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Report: If lockout is lifted, no salary cap in 2011
Posted by Mike Florio on March 13, 2011, 9:44 PM EDT
As the legal wheels begin to churn in Minnesota, the first battle undoubtedly will be whether the league is forced via court order to end the lockout.
If that occurs, the league will have two options: (1) come up with rules that apply to all 32 teams; or (2) don’t.
From a legal perspective, the safest course of action would be to rely upon the 32 separate businesses to develop their own rules regarding player acquisition and retention. But the league most likely won’t be interested in a wild-west arrangement, especially since it would entail the disappearance of the franchise tags and restricted free agency in 2011 and, as of 2012, the draft.
Thus, the league most likely will come up with rules. Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that those rules likely will include no salary cap, and in turn no salary floor, in 2011. Maske reports that the other rules of the uncapped year (e.g., six years to free agency and the so-called “Final Eight Plan”) also would be applied, and that the league believes use of the full rules of the uncapped year would help insulate the league against the ultimate argument in the Brady case — that any attempt by 32 separate businesses to place restrictions on employee acquisition and retention and movement would violate antitrust laws.
But if that’s the objective, the league should consider allowing free agents to hit the market after only four years, dumping the “Final Eight Plan,” and removing any of the extra restrictions that applied in the uncapped year.
Then again, any decision by the league to voluntarily change the current status quo would make it harder for the league to extract concessions if/when bargaining resumes by, for example, shifting the minimum years for free agency from six back to four.
In the end, the league will have to pick its proverbial poison. By enhancing its bargaining position via using a six-year path to unrestricted free agency, the league will be incurring greater risk of an adverse outcome in the Brady case.
Posted by Mike Florio on March 13, 2011, 9:44 PM EDT
As the legal wheels begin to churn in Minnesota, the first battle undoubtedly will be whether the league is forced via court order to end the lockout.
If that occurs, the league will have two options: (1) come up with rules that apply to all 32 teams; or (2) don’t.
From a legal perspective, the safest course of action would be to rely upon the 32 separate businesses to develop their own rules regarding player acquisition and retention. But the league most likely won’t be interested in a wild-west arrangement, especially since it would entail the disappearance of the franchise tags and restricted free agency in 2011 and, as of 2012, the draft.
Thus, the league most likely will come up with rules. Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that those rules likely will include no salary cap, and in turn no salary floor, in 2011. Maske reports that the other rules of the uncapped year (e.g., six years to free agency and the so-called “Final Eight Plan”) also would be applied, and that the league believes use of the full rules of the uncapped year would help insulate the league against the ultimate argument in the Brady case — that any attempt by 32 separate businesses to place restrictions on employee acquisition and retention and movement would violate antitrust laws.
But if that’s the objective, the league should consider allowing free agents to hit the market after only four years, dumping the “Final Eight Plan,” and removing any of the extra restrictions that applied in the uncapped year.
Then again, any decision by the league to voluntarily change the current status quo would make it harder for the league to extract concessions if/when bargaining resumes by, for example, shifting the minimum years for free agency from six back to four.
In the end, the league will have to pick its proverbial poison. By enhancing its bargaining position via using a six-year path to unrestricted free agency, the league will be incurring greater risk of an adverse outcome in the Brady case.
