re: I'm an NFL owner. You be the player.

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That's only because Vick broke his morals clause in his contract. If a player just gets fat and lazy and sucks at football, he gets all his money.

I'm really not against players being paid, but they're getting paid now. The players that deserve the money would still be getting paid big money under the terms the owners want. They want a rookie pay scale to prevent guys like Jamarcus from sucking a ton of money from them without proving themselves. Less money to rookies would mean more money to veterans who've proven they can play, more money in the owner's pockets, and teams wouldn't be crushed by drafting a player who turns out to be a bust.

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First off nearly all teams fine players for every pound overweight they are (which is illegal in LA, technically if the saints/NFL fine a saints player they do NOT have to pay it.)

Are you forgetting the Billion per year that the owners want back? That's going to translate to lower salaries across the board.

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Are you forgetting the Billion per year that the owners want back? That's going to translate to lower salaries across the board.

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First off, the owners only said a billion to have a jumping off point. They came down to 650 million, or roughly 20 million per team, and that was also scoffed at.

They signed a bad deal previously, are they not allowed to now go back and sign a good deal? Or are the players the only ones allowed to sign great deals? All the players are free to take jobs other places if they think they can make more money doing something besides playing in the NFL. Nobody's stopping them.

Forgot to add the second point. First round draft picks in 2010 were paid around $875 million in signing bonuses alone last year. And that's just first rounders and guaranteed money, not their contracts. A rookie cap would reduce the amount owners pay rookies, like they do in the NBA, and increase the money veterans make, even after the big bad owners took their $650 million portion of the pie.

Yes, but he quit the team, thus breaking his contract. If the player just refuses to go to work anymore then owners can get money back. But if he just gets fat and goes through the motions and they cut him, he gets the whole bonus. It's why Brandon Marshall showed up to work and dropped balls on purpose in practice last year, to get out of Denver.

And sure they are. There are tons of semi pro football teams across the country. If they like the opportunity there better than the NFL, go give it a whirl. There's the arena league which would probably even get a boost from having NFL players.

See how the players benefit from the NFL just as much if not more than the owners do them? There are always other players, and as long as people play fantasy football and enjoy gambling on football, it's going to be popular because it's exciting to watch. I like watching college football more than the NFL eventhough the athletes aren't all as good.

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But if he just gets fat and goes through the motions and they cut him, he gets the whole bonus.

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Do you know why signing bonuses exist as they do in the NFL? It's compensation for your contract being back loaded for cap purposes.

Sure the fat player who gets cut gets to keep all of his bonus, but he also loses out on the huge money years he didn't have at the beginning of his contract.

Without the large signing bonuses it would be impossible (in terms of the cap) to sign a lot of 1st rounders.

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Fair enough, but doesn't it also happen that sometimes owners can get parts of signing bonuses back? Didn't Arthur Blank get millions back from Vick when he went to prison?

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It takes some pretty rare circumstances for owners to get back signing bonuses. For instance, Vick is the only player I can think of and that's because he went to jail for his own personal behavior so Blank was right he saying that he shouldn't have to pay Vick a full signing bonus when he didn't perform for the duration of his contract.

The owners came down to $350 million per year as well and the players didn't budge. DeMaurice Smith is utterly shitty.

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The owners came down to $350 million per year as well and the players didn't budge. DeMaurice Smith is utterly shitty.

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Had the owners had just shown the Union the financial data they asked for, I'm sure a deal could have been worked out. Would you cut someone $350 million check per year for the next 5 years just taking their word for it that they really need the money? frick that. The union is 100% correct to demand transparency.

Soph, that link is just silly. You should definitely just listen to the lawyer for only one side after negotiations break off. Who are we to question what Pash said?!?!?

(if it's necessary to include this: /sarcasm off)

Exactly. The player/owner relationship is a partnership, not employee/employer.

And no one is buying tickets, directtv packages, or merchandise because of the guy in the owners' box.

In a world with no rules, which could happen, then you'd essentially have that. The issue would revolve around antitrust laws at that point.