winner is much more important than an extra few million in the bank.   I think Allen will buy that idea, just like Brady did.   

 

He will know, like everyone else, how much cap space the Bills have.  If it's a lot, why would buy what McBeane is selling?

 

Brady did that after the patriots put a multi-championship team around him.  Beane hasn't quite done that...

Edited February 22, 2020 by Mr. WEO

[BringBackOrton]

9 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

The players should be paid relative to what the league makes. They are the ones performing on the field, they are the ones putting their bodies at risk. No one is paying to see the owners sit in boxes. The owners make enough and have a solid investment.

 

As long as NFL revenues are as high as they are (and growing), so should player contracts. Easy as that.

I’m not sure the owners are even conplaining about contract sizes. It’s just the OP.

[BringBackOrton]

5 hours ago, CheshireCT said:

The OPs point is really about balance of cash between the players, rather than how much the owners have to pay. If one player gets an insane contract, that means there is left for the rest of the players on the team.

 

I would say when it comes to player salaries, the biggest shame seems to be that some of the hardest working players who come in without the high draft pedigree, and end up playing exceptionally well, often never get their fair value (for example former Bills RB Fred Jackson). The UDFA can play just as well as a 1st rounder and he keeps playing for a low salary for years trying to prove his worth, then by the time he proves it, he’s over the hill and never gets the deal he should have.

I love Fred but revisionist history. Fred made $18M from the Bills over 6 years. During that time, he rushed for 1000 yards once. He had two season back to back in which he only played 10 games. There’s no doubt Fred missed out on some earlier career earnings, but that’s why the rookie contract cuts both ways. The Bills offered Fred 4 years at $7.5M after a decent season and he took it. If he went to LSU and was drafted in the first round, he would have made more. That’s why people go to LSU, not Coe College.

[BurpleBull]

Why don't you as a fan, propose regulating how much money is allotted to the owners?

 

Did your issue begin at Matt Ryan, or did it start at Russell Wilson, and move to Patrick Mahomes? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ya Digg?]

I understand that there is a cap so teams can only spend so much, but at no point should there ever be a limit on how much a player can make. This includes Allen-he should not take a discount. These players have a very short amount of time to maximize what they can get paid, and they should push for every dollar they can get. Teams have shown year after year that these contracts can be manipulated so you can continue to sign guys. 
 

This argument always baffles me. So you are in favor of the billionaire owner getting even more money? Obviously as fans we root for the Jersey not the player so we want them to sign for as little as possible and they should just “be happy playing a kids game.” Let these guys make as much as they can.

[KD in CA]

I don't see who would really support a cap on individual contracts, except maybe owners as a way to limit overall salaries.  Players, agents and the union all want to see both top end and total comp go up.  The former is a leading indicator of the later.

 

I still can't believe the people who flood into these threads with the guaranteed contracts nonsense, as if NFL players are standing shoulder to shoulder with them on the picket line for an additional $5 an hour.

[row_33]

1 hour ago, BUFFALOBART said:

Depreciation, and other write offs, come into play.

The Buffalo Bills are likely a (paper) money loser for the Pegula's..

Vanity projects aren’t intended to make $$$ 

 

 

[ganesh]

why?  In a free economy, you get to earn what is available.  Are you going to put a cap on the mega millions CEO's of companies are making?

[Billl]

21 hours ago, Chaos said:

A cap on the highest individual salary is a completely separate variable from the owners getting richer. Conceptually the salary floor and total payroll cap dictate how much is left for the owners.   An individual cap actually disrupts competitive balance. For example  If the Indvidual cap was 20 mm and mahomes and dak Prescott both make 20 that is a huge advantage to the chiefs.  

You’re not wrong, but what nobody is considering is that not having a cap is an even bigger advantage for the Chiefs.  Both Dak and Pat making $20 million leaves both teams with a ton of money to build the rest of the roster up.  If Pat makes $40 million and Dak makes $38 million, Dallas is even farther behind.  It would be to the Chiefs advantage to drive up QB salaries as high as possible for the whole league.

