Notes on the News

You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net

After a lull following the burst of free agent signings a couple of weeks ago, there have been a few Redskins-related news stories. There wasn’t enough there on any of them to warrant a story, but now that we have a small collection of things built up, here goes:

• The Redskins sign backup offensive line help—The Redskins came to terms with offensive linemen Tyson Walter and Mike Pucillo, adding depth to that unit. With Ray Brown’s retirement and the cutting of Cory Raymer, there was no experienced depth. Walter and Pucillo have similar resumes; both are entering their fifth NFL season and each has spent some time as a starter. Walter was Dallas’ starting center for eight games in 2002 and Pucillo was Buffalo’s starter at guard for 12 games in 2003. They are both 6-4 and over 300 pounds. Neither is expected to challenge for a starting job. Their former teams did not make much of an effort to retain their services. Joe Gibbs thinks that Joe Bugel can take the two big bodies and make serviceable backups out of them.


• Washington will open the season on Monday night hosting Minnesota—The NFL released some of its opening weekend schedule and the Redskins will be kicking off ESPN’s coverage of Monday night football with a game at FedEx Field against Minnesota. A couple of guys who know that stadium well, Brad Johnson and Fred Smoot, will be returning wearing purple. The Redskins will be hoping that Andre Carter will head an unfriendly welcome-home committee for Johnson and that Smoot will have his head turned around a few times by trying to figure out who among Santana Moss, Brandon Lloyd, and Antwaan Randle El he should cover. The early opening Bold Prediction: Lloyd and Randle El both score touchdowns and the Redskins roll 31-10.


• Washington will get a seventh-round compensatory pick in the upcoming draft—The Redskins were awarded the 250th overall pick in the upcoming draft as compensation for losing Smoot and Antonio Pierce as unrestricted free agents. These picks are awarded based on a formula that is kept super double secret by the NFL. It’s based on the net value of the contracts the free agents you lose sign minus the contracts that you use to acquire UFA’s. They can’t trade the pick, which has to be a disappointment to Gibbs and company, who have a propensity for doing so.


• Derrick Dockery signs his contract tender—The Redskins starting left guard took himself off of the restricted free agent market by signing the Redskins tender offer. That means that Dockery will be back for the 2006 season. After that, though, he will become an unrestricted free agent unless the Redskins can sign him to a long-term deal. The good news is that he is the only starter that is not under a contract that runs thorough at least 2007.


• Sean Taylor shows up at offseason workouts—The Redskins safety apparently changed his mind after his attorney said on Sunday that he would not be there for the OTA’s. Redskins.com treated the change of heart as a reporting error, leading its story on Taylor’s presence at Redskins Park by saying, “Contrary to a report published in Monday's Washington Post, safety Sean Taylor was in attendance for the start of voluntary off-season workouts at Redskins Park on Monday.” Come on, guys. The Post was accurately reporting a statement from Taylor’s own lawyer, who today said that they decided that his legal case could be prepared with Taylor just being there on weekends. That would be kind of like if the Post reported that the Redskins were trailing at halftime and then the team calling the paper’s report inaccurate because the team came back to win the game.


• Jason Campbell and Shawn Springs were at the Verizon Center on Sunday—OK, that’s a cheap way of working in the story of the year in sports and a story that has transcended sports, the presence on my alma mater, George Mason University, in the NCAA Final Four. I’ll admit right off the bat that I couldn’t have named a single player on the team prior to the start of the NCAA tourney, so I’m not going to get into any of this “we” stuff. I’ll also have to admit that I thought the Patriots were cooked after that reverse layup that hung on the rim until after the final buzzer fell in the basket, sending the game into overtime. Virtually everyone but Jim Larranaga and the dozen or so guys on the team thought so, too. But the Patriots continued to play loose and composed basketball, just like they had for every one of the 160 minutes leading up to that final five minutes. And they hit five of six shots in overtime and survived the second buzzer-beater attempt for the win. There will be no bold predictions here as to how George Mason will fare in Indianapolis. I will, however, ask the simple question: Why not the Patriots?

Rich Tandler is the author of The Redskins From A to Z, Volume 1: The Games. This unique book chronicles every game the Redskins played from the day they came to Washington in 1937 through the 2001 season. You can get details and information on how to order at http://www.RedskinsGames.com

Antonio Pierce Should Shut Up

You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net

After three seasons in and out of the lineup, linebacker Antonio Pierce had a breakout season in 2004, nearly making the Pro Bowl with the Redskins. Pierce’s timing was excellent, as he became an unrestricted free agent after the season. After considering a competitive offer from the Redskins, the team he broke into the league with as an undrafted rookie in 2001, he decided to sign with the New York Giants.


