NFLPA claims Owners colluded to not give out fully guaranteed contracts

[BullBuchanan]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:37 PM, BADOLBILZ said:

 

You wouldn't feel that way if you looked at the system thru the free market lens.

 

The unguaranteed multi-year contracts actually greatly benefit the players as a whole.

 

It's something that fans can't understand because no players union would allow it...........but if every player were to become a free agent after the season the owners would have a massive hammer over them.   The overall size of the pie that the players earned would be a mere fraction of what it is under the current system and it would be extremely difficult to keep them unionized.   In a sport with a 100% injury rate, as players say,  nobody would get multi-year deals.  

 

Nobody.

 

When Marvin Miller and the MLBPA first pushed for free agency........MLB owners dangled that "total free agency" to them hoping they'd take it.   But Miller wasn't that dumb.   

 

 

You failed to support your thesis here. Whether or not deals have guarantees has no bearing on the slice of the pie that players get and it shouldn't. The only thing it would impact are the individual deals, but not the total spend for the roster.

Fully guaranteed deals are a massive boon for players not only because of injury, but because of games teams play with the cap. Guaranteed deals can still have escalators and options baked in, but should otherwise be baked in. You'll likely end up with shorter deals overall and a little off the top in some cases and it should all even out in the wash.

[Rew]

This is a strange case for NFLPA to bring, even if there was a discussion between owners.  Anticompetitive collusion typically involves either harm to employees (in the form of lower wages) or harm to customers (in the form of higher prices).  It's hard to show either of these.  The players have a negotiated salary cap and allocation of funds to them.  If owners colluded to uniformly spend under the cap of allocated funds it would be a clear cut case.  However, in the typical scenario where most teams are spending up to and beyond the cap the owner doesn't benefit from the result of a contract negotiation.  A lower or non guaranteed contract simply leaves more money available to other players.  I don't see an easy argument of how the players as a whole would be harmed by a different distribution of the negotiated funds.  It's also tough to show how the behavior was anticompetitive in a way that harmed consumers.

[Saxum]

Since it is a zero sum game all that it means teams are borrowing from future. 

 

More guaranteed contacts would me more contracts like Deshaun Watson's which means lower contracts for other players.

 

NFLPA is trying to legalize stupidity.  

[US Egg]

Same old song and dance.

 

Evil billionaire owners are a scourge and why millionaire players can’t make a decent living.

 

 

[BADOLBILZ]

1 hour ago, BullBuchanan said:

You failed to support your thesis here. Whether or not deals have guarantees has no bearing on the slice of the pie that players get and it shouldn't. The only thing it would impact are the individual deals, but not the total spend for the roster.

Fully guaranteed deals are a massive boon for players not only because of injury, but because of games teams play with the cap. Guaranteed deals can still have escalators and options baked in, but should otherwise be baked in. You'll likely end up with shorter deals overall and a little off the top in some cases and it should all even out in the wash.

 

You'll have to be much more specific with your second paragraph.   MLB has guaranteed contracts and they still play games with payroll.    One team can have a $40M payroll and another can have a $300M payroll.    My Yankees, for instance, have had payrolls of around $250M on $900M in revenues in the 2010's.   The NFL shares revenue near equally with players and teams are required to spend 90% of their cap over a 3 year period.   Guaranteed salaries are a "massive boon" for certain individual players but not for the players as a whole if the dollars aren't there or aren't being spent. 

[BullBuchanan]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

You'll have to be much more specific with your second paragraph.   MLB has guaranteed contracts and they still play games with payroll.    One team can have a $40M payroll and another can have a $300M payroll.    My Yankees, for instance, have had payrolls of around $250M on $900M in revenues in the 2010's.   The NFL shares revenue near equally with players and teams are required to spend 90% of their cap over a 3 year period.   Guaranteed salaries are a "massive boon" for certain individual players but not for the players as a whole if the dollars aren't there or aren't being spent. 

What I'm talking about are back-loaded deals that will clearly never come to pass in term of playing games with the gap.

Baseball is totally different because they don't have a cap. In football, whether or not the deals are guaranteed should mean less to ownership, because how much the players are entitled to and the minimum amount teams must spend is fixed. every team in the league more or less spends the same amount of money, and it's all paid for by the TV deals. None of it comes out of anybody's pocket, so all the teams are on a relatively even playing field when it comes to their ability to afford players. The only thing a team has to do is decide how they want to spend it and make sure that they make good decisions.

