Proposed CBA all about the money

Expect NFL owners to ultimately get their way despite plenty of reservations from players

Stalemate, checkmate or is a true win-win victory for NFL owners and players on the immediate horizon?

Right now, it’s a classic delay-of-game situation.

That’s where the unsettled state of affairs stands as the league and players haggle over a collective bargaining agreement that’s expected to undergo dramatic changes.

NFL owners have approved a proposal to expand the regular season to 17 games as soon as 2021 and the playoff field to seven teams per conference next season while offering multiple financial concessions with higher minimum salaries, expanded 53-man rosters and practice squads and improvements to working conditions.

That included shortening the preseason to three games, decreasing the amount of fully padded practices and overhauling disciplinary matters with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell no longer operating as sole judge, jury and executioner with an independent arbitrator to be appointed. Plus, the new labor rules would make it much more unlikely for a player to be punished for marijuana violations.

As NFL owners try to execute a new 10-year CBA and achieve labor peace heading into pivotal television contract talks while the economy remains strong, several hurdles still need to be worked out.

Several high-profile NFL players, notably Texans veteran defensive end J.J. Watt, are strongly opposed to the owners’ current proposal.

“Hard no on that proposed CBA,” Watt, the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, wrote on social media.

Watt didn’t expand on why he has a problem with the current proposal, but the wear and tear his body has already experienced, including a torn pectoral last season and previously breaking his leg and undergoing back surgery, are likely major reasons why he wouldn’t want a 17-game regular season.

Plus, the NFL is capping compensation for that extra game at $250,000 per player. Watt is due a $15.5 million base salary in 2020. That means he makes $911,764 per game check. To only make $250,000 for an extra game and risk injury, that’s quite a shave and a haircut to deal with.

Watt wasn’t alone in his sentiment:

“NFL promotes ‘player safety’ ... but players should risk brain & body for a max of $250K for a 17th game?” former NFL offensive lineman Rich Ohrnberger wrote. “Ok ... sure ... owners should only make $250K as well, the rest of the profits should go toward lifetime health care for the players and the funding of post career benefits.”

“Look like y’all better start getting y’all XFL tv packages together!!” Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jarvis Landry wrote.

“48-48.5% split (roughly) between 1,700 players. 52-51.5% split among 31 owners?!” Green Bay Packers offensive tackle David Bakhtiari wrote. “Yet this equation is supposed to make sense. Not to mention the .5% only happens if we agree to an extra game a season. #KnowYourWorth”

Outside linebacker Brennan Scarlett is the Texans’ elected player representative. The NFL Players Association delayed a scheduled vote of elected team player representatives Friday after the union’s executive council voted 6-5 against approving this version of the CBA.

Normally, a two-thirds approval is required for it to move forward to a vote by all NFL players. However, there’s a provision where a proposal can head to a vote by the entire membership of dues-paying players with only 50 percent having to vote in favor for the new CBA to be approved.

“The NFLPA Board of Player Representatives did not take a vote on the principal terms of a proposed new collective bargaining agreement,” the union said in a statement Friday. “Our player leadership looks forward to meeting with NFL management again next week before the Board takes a vote shortly after.”

The NFLPA hopes to meet with NFL Management Council representatives Tuesday in Indianapolis at the NFL scouting combine to further discuss a CBA that has been negotiated over the past year.

So, a resolution could be in the offing as soon as Tuesday if a vote can take place. NFL owners ideally want this resolved before the start of the league year March 18.

“Following more than 10 months of intensive and thorough negotiations the NFL Players and clubs have jointly developed a comprehensive set of new and revised terms that will transform the future of the game, provide for players — past, present, and future — both on and off the field, and ensure that the NFL’s second century is even better and more exciting for the fans,” the NFL said in a statement. “The membership voted to accept the negotiated terms on the principal elements of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Players Association would also need to vote to approve the same terms for there to be a new agreement. Since the clubs and players need to have a system in place and know the rules that they will operate under by next week, the membership also approved moving forward under the final year of the 2011 CBA if the players decide not to approve the negotiated terms. Out of respect for the process and our partners at the NFLPA, we will have no further comment at this time.”

Where this leaves everyone is in limbo but likely not for long, even with the opposition to the current CBA proposal by outspoken executive committee members Russell Okung and Richard Sherman. Former Texans offensive tackle Eric Winston is the president of the NFLPA executive committee.

Momentum is building toward this version of the CBA, or something similar, since union leadership negotiated this proposal that owners signed off on. The full body of players, roughly 2,100 members of the union, are expected to ultimately vote to approve the proposal, perhaps as soon as next week.

So, the NFL is about to change dramatically.

While players are unlikely to ever get a 50 percent split of all revenue, this isn’t a horribly one-sided deal.

The biggest issue that this CBA fails to account for from the players’ standpoint is not having an out after, say, five years to renegotiate. There’s little movement toward the big fully guaranteed contracts baseball players have.

However, NFL players would no longer be suspended strictly for testing positive for marijuana.

They would only have 16 days in pads during training camp and a ceiling of four joint practices under the three-preseason-game proposal.

There would be more jobs created with game-day rosters going up by two players to 48. Rosters would go from 53 to 55 players. Practice squads would increase to a dozen players in 2020 and 14 in 2022. Plus, teams could designate three players for return from injured reserve.

It’s considered extremely unlikely that NFL owners are going to improve the current proposed deal. And a work stoppage in 2021, like the lockout of 2011, is also regarded as improbable, if a deal can’t be hammered out now and it’s tabled until next year. A strike isn’t expected, either.

None of this would stop the NFL from negotiating its expiring deals with television partners.

And nothing is going to stop the wishes of the billionaire owners employing the millionaire players.

As they say on the HBO show “Succession:” Money wins.