The Redskins were sorry to lose him and said so at the time. "It's one of those things that you don't want to have happen," Joe Gibbs said when asked about Pierce leaving Washington. "Antonio played great for us last year. We would have loved to have gotten him re-signed. We went as far as we could go, but it just didn't work out. I hate [losing Pierce].”


The other coaches and many of the players expressed similar sentiments. And that was that—from the Redskins end of things. Pierce, however, has yet to put the whole thing behind him. At the time of his signing, he said that he was “shocked” that the Redskins didn’t step up their offer to match the one the Giants’ gave him. Apparently, the Giants thought that linebacker with on year of starting experience—a very good year, no doubt—was worth $6.5 million in guaranteed money and the Redskins, apparently to Pierce’s chagrin, did not.



Players often use such perceived slights as motivation and, certainly, there is nothing wrong with that. Pierce, however, has taken his grudge to another level. It’s one thing to take your issues with our old team out on that team as Pierce did in the Giants’ 36-0 rout of Washington last October. It’s another to take them to the press.



In comments in an article from the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, Pierce took the occasion of talking to reporters about his trumpeting of LaVar Arrington’s virtues to the Giants organization to take a few shots at the Redskins

"This organization's not the same as the Redskins," Pierce said. "It's not (about) the entertainment and the marketing side of it. It's all about football. It's about winning, and it's a family atmosphere around here. He's not going to wake up tomorrow and the whole staff and everybody in this organization is going to be gone. I think he felt good about that.

Let’s start from the ending first. Uh, Antonio, I hate to tell you this, but the Giants fire coaches, too. Many of the guys you now play with woke up one morning and found out that Jim Fassel had been fired. The fact that you went through that twice does not make you unique among NFL players. And, hate to tell you this too, but the odds are that before the remaining five years on your contract are done there is a pretty good chance that there will be another coaching change on the team you play for.



And is change always such a negative thing? A fair-minded person would have to say that the last coaching change in Washington was one for the better. Under Joe Gibbs and Gregg Williams, Pierce got the opportunity to earn his $6.5 million payday a year ago. Perhaps Pierce would rather the Redskins had stuck with Steve Spurrier and George Edwards. Had that happened, the odds are that he would have hit the free agent market hoping for as much as a six-figure signing bonus.



And yes, the Redskins used to be more concerned about “the entertainment and marketing side of it.” Pierce used to be a player who nobody though enough of to draft. He used to be a rookie who had no clue where to line up or where you should drop to in zone coverage.



The key words, of course, are “used to be”. Daniel Snyder, in hiring Gibbs to run the organization, has demonstrated that he has the Redskins on track to be an NFL organization committed to winning. Pierce has now demonstrated that he is a very competent NFL player. Nobody mentions the mistakes in the early days and his inability to first crack the ranks of college players who were drafted and then his inability to hold down a starting job on a mediocre defensive team for three years. All’s well that ends well except, apparently, in Pierce’s view when it comes to the Redskins.



If Pierce would check the ledger, he’d find that the Redskins won just as many games as the Giants did last year, and went a round further in the playoffs. Guess it was all that marketing that did it, Antonio? Have to say, though, that it was pretty entertaining.



When Pierce was with the Redskins, he was noted for his chatter on the field. In those circumstances such talk was positive, directing the defense and encouraging his teammates. The chatter he’s spouting out now, however, directed at the team that gave him his chance in the NFL to begin with and was responsible for putting him in a position to burst onto the scene and command a big payday, is beneath someone who plays for a class organization and who wants to be considered among the elite players in the game.



If Pierce holds a grudge against the Redskins, that’s fine. But he needs to shut up and let his play twice a year do the talking.



Rich Tandler is the author of The Redskins From A to Z, Volume 1: The Games. This unique book chronicles every game the Redskins played from when they arrived in Washington in 1937 through the 2001 season. To get more details, visit http://www.RedskinsGames.com

Media Madness

Media Madness

It must be March; the national media is at it again, foaming at the mouth over the Redskins’ foray into free agency.



You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net
The national media’s template for coverage—to use the term loosely—of the Redskins’ ability to get far enough under the salary cap to make some high-profile free-agent acquisitions was, for the most part, typical Dan Snyder bashing. There was one talking point, however, that crossed the line from stupid to flat out outrageous.



First, the garden variety, pedestrian stupidity. Ahh, where to begin. Len Pasquarelli is always a good place to start. From ESPN.com:

So, either Washington contracts manager Eric Schaffer is a genius or Snyder has found a way to circumvent the cap. Seems it must be the former, since none of the legion of the team officials who keep wondering privately how the Redskins are able to add players -- and who complain to the media about Washington's laxity in turning in contracts to the league -- apparently has the gumption to raise the issue with the NFL Management Council.

