NFL owners delay free agency three days
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<!-- begin text11 div --><!-- begin leftcol --> <!-- template inline --> NEW YORK -- A few hours after NFL owners voted to continue their standoff with the players' union, the league extended its deadline for free agency by three days and resumed talks.
The breakthrough came with a mutual agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association Thursday afternoon.
Things had looked bleak Thursday morning when owners rejected the union's latest proposal. No new talks were scheduled. While the owners were willing to give the players 56.2 percent of total revenues, the players were asking for 60 percent along with a revenue sharing formula among owners.
Now, there is a little breathing room to try to do a deal.
The owners' vote to reject a union proposal after a 57-minute meeting earlier in the day had seemed to end 13 years of labor peace. The action left the salary cap at $94.5 million for the start of free agency, which had been scheduled to begin Friday.
Without a new deal, teams that expected a cap about $10 million higher would have to cut players to become cap compliant, casting more players onto the market, but leaving little cap space to sign them. That deadline has been pushed back until 6 p.m. ET Sunday.
That could also have an impact on the best players in the free-agent class, led by two running backs: NFL MVP
Shaun Alexander of Seattle and
Edgerrin James of Indianapolis. They will certainly find fewer buyers and less money available, although two of the teams with a lot of cap room are Minnesota and Arizona, who could certainly use the two backs or Baltimore's
Jamal Lewis, another running back.
The quick action by the owners, who affirmed their management council's rejection of the union's last offer, cast a pall around the league as general managers struggled to find cap room and agents tried to figure out how to sell clients in a market with less money and a potential glut of players.
"The situation is about as dire as dire can be," commissioner Paul Tagliabue said after a meeting so short that a lot of people who expected a 12-hour session arrived after most of the owners had departed the New York hotel where they met, braving a mix of ice and snow to try to get home quickly.
Agents and even some league officials held out hope for a last-minute agreement or an extension of the free-agent deadline, and the three-day delay may be a sign that something is in the works.
"I won't come down," said Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, who is asking for 60 percent of league revenue for players, four percentage points more than the owners are offering. "The players know that. Only the owners can make a proposal."
That the situation seems so dire is unusual in that there are two years left on the labor agreement first signed in 1993 and extended continually before the deadline.
Unless there is an agreement, there will be no salary cap in 2007, which could create big-spending "haves" and low-revenue "have-nots," a situation that has prevailed in other sports such as baseball. That also has traps for teams and players: A player would be eligible for free agency only after six years instead of the current four, there would be no salary minimum, and annual raises would be limited to 30 percent.
That is complicated by an internal dispute over revenue sharing between big- and small-money teams, a battle that has accelerated as outside revenue has increased from sources from stadium naming rights to local radio. That money is expected to be included in the new labor contract for the first time.
Upshaw contends that internal dispute should be settled before the labor agreement is reached, but the owners didn't even discuss it Thursday.
"Sure we should discuss it," said Buffalo owner Ralph Wilson, one of the have-nots. "But we didn't."
The ramifications for this year go beyond free agency. Cap problems will make it hard for teams to sign their draft picks, especially the high ones.
"We can always find creative ways to do things," said Leigh Steinberg, the agent for Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart, who is expected to be chosen no later than third in the draft.
"But I hope by draft time we will be beyond that. As teams peer into the abyss, as they peer into the apocalypse, sanity will return. When the NFLPA and management truly recognize the nature of no agreement, their intelligence and rationality will force them into making a deal."
Leinart won't be the only one to wait. So will many free agents.
In addition to Alexander, James and Lewis, among the most desirable players on the market include San Francisco linebackers
Julian Peterson and
Andre Carter; wide receivers
Antwaan Randle El of Pittsburgh and
David Givens of New England; cornerbacks
Charles Woodson of Oakland and
Ty Law, a Pro Bowler with the Jets last season; and linebacker
Will Witherspoon of Carolina.
Then there is quarterback
Drew Brees of San Diego, although his value went down when he injured his throwing shoulder in the final game of 2005.
Senior NFL writer John Clayton and ESPN's Chris Mortensen contributed to this report.
