Jeff-Pash-reacts-to-DeMaurice-Smiths-criticism-of-NFLs-last-offer

[Lurker64]

The salary cap should not be a "$x for you guys and $y for you other guys" (where x≠y) situation. It should be a hard cap that everybody is bound to.

Also, JH be careful. You're doing the thing that the players rejected strenuously with the league's final proposal. The league gave a program where the cap was just pegged as a dollar figure, rather than as a function of total revenue. It's management's assertion that the salary cap should just be a number that is bargained collectively, it should not be a function of the total dollar amount (since the league sees into a future where revenue is like $50b, and projecting forward the minimum salary would be like $3m). Labor, on the other hand, wants to set the cap as a percentage of total revenue so if the league grows so does the pie, no matter how big the league grows.

So if you agree with labor, you can't just "peg the cap"... they reject that on principle.

[RashanGary]

So if you agree with labor, you can't just "peg the cap"... they reject that on principle.

The cap # would be a percentage of the revenue and everything else based off that.


Essentially, I'm trying to give Jones and Snider the chance to spend a little more, but nothing over the top. I'd like to keep it closer to football than baseball, but I do think a slight edge to the most popular teams makes the NFL more profitable overall. More people watch when the cowboys are on. They have more money. Let them have a small edge. They deserve it and the NFLwould profit from it.

go away skinbasket, your opinion has been noted and is no longer needed.

[Lurker64]

I'm trying to give Jones and Snider the chance to spend a little more, but nothing over the top. I'd like to keep it closer to football than baseball, but I do think a slight edge to the most popular teams makes the NFL more profitable overall. More people watch when the cowboys are on. They have more money. Let them have a small edge. They deserve it and the NFLwould profit from it.

I disagree strenuously. People will watch the Cowboys when they're on, whether or not they're good. So if you want to increase profitability, you should give the edge to a team that wouldn't draw eyeballs and asses when they're not good, but will when they are. That way you have more total eyeballs and asses glued to your product. A better system would be to give nobody an edge, which is essentially the current system.

Remember, the NFL has built an extremely popular sport based on a framework of punishing the successful teams and propping up the weak ones. Propping up the successful teams and punishing the weak ones would undermine the NFL greatly.

The extent of "different teams are treated differently" that the owners will agree to is "limited revenue sharing." They'll never agree to let the Steelers have a higher cap than the Ravens, and they shouldn't.

[RashanGary]

The NFL has grown in large part because they have a good product that people love. The current system is part of it, but I'd like a league where a couple teams spend a little more money and everyone hates them.

The way those teams spend, they'd screw it up with a few more dollars anyway. Ted could beat Jerry Jones with 20% tied behind his back and it would feel that much sweeter.

I see your point too. It might be better the way it is. It might be better with a small financial tilt toward the teams with the large fan bases. Hard to say until it's done. My vision says the new way would be better. Yours says otherwise. I'll stand by my hunch, but I could be wrong too.

I know skinbasket doesn't understand what I'm saying, but I hope you can see it's a small difference, nothing like baseball. Just a little more rope for the idiot cowboys (and teams like them), that's it. The operative words are small(tile) and little(more rope). Don't mistake those for, "just like baseball"

Baseball is horrible, but that doesn't mean there aren't small things they have right, or at least in the right direction. Things aren't either all right or all wrong.

[Freak Out]

The NFL has grown in large part because they have a good product that people love. The current system is part of it, but I'd like a league where a couple teams spend a little more money and everyone hates them.

What? Well shit...lets just take the WWF model and modify it for the NFL.

[Freak Out]

[Lurker64]

'd like a league where a couple teams spend a little more money and everyone hates them.

There are plenty of reasons to hate teams that have nothing to do with those teams having an unfair advantage.

You hate the Cowboys because Troy Aikman is somehow on the top FOX announcing team, and is as biased an announcer as we've ever seen. Plus, Jerry Jones is essentially one of those fans who thinks he can do a better job than NFL GMs, except he's a billionaire so he actually bought a team and gets to play at GM.

You hate the Redskins because: You Read This Article about their owner.

You hate the Patriots because: In the eyes of the media, they can do absolutely no wrong. They're smarter than everybody else and even when the hoodie fucks up he's brilliant.