[row_33]

34 minutes ago, BUFFALOBART said:

$1.4B is not chump change, or a 'vanity project'. The write offs serve the Pegula's well, I'm sure..

sure it is when they could have bought the team for a lot less 

 

 

[BringBackOrton]

20 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Right.

 

Which is why it will stay the way it is. 

 

I said a few weeks ago, and I still believe it will happen, that Allen will give a hometown discount when he gets extended.   I think McBeane will be selling and Allen will buy the concept that if he takes $3-4-5 million less per year, the team will be better.   I know it sounds stupid to give up that kind of money but really, what's the difference between $25 million guaranteed for six years and $29 million?   Either way after taxes, he's got something like $50 million in the bank for his future, and the opportunity for one more contract.   In that dollar range, being on a winner is much more important than an extra few million in the bank.   I think Allen will buy that idea, just like Brady did.   

Allen isn’t from Buffalo.

 

If Allen’s parents are involved, they will tell him to get every cent he can. 

Edited February 22, 2020 by BringBackOrton

[Tuco]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:42 PM, BigBillsFan said:

 

Short-term fantasy has a strong upside. Fans will watch more games. It's working... for now.

 

This is a long-term disaster. Let's pretend we're playing the Browns and you drafted Chubb and he gashes us for 150 yards. Are you not going to celebrate secretly when he rips an 80 yarder? Of course you will.

 

So what that does is destroy your idea of love of your team. We love teams like we love dogs, we love them not because they're beautiful, but because we feel like they won't betray us and we won't betray them. Destroy that idea and watch fandom die.

 

It's working now because you love a team. Watch a kid who's dad loves the Bills and they want to play on the net more and do fantasy. Do you really think with such divided loyalties your son will care as much? They can't, they are privately celebrating every touchdown against their home team without the deep seated love we have for their team.

 

I disagree. I've been a Bills fan for 50 years, and have been playing fantasy football for 30 years. While there are occasional conflicts, it's rarely to the extent you're painting it here.

 

My weekly fantasy lineup has 8 players. One of them is a kicker who's impact is usually minimal. Of the other 7 players playing, usually maybe 4 are must play studs and the other 3 (or maybe it's only 2) are just the best guys you could get at that point of the draft.  Either way,  those players aren't the Chubbs of the world and they aren't going to make o break your season in the one week they play the Bills. So there's maybe 5 players at the most on your team that would cause such a conflict. Chances are about 60% for each of those players that they won't even face the Bills in the season. 

 

Conflicts like you're describing rarely happen. And in fact they happen the opposite way just as often. It's just as likely you'll be playing against Chubbs the week he's playing the Bills as it is you'll be rooting for him. A double whammy for your rooting fandom. Also when these conflicts do happen, it's still just one player out of your whole lineup.  And a case where that one player is the last one playing for you in that week and him doing well against the Bills is going to make or break your fantasy season are extremely rare. So having to choose one's loyalty over the Bills or a fantasy player isn't like some every week occurrence that's going to destroy a child's interest in the NFL. If that happens it will likely come from many other reasons like $200 tickets and  poor planning by the league as they continue to try to grow the league and it's revenues.

 

What is much more likely to happen is I, and a few million others around the world, will stay up until midnight on a work night just to watch the end of a lousy Monday night blowout just because I have Chubbs and need 8 more points to win that week. These millions of extra watchers like myself help the league because it keeps the TV ratings a little higher for a crap game.

 

Been playing fantasy football for 30 years, and for more money than pretty much any kid out there who might be watching. It has never had an impact on my Bills fanhood. My $.02

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, BringBackOrton said:

Allen isn’t from Buffalo.

 

If Allen’s parents are involved, they will tell him to get every cent he can. 

Uh, "hometown discount" doesn't refer just to where the person grew up, and it doesn't have anything to do with the player's parents.  

 

Bleacher Report defines "hometown discount" this way:   "a hometown discount is when a player takes a bit of a pay cut to play in the city that they grew up in, has family in, or is where they started their career."  Brady is from California, but he gave the Patriots a hometown discount.  

