really?!?!

wow. i hope mcnair acts like a super snooty rich girl around the small market owners then. it's his money, and his decisions are going to be the most protective/beneficial to his franchise that he bought with his money. who is anyone to question his decisions? unless he fires everyone and renames them the buttflaps nobody should!

about the super bowl-i never really expected us to get another. i mean we had our SB for our new stadium...whoever has a new stadium is going to get theirs...so we have to wait until nobody has a new stadium AND we have the best non-new stadium?

if it really is a split that's keeping a SB out of houston then that is really silly because you're denying a guy who has gone out of his way (to the tune of $700 bajillion;) not to mention how much it costs him to throw a SB and then wanting to do it again a few years later) to make FOOTBALL look good for everyone, not the texans. the league is probably not going to choose a shoddy, run-down stadium to go to over any new stadium for the SB. duh.

case and point: dallas. dallas is getting a new b-fing spectacle for a stadium. dallas will assuredly also be hosting a super bowl within the next 3-5 years. duh. because dallas' stadium is going to be unreal, and the HOLES that some teams play in are built from stone and slave labor.

I see us getting another SB, but not until the new stadiums stop going up every year.

I think there is a reason why players were looking to fire Gene Upshaw. Claiming that rookie contracts cannot fall under the CBA becasue rookies are not part of the Union until after they sign is pure lazy and to me not very good representation.

if rookies weren't part of the cba....

....why in the hell do they make so much money? how would they negotiate contracts at all? that pretty much takes away their leverage doesn't it?

"....why in the hell do they make so much money? how would they negotiate contracts at all? that pretty much takes away their leverage doesn't it?"

__________________
Look no further than the agents for your answer.

damn. i need to get an agent!!! get me some 30 mil for not doing anything. i'm good at not doing anything. i'm really, really good.

so clearly the answer to everyone's problems is to do away with agents? :D

why not make a rule that you aren't allowed to have a representative agent until you are allowed to be a free agent? limit rookie contracts by pick or round? make it so that rookies have representation from people assigned to them from the league (maybe give 5 players per rep.) and that rep. will deal with everything from contracts/terms negotiating to off-field or off-season issues that occur. or is that a bad idea?

KJ3

I dont think league representation would work. It seems like it could be considered a conflict of interests. Players get paid now because they pay their agents. League reps would get paid by the leauge and defiantley wouldnt work for the player the way an indipendent agent would.

The NFLPA would never let that happen. If the NFL tried it they would have lawsuits all over them. They would effectively be barring people from joining a union and since the average length of a career is only like 3.5 years or something this would severely cut down on the unions membership...and thus their power.

i disagree because that's exactly what these hypothetical league reps' job would be. pay them well enough, it's not like the NFL is struggling. 5 guys to check on isn't a lot...how many players do most agents cover?

i guess it would be barring from the union UNTIL they were able to become free agents, but isn't that exactly what would help? taking the power out of the rookies hands, putting it in the owners and vets? and if only vets were allowed into the union wouldn't they still be a majority over the "hypothetical league enforced rookie union" i'm talking about?

There was a CBA Q&A posted on the Jags site that was pretty informative. I've quoted one of the Qs with its respective A below along with the link, probably mostly for my benefit as I try to keep the cap page from being more than just a finger in the wind.
http://www.jaguars.com/news/article.aspx?id=6976

An economist has estimated that the NBA's rookie pay scale results in an additional $200 million per year going to veterans that would otherwise go to rookies. I've wondered if Upshaw is so against that kind of set up just so that he can agree to it in negotiations with the owners, look like he's giving something up, and get a concession in return. But I don't think so -- I think part of his resistance is due to the influence of the agents and the rest is ego and stubborness.

The large-market owners also don't like the small-market owners crying poor and wanting a bigger share while not, in the large-market owners' opinions, aggressively pursuing available revenue streams on their own. For example, wanting a larger piece of naming rights fees shared while playing in Ralph Wilson Stadium, Paul Brown Stadium, etc.

i wonder what the vets would think if they read that. besides the only rookies that get stupidly overpaid are the 1st round guys, so he's only really holding out for like 1/8th of the rookies.