2021 NFL Season

[doug rr]

most writers are giving the Lions high marks for their draft this year. which means in 2-3 years those same writers will be criticizing the Lions for their horrible draft this year.

will you have the NFL sunday ticket at your lake house?

[Biff Pocoroba]

Schedule comes out in Wednesday night.

[Chris_H_2]

most writers are giving the Lions high marks for their draft this year. which means in 2-3 years those same writers will be criticizing the Lions for their horrible draft this year.

will you have the NFL sunday ticket at your lake house?

won't need it. we get the lions locally (and we're outside the 100-mile blackout zone).

[tree_]

New NY Jets' QB Zach Wilson's mother causing all sorts of drama up in NY already. It's also come out that he and his mother are hardcore Trump supporters. Will the drama for the NY Jets ever end? Sorry Mecca.

[Bammer]

New NY Jets' QB Zach Wilson's mother causing all sorts of drama up in NY already. It's also come out that he and his mother are hardcore Trump supporters. Will the drama for the NY Jets ever end? Sorry Mecca.

Is she hot?

[tree_]

[Bammer]

What kind of an idiot drafts a player from BYU anyway

[dad]

[Bammer]

Yeah, Steve Young sucked, too.

[Peeps]

[lennytheweedwhacker]

Yeah, Steve Young sucked, too.

he’s better than russell

[Bammer]

I just briefly saw something about Roethlisberger taking a $5m pay cut to help sign other players. Got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a team to “under pay” players and then compensate them other ways. Like funnel money to a local car dealership somehow, and they sign the player on as a sponsor for a shit ton of money.

[elliseamos]

I'd be shocked if it wasn't happening already.

Like if a player ran a wellness/fitness center and the owner of the team had a shopping plaza attached to the stadium where said player got to operate? Maybe rent free? Maybe the owner or his friends paid for services that they didn't really receive.

Total hypothetical, nothing to look into.

[Green Habit]

I just briefly saw something about Roethlisberger taking a $5m pay cut to help sign other players. Got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a team to “under pay” players and then compensate them other ways. Like funnel money to a local car dealership somehow, and they sign the player on as a sponsor for a shit ton of money.

What is this, college football?

There's no need to do this. Even in spite of the covid-related drop, it's likely only going to be temporary thanks to the new TV deals coming out. The NFL is a money printing machine. If anything, the owners are more worried about overpaying players.

[Biff Pocoroba]

How is race morning still a thing?

[Electromatic]

I just briefly saw something about Roethlisberger taking a $5m pay cut to help sign other players. Got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a team to “under pay” players and then compensate them other ways. Like funnel money to a local car dealership somehow, and they sign the player on as a sponsor for a shit ton of money.

What is this, college football?

There's no need to do this. Even in spite of the covid-related drop, it's likely only going to be temporary thanks to the new TV deals coming out. The NFL is a money printing machine. If anything, the owners are more worried about overpaying players.

The salary cap is absolute garbage.

[Green Habit]

I just briefly saw something about Roethlisberger taking a $5m pay cut to help sign other players. Got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a team to “under pay” players and then compensate them other ways. Like funnel money to a local car dealership somehow, and they sign the player on as a sponsor for a shit ton of money.

What is this, college football?

There's no need to do this. Even in spite of the covid-related drop, it's likely only going to be temporary thanks to the new TV deals coming out. The NFL is a money printing machine. If anything, the owners are more worried about overpaying players.

The salary cap is absolute garbage.

Given what's going on in Atlanta right now, I'm not surprised to see you say this.

[Electromatic]

I just briefly saw something about Roethlisberger taking a $5m pay cut to help sign other players. Got me thinking...

How hard would it be for a team to “under pay” players and then compensate them other ways. Like funnel money to a local car dealership somehow, and they sign the player on as a sponsor for a shit ton of money.

What is this, college football?

There's no need to do this. Even in spite of the covid-related drop, it's likely only going to be temporary thanks to the new TV deals coming out. The NFL is a money printing machine. If anything, the owners are more worried about overpaying players.

The salary cap is absolute garbage.

Given what's going on in Atlanta right now, I'm not surprised to see you say this.

No doubt right, but who is it really protecting? It only serves the owners interests. It’s literally bad for everyone except the owners that aren’t really interested in trying to win, like the Brown family and the Ford’s I guess. Perhaps the Browns fear pricing people out in that market.

We have a half billion dollar player in the league with a salary cap. These people who extol all of the virtues of capitalism when it’s convenient are literally fighting over who can build the nicest yacht based on none of the effort. If they wanted to set a luxury tax or something like that so Jerry wouldn’t try to spend a billion on talent fine, but this idea that it’s important for parity is ridiculous. There aren’t enough talented coaches and gm’s in the league and the Cowboys currently employ two of the least effective coaches in history given available talent.

Just like you could build your own stadium instead of fleecing the public you can decide who you want to pay. Eventually the paying customers are going to decide tickets aren’t worth buying.

Teams don’t have to pay guys that aren’t very good but they do. Daunte Fowler is some of the worst spent money ever (no shock attached to Dan Quinn). and there’s Sammy Watkins who had a really nice career at Clemson before he went into finance.

Only in sports and mostly only in the US are the greatest performers in the world limited in what they can earn by a cabal of rich guys, who would rather control their employees earnings than win.

Owners could cash out anytime and clear billions on the investment.


Roger Goodell gets all this credit because the league took off while he was the public figure head. What did he even do? Set a number?

[Green Habit]

It's always important to remember that the salary cap was the major concession that players had to make in order to secure free agency. I think that tradeoff has significantly come out in the players' favor, even despite things like the franchise tag and vested veteran status getting in the way.

It's also important to remember that while there's a ceiling on what teams can spend, there's also a spending floor, to make sure that cheapskates you cited like Mike Brown can't freeride off the revenue sharing in order to make obscene profits.

Both that ceiling and floor are also tied to the share of revenue that players are assured of getting that is well defined in the CBA. Without that definition, I don't think there's any guarantee that spending on players would exceed that. You'd have a few owners like Dan Snyder wildly spending money to try (and likely fail) to buy a championship, while the Mike Browns of the world lowball as much as they can. But I think most teams would aim to smartly navigate their finances to come under it, especially if those other contract restrictions remain in place.

As such, I'm fine with the salary cap as a parity builder, but it's a very mild one that gets way too much attention. You still gotta do your scouting homework, draft well, sign good free agents, know who to extend vs. who to let walk for comp picks, and so on.

[Electromatic]

Good points GH. Thanks.