Posted by Mike Florio on June 27, 2009, 10:03 a.m. EDT
Weve been saying for a while now that the uncapped year, sold for more than a decade as a dramatic windfall for players, wont be nearly as good as advertised for the men who presumably will benefit from the absence of a spending limit.
And some players are beginning to figure this out.
Most recently, Bears tight end Desmond Clark has addressed the issue in his Internet radio show. (Weve learned of his comments via ESPN Chicago and Fanhouse.)
When you talk to most of the players, they think, Oh, its an uncapped year, I can go out and make all this money, Clark said. But the other eighty-five percent of the league thats not the top tier players, theyre going to suffer.
And hes right.
Have you noticed the number of one-year deals that players have signed this year? On one hand, the players might think that theyll be getting a crack at unrestricted free agency in the uncapped year. On the other hand, the teams will be wiping the salary commitments to these players off the books, just in time for the commencement of a league year that has no salary cap and no salary floor.
Though the individual minimum salaries for 2010 will still apply, the maximum required payout will be $855,000. But thats for a player with ten years of service; those guys would have a better shot at getting a job on Wall Street.
And so a team can choose to fill its roster with younger players, whose minimum salaries for 2010 range from $545,000 for a fourth-year player and $320,000 for a rookie.
Thus, with a salary floor of $111 million in 2009, a team could (if it chooses) spend under $50 million in 2010 on player costs.
But what about the big-name players with high-end multi-year deals? Well, those players can be dumped (and thus their salaries avoided) with no salary cap consequences at all, because there will be no salary cap.
Then theres the reality that the minimum years of service for unrestricted free agency will jump from four years to six. As a result, a team will be able to squat on a key players rights for another season at an investment far lower than the franchise tag.
So Desmond Clark is right. Only a small number of NFL players will cash in. The rest of them will be screwed.
As to those who cash in, how much more will they really earn beyond the current top of the market at the various positions? In our view, the current going rates for elite players wont suddenly jump dramatically because theres no salary cap.
Bottom line? The guys who would get paid huge amounts with a salary cap will get roughly the same money in an uncapped environment. For the rest of the players, the dollars will stay the same, and maybe drop.
And so the NFLPA, in our view, needs to get a new CBA in place before the next league year starts. Otherwise, the union will face a major revolt once players who believe the uncapped year will bring a pile of gold realize that theyre actually getting a pile of something else.