5 hours ago, Rew said:

This is a strange case for NFLPA to bring, even if there was a discussion between owners.  Anticompetitive collusion typically involves either harm to employees (in the form of lower wages) or harm to customers (in the form of higher prices).  It's hard to show either of these.  The players have a negotiated salary cap and allocation of funds to them.  If owners colluded to uniformly spend under the cap of allocated funds it would be a clear cut case.  However, in the typical scenario where most teams are spending up to and beyond the cap the owner doesn't benefit from the result of a contract negotiation.  A lower or non guaranteed contract simply leaves more money available to other players.  I don't see an easy argument of how the players as a whole would be harmed by a different distribution of the negotiated funds.  It's also tough to show how the behavior was anticompetitive in a way that harmed consumers.

Explain how a non-guaranteed contract leaves more money available to other players.

[BullBuchanan]

4 hours ago, Limeaid said:

Since it is a zero sum game all that it means teams are borrowing from future. 

 

More guaranteed contacts would me more contracts like Deshaun Watson's which means lower contracts for other players.

 

NFLPA is trying to legalize stupidity.  

If all contracts were guaranteed, negotiations would be a lot more straightforward. Outside of it being guaranteed, they paid market rate for what they believe is a franchise QB who led the league in passing during his last season. Not sure what's so stupid about that, beyond the gamble on the legal side of it, which worked out in their favor.

[Rew]

5 hours ago, BullBuchanan said:

What I'm talking about are back-loaded deals that will clearly never come to pass in term of playing games with the gap.

Baseball is totally different because they don't have a cap. In football, whether or not the deals are guaranteed should mean less to ownership, because how much the players are entitled to and the minimum amount teams must spend is fixed. every team in the league more or less spends the same amount of money, and it's all paid for by the TV deals. None of it comes out of anybody's pocket, so all the teams are on a relatively even playing field when it comes to their ability to afford players. The only thing a team has to do is decide how they want to spend it and make sure that they make good decisions.

Explain how a non-guaranteed contract leaves more money available to other players.

The teams spend to cap.  If all contracts were guaranteed, they would have more money tied up for longer periods of time, meaning that less cap space would be available for new contracts.  More contract flexibility allows teams to allocate cap funds to new contracts, meaning more opportunities for free agents and new players.

 

You're missing the union contract.  Owners and player have already agreed how much money goes to players.  That can't be changed in an individual's negotiation.  The dollars just get shifted between the players.

 

Ultimately, in a fully guaranteed model the contracts would be lower dollar value and shorter.  Players would, as a whole, and assuming the same size player pool, make exactly the same.  The only potential for individuals to make more on average would be if the guaranteed contracts reduce the ability for new talent to get paid and reduce the size of the player pool.

[Mr. WEO]

So after Cousins, the NFL colluded to deny any more fully guaranteed contracts, thus screwing over subsequent QBs contacts….and the proof is that the Browns recently offered a fully guaranteed contract? 
 

at some point you gotta feel bad for the NFLPA…

[BullBuchanan]

5 hours ago, Rew said:

The teams spend to cap.  If all contracts were guaranteed, they would have more money tied up for longer periods of time, meaning that less cap space would be available for new contracts.  More contract flexibility allows teams to allocate cap funds to new contracts, meaning more opportunities for free agents and new players.

 

You're missing the union contract.  Owners and player have already agreed how much money goes to players.  That can't be changed in an individual's negotiation.  The dollars just get shifted between the players.

 

Ultimately, in a fully guaranteed model the contracts would be lower dollar value and shorter.  Players would, as a whole, and assuming the same size player pool, make exactly the same.  The only potential for individuals to make more on average would be if the guaranteed contracts reduce the ability for new talent to get paid and reduce the size of the player pool.

Did you mean to quote me? Seems we're making most of the same points except that guaranteed money gives players more money.

 

You're right that the size of the pie is the same, but the amount paid to individual players is not, because there are lots of contract terminations that leave these players with unpaid deals. There's nothing that would prevent teams from releasing players and paying new talent, so I don't see how it reduces the player pool at all except if owners are reluctant to pay a player they no longer want plus a new one. It's not a problem in hockey though.

[Rock'em Sock'em]

On 11/22/2022 at 2:21 PM, Big Turk said:

The argument is that all of the owners, which would almost assuredly have happened with the commissioner's knowledge, got together and decided to put an end to fully guaranteed contracts.

This might have happened, and if it did it's wrong unless it's being discussed as part of collective bargaining agreements.

 

I would bet that if Oliver or Edmunds came to the Bills and wanted an under market value contract (say $50 million over 8 years) that was "fully guaranteed", that the Bills or any other team would oblige. So do you think collusion why these deals don't happen?  I think contracts structured with some guarantees and some bonuses and some team or player options actually work better for both parties compared to smaller or shorter fully guaranteed contracts.

[without a drought]

I'm starting to think we should take up a collection for both sides.

 

Especially with the holidays coming.