You hate the Raiders because: Their owner is an undead monstrosity:

You don't need to tilt the playing field to make teams hateable. When you add to the fact that everybody's going to hate their division rivals, the fact that the media and asshole billionaires make certain teams eminently hateable is enough.

[Pugger]

The NFL has grown in large part because they have a good product that people love. The current system is part of it, but I'd like a league where a couple teams spend a little more money and everyone hates them.

The way those teams spend, they'd screw it up with a few more dollars anyway. Ted could beat Jerry Jones with 20% tied behind his back and it would feel that much sweeter.

I see your point too. It might be better the way it is. It might be better with a small financial tilt toward the teams with the large fan bases. Hard to say until it's done. My vision says the new way would be better. Yours says otherwise. I'll stand by my hunch, but I could be wrong too.

I know skinbasket doesn't understand what I'm saying, but I hope you can see it's a small difference, nothing like baseball. Just a little more rope for the idiot cowboys (and teams like them), that's it. The operative words are small(tile) and little(more rope). Don't mistake those for, "just like baseball"

Baseball is horrible, but that doesn't mean there aren't small things they have right, or at least in the right direction. Things aren't either all right or all wrong.

Baseball is horrible because of a lack of parity. I can't understand any Packer fan that would be open to a system like MLB. The ONLY reason why the Packers have been so successful is because of the cap and revenue sharing.

[Guiness]

Remember, the NFL has built an extremely popular sport based on a framework of punishing the successful teams and propping up the weak ones. Propping up the successful teams and punishing the weak ones would undermine the NFL greatly.

Some might disagree with that over the last decade. A top 5 draft pick, and the top overall in particular has been an albatross as often as not. Bloody sea bloody bird bloody Albatross (flavour)

[SkinBasket]

go away skinbasket, your opinion has been noted and is no longer needed.

Excellent way to defend your "proposal." God forbid someone point out your idea doesn't work on both a fundamental and a practical level.

But really, giving the teams with the richest owners a 2-1 advantage on the field is a wonderful idea. I'm sure it would promote "parity." Just like baseball.

[RashanGary]

Excellent way to defend your "proposal." God forbid someone point out your idea doesn't work on both a fundamental and a practical level.

But really, giving the teams with the richest owners a 2-1 advantage on the field is a wonderful idea. I'm sure it would promote "parity." Just like baseball.

I see you and Lurker's points. They're valid, but don't compare 20% over the cap and 80% over the lowest team to baseball where the Yankees are 1000% over the lowest team. 10 times. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I'm going a touch in that direction, but I like that some teams spend a little more. I think it makes you prouder of your regular spending team and makes you relate to them more. It makes you hate teh big boys more and laugh harder when they fail. I think Jones will be much more willing to give a way 100 million dollars if it's in a tax where he's actually getting a competitive advantage. I also think it could keep more fans interested more of the time.

I think you guys are suffering from all or nothing syndrome. You're mistaking one step in the direction for a full change to baseball philosophy. I don't think baseball is a good comparison to what I'm saying. I think basketball is better. You'll see in basketball only a few teams go over the tax threshold and they're not really very good anyway. And then they have the guaranteed contracts. That is bad for basketball. Dumb spenders are dumb spenders. It's just that much sweeter when they loose. When you can spend 1000% of the lowest team, yeah, that means teh Yankees are always in it, but i don't think this idea would do that, not at all. In fact, I think it could make the Cowobys and Redskins suck even more at times. There would likely be longer restricted phases with this type of setup and they'd always be old and overpriced.

[SkinBasket]

I see you and Lurker's points. They're valid, but don't compare 20% over the cap and 80% over the lowest team to baseball where the Yankees are 1000% over the lowest team. 10 times. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I'm going a touch in that direction, but I like that some teams spend a little more. I think it makes you prouder of your regular spending team and makes you relate to them more. It makes you hate teh big boys more and laugh harder when they fail. I think Jones will be much more willing to give a way 100 million dollars if it's in a tax where he's actually getting a competitive advantage. I also think it could keep more fans interested more of the time.

