Jason Cole of the National Football Post reports that the NFL Players Association is weighing whether or not to activate an option that would increase the 2014 cap space of each NFL team by $2 million.
Cole mentions that the option stems from the NFLPA’s agreement with the league to not bring any charges of collusion against the NFL for actions prior to the current CBA.
It appears though the new CBA agreement has had a negative impact on free agents looking to secure long-term contracts. In fact, the salary cap has yet surpass the 2009 high of $128 million, which just happens to be the date in which De Smith took over as the Executive Director of the NFLPA.
The 2014 salary cap tentatively expected to come close to $126.3 million — an increase of $3.3 million from last year.
According to Cole, if the the NFLPA elect to use their $2 million option, it would finally bring the salary cap above the 2009 high.
NFLPA spokesman George Atallah confirmed that the option exists, but wouldn’t say whether or not this was an option they were actually considering at this point in time. Atallah did bring up a good point in that cash spending towards players is at an all-time high, and just looking at cap spending by itself isn’t an indication of the total amount of money being allocated to the players.
We should have a better idea of what the cap will be once we get closer to March.
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If they use the option then they cannot start litigation regarding the collusion? Why would they not do the option?
You are telling me that the collusion that screwed the Redskins and Cowboys was tied with bow in the sum of 2M per team in this CBA?
According to Cole, NFL teams agreed to not spend over the $120M cap limit during the uncapped year. In order to prevent litigation, the league and NFLPA reached an agreement that included the $2M cap option.
The Redskins and Cowboys getting hit with penalties has more to do with the league than the NFLPA. The union could have pursued litigation, but instead used this as a leverage in negotiations.
TV money isn’t supposed kick in until 2016, which means the NFLPA may want to see what the cap will be this year and then figure out a projection for 2015 to determine which of the two years would be their best option.