 

 

[Aussie Joe]

18 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

 

 

Bleacher Report defines "hometown discount" this way:   "a hometown discount is when a player takes a bit of a pay cut to play in the city that they grew up in, has family in, or is where they started their career."  Brady is from California, but he gave the Patriots a hometown discount.  

 

 

Bradys wife also makes more money then he does..

 

But if at the end of the day they decide that Josh Allen is worth a second contract, the amount they pay him will be a good problem to have..

[GreggTX]

They already limit rookie contracts and the average NFL career is only 3 years. I'm not sure what cap I'd set otherwise, but I think non-ticket/parking/refreshments profits (jerseys, caps, etc) should be split evenly among the players so the short term guys can share in that.

[BigBillsFan]

2 hours ago, Tuco said:

 

I disagree. I've been a Bills fan for 50 years, and have been playing fantasy football for 30 years. While there are occasional conflicts, it's rarely to the extent you're painting it here.

 

....

 

Been playing fantasy football for 30 years, and for more money than pretty much any kid out there who might be watching. It has never had an impact on my Bills fanhood. My $.02

 

Sure but we came from a world before the internet. Again this is not dealing with guys who watched the Bills as kids and had a real connection to fandom. I’m referring to young people who grew up thinking of football through a computer screen, and fantasy… that will erode fandom.

 

It’s like how computers make people say things they would never say to your face. Social media has people more of idiots

 

You don’t love your family MORE when you see them less, when you don’t grow up with them, and kids who only see a team on a screen and even more so through box scores on a screen will never love the game like their grandfathers.

 

Part of liking a team isn’t watching them, it’s the people you watched it with, the bond you had around the team. For a few people that might be the case, but real fans are typically born from someone close to you enjoying the game with you.

 

Make the game a further abstraction and you are eroding fandom. I’m from upstate NY but my kids were raised in Kansas. I could have them go to the Chiefs and like them, but I’m not going to Hell. I love my team.

 

My kids started to celebrate when the Chiefs won and my son who is young said “You must be happy” and I told him I’ll never be happy until the Bill win.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, BigBillsFan said:

 

Sure but we came from a world before the internet. Again this is not dealing with guys who watched the Bills as kids and had a real connection to fandom. I’m referring to young people who grew up thinking of football through a computer screen, and fantasy… that will erode fandom.

 

It’s like how computers make people say things they would never say to your face. Social media has people more of idiots

 

You don’t love your family MORE when you see them less, when you don’t grow up with them, and kids who only see a team on a screen and even more so through box scores on a screen will never love the game like their grandfathers.

 

Part of liking a team isn’t watching them, it’s the people you watched it with, the bond you had around the team. For a few people that might be the case, but real fans are typically born from someone close to you enjoying the game with you.

 

Make the game a further abstraction and you are eroding fandom. I’m from upstate NY but my kids were raised in Kansas. I could have them go to the Chiefs and like them, but I’m not going to Hell. I love my team.

 

My kids started to celebrate when the Chiefs won and my son who is young said “You must be happy” and I told him I’ll never be happy until the Bill win.

 

 

The opposite is true.  It is the reason the NFL has so many fans.  It is the engine driving revenue growth.

 

Teams will always have fans.  The owners want more fans of the league itself, especially with legalized gambling looming.

[BringBackOrton]

3 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Uh, "hometown discount" doesn't refer just to where the person grew up, and it doesn't have anything to do with the player's parents.  

 

Bleacher Report defines "hometown discount" this way:   "a hometown discount is when a player takes a bit of a pay cut to play in the city that they grew up in, has family in, or is where they started their career."  Brady is from California, but he gave the Patriots a hometown discount.  

 

 

Man, Bleacher Report must be diversifying more than I thought if they are getting into the dictionary business. Merriam-Webster may have to start putting together poorly thought out football player slideshows to stay competitive.

[LSHMEAB]

Capitalism at work. Honestly don't even understand the question. They get paid because they have leverage and the league generates a TON of money. Period.