I think you guys are suffering from all or nothing syndrome. You're mistaking one step in the direction for a full change to baseball philosophy. I don't think baseball is a good comparison to what I'm saying. I think basketball is better. You'll see in basketball only a few teams go over the tax threshold and they're not really very good anyway. And then they have the guaranteed contracts. That is bad for basketball. Dumb spenders are dumb spenders. It's just that much sweeter when they loose. When you can spend 1000% of the lowest team, yeah, that means teh Yankees are always in it, but i don't think this idea would do that, not at all. In fact, I think it could make the Cowobys and Redskins suck even more at times. There would likely be longer restricted phases with this type of setup and they'd always be old and overpriced.

Again it comes down to basic principals. The better players make more money. A team that spends twice as much as another team (or most of the league) buys twice the talent. Talent translates into wins. Wins translate into popularity, marketing, and profits. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. The rich buy more talent. The poor are forced to trade or let their talent walk.

People watch the NFL because of the any given sunday mentality. Parity. Your theory that economic disparity leads to competitive parity somehow is not only counter-intuitive and logically flawed, but has also been disproven by other leagues.

[Bossman641]

Sorry JH but I completely disagree with your proposals. The reason the NFL is so popular is because it is exactly what the MLB is not. The few teams that have no chance in the NFL are stuck in that position because of poor front offices. The multiple teams that have no chance in the MLB are in that position because they don't have the financial resources to compete.

[Bossman641]

JH, don't you think that allowing some teams to spend more than others, even if you don't consider the difference large, to be a slippery slope? Why even open pandora's box?

[RashanGary]

JH, don't you think that allowing some teams to spend more than others, even if you don't consider the difference large, to be a slippery slope? Why even open pandora's box?

Maybe it is. I'm saying keep it small and make the tax large. It's a way to get the big owners to open up their pocket books, an incentive. It would suck if it ever got anything like baseball. I agree to that. I won't even watch the Brewers because they can't truly compete.

[Patler]

Maybe it is. I'm saying keep it small and make the tax large. It's a way to get the big owners to open up their pocket books, an incentive. It would suck if it ever got anything like baseball. I agree to that. I won't even watch the Brewers because they can't truly compete.

The problem is, once you start down a road like that there generally is no turning back, and you go further and further until you get to exactly where you don't want to be. Once you individualize the differences, taking money directly from one team and giving money directly to another you establish a caste system, with the lower ones beholding to the upper ones for their continued existence. The upper ones become even more powerful and get their way even more, so the small difference will be increased with successive changes and the "tax" will become smaller. You will get closer and closer to baseball.

While there are differences now, and some subsidies of the poorer by the richer, the structure tends to equalize the influence of the haves and have nots. The haves are not as capable of bullying through their wishes as they will be when the have nots are beholding and subservient to them.

Nothing good will come from making the NFL more about some owners than about other owners by letting the richer teams use their money to control the poorer teams.

[SkinBasket]

Maybe it is. I'm saying keep it small and make the tax large.

Which would relegate your system to insignificance.

[Smeefers]

I'm with the giant group of people who are against JH on this one. No way would I want that. I understand where you're coming from, I just don't like the idea. Someone back there said that the NFL punishes those who do good and rewards those who do poorly, and I think that's a great way to go about it. Now, if the taxes you collected on the higher payed teams went to the lower payed teams player salary or something like that, we might have something to talk about.

[RashanGary]

I'm with the giant group of people who are against JH on this one. No way would I want that. I understand where you're coming from, I just don't like the idea. Someone back there said that the NFL punishes those who do good and rewards those who do poorly, and I think that's a great way to go about it. Now, if the taxes you collected on the higher payed teams went to the lower payed teams player salary or something like that, we might have something to talk about.

That's exactly what it does. It pays gets divvied up to the teams below the cap (tax threshhold) It's a way for Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder to part with more money. Just plain sharing it is hard for them to do, but give them one player, even if the tax is 5X the amount, they're still giving it away, but at least they feel like they have a slight advantage.

The key is to keep the advantage slight, just enough where the rich teams can buy one mroe guy or something like that.


You keep the rich owners willing to pay into the system far more than their fair share by giving them a small edge.
You keep the players happy because teams can choose to go over the cap
You keep the fans happy because there is still more parity than any major sports league beside Hockey

[gbgary]

a soft cap would be a bad idea. the hard cap, and revenue sharing, is what's made the nfl the greatness that it is.