Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith sent a memo to players on Thursday outlining the current state of CBA negotiations.
According to the memo, “the major issues separating us are significant enough that we cannot recommend to our membership that we should accept a deal in this state at this time.”
Per Pelissero, the memo notes that two sides have tentative agreements on issues including:
- Increased guaranteed revenue to players
- Increase minimum salaries
- Reduction of contact during training camp
- Decreases in fines for on-field contact
- Significant modifications to the drug policy
However, “major issues” exist, according to the memo obtained by Pelissero, including:
- Max revenue split
- Minimum cash spend requirements
- Continuation of the Legacy Fund
- Removing the funding rule as a barrier to guaranteed contracts
- First-round pick/Restricted free agent rules
- An NFL-proposed liability waiver
Jeremy Fowler hears the NFL and NFLPA have discussed a quarterback salary cap, due to the ballooning salaries of quarterbacks in recent years. Fowler suggests this could result in something like a $170 million for non-quarterback players and $40 million of cap space allotted to the quarterback position.
Earlier in the week, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported that the NFL and NFLPA are close to a deal on a new CBA and the NFL is hoping to sort out the economics of the deal and finalize it before the Super Bowl.
Florio did say that the biggest complicating factor is an expansion to a 17-game regular season, with a source telling him that it is “likely, but not definitively” going to happen.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer also mentioned that a 17-game regular season is something the owners are very interested in and are offering financial considerations to the players beyond just a bump in the revenue split.
Back in December, the NFL reportedly offered the players an increase to 48 percent of the revenue. Currently, players make 47 percent of the money the NFL generates, with 51.5 percent going to the owners and another 1.5 percent going to stadium credits.
The current CBA is set to expire following the 2020 season. The NFL and NFLPA have had regular meetings since April and the tenor around negotiations is much different than the last CBA talks in 2011 when the owners locked out the players.
The owners also have a March 2020 deadline to agree to a new CBA before specific contract and salary cap rules kick in, including the lack of June 1 release designations and the ability of teams to use both the franchise and transition tags to keep players off the free-agent market.
We’ll have more regarding CBA negotiations as the news is available.
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