After paying a backhanded compliment to Schaffer, Pasquarelli implies that the only reason that the NFL hasn’t smacked the Redskins for salary cap violation penalties is because nobody has complained loudly enough. Excuse me, Len, but does anyone have to complain for the league to enforce the rules? Does another team official have to do that little “throw the flag” motion that NFL receivers do to try to elicit a pass interference call to get Paul Tagliabue to enforce the terms of the CBA? I don’t know the inner working of the NFL, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the league doesn’t have to wait for someone to a call toll-free hotline (1-800-CAP-HELL) for it to take action against cap cheaters. If the Redskins weren’t clean, they would have been hit by the league.



Len babbles on:

In each of the last two springs, Snyder has vowed publicly that the roster he has assembled will represent the Redskins' team for three years. Then the inevitable occurs. Washington doesn't win a Super Bowl, the roster is blown up and Snyder goes back to the vault for another free-agent spending spree.

Horse hockey. First of all, Snyder does not assemble the roster, Joe Gibbs does. Snyder has publicly vowed nothing about the roster in any way, shape or form in the past two springs. The only comment that Snyder has made about the roster since January of 2004 is something along the lines of, “Whatever Joe Gibbs wants is what he gets.”



And did I sleep through a roster explosion last spring or something? The Redskins drafted a corner (Rogers) to replace one who departed via free agency, got a free agent center (Rabach) to replace one who was woefully inadequate, traded away a disgruntled receiver for a better one (Moss), and signed a free agent WR (Patten). That hardly qualifies as a mushroom cloud over Ashburn.



The other prime Snyder basher, Peter King, did an interview on WFAN radio in New York. The host asked him how the Redskins were able to get under the cap. King’s response:

Here’s how they did it this year. They got rid of, basically, depending on how you count them, four or five starters. They purged those guys.

Purged them? How Stalin-esque! What, does he know about a gulag hidden under Redskins Park or something?

Style aside, let’s examine the substance here. Depending on how you count them. Hmmm. Let’s see, LaVar Arrington, starter. Walt Harris, starter when someone was injured. Matt Bowen, not a starter. Cory Raymer, not a starter. Brandon Noble, entire season on injured reserve. Ditto Tom Tupa.



The only way King is counting five starters is by just flat out making them up.



That’s just a small sampling of the ridiculous stuff out there. However, perhaps frustrated because they don’t seem to have fazed Snyder yet, both King and Pasquarelli stoop to new lows when they attack the integrity of Snyder and, indeed, of the entire organization. They’re playing their outrageous tune from the same sheet of music. First, Lenny (an ESPN Insider article):

Several NFL teams had claimed that the Redskins could not mathematically get under the salary cap if it was set in the $94 million range, which it initially was (at $94.5 million), and that Washington needed a cap level in the $98 million range to be in compliance with the spending limit. And, presto, suddenly the team gained $4.4 million in cap relief (you do the math on the difference between $98 million and $94 million) when Arrington forfeited the deferred bonus money.



While no one was publicly willing to charge the Redskins with attempting to circumvent the cap, there were plenty of whispers that owner Dan Snyder had conspired to get the money to Arrington by surreptitious means.

“‘Plenty of whispers’ that I, Len Pasquarelli, decided to turn into shouts by broadcasting them all over the Internet,” Lenny thinks but fails to write. There’s absolutely zero evidence that anything like Dan Snyder taking a briefcase full of cash and passing it to LaVar in the dead of the night in an underground parking garage in Silver Spring ever happened. The lack of evidence, however, doesn’t prevent King from calling for an investigation:

I think just for the sake of insuring trust in the salary cap from some skeptical front offices, the league needs to make sure LaVar Arrington is really going to forego the $4 million in guaranteed money to get his freedom now. Not saying it didn't happen, but I am saying with all the money the Redskins have to spare and how convenient it was that the team could find this money after months of hand-wringing over the Arrington deal, the league needs to double check that the accounting of this is clean.

A dog may have been kicked in Peter King’s neighborhood. We don’t know this for sure but, because so many of us think that Peter King is the kind of guy who goes around kicking dogs, there needs to be an investigation to see if he committed cruelty to animals. Not saying that it happened, you know, just double check to make sure he’s clean.



The Washington Redskins certainly are fair game for criticism. One playoff appearance in six years does not vindicate their way of doing things. However, it is reasonable to expect responsible criticism from publications such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated. Their writers should not be making things up out of thin air and making reckless, irresponsible accusations. Peter King and Len Pasquarelli are acting like a couple of message board trolls, and in the process they are dragging down the credibility of the organizations that they work for.

Did the Redskins Overpay?

As the Redskins have signed free agent after free agent over the past few days, the questions have kept popping up. How are they pulling this off with their supposed cap problems? And did they overpay for what they got?



The answer to the first one is easy. The Redskins’ cap guru, Eric Schaffer, is simply the best in the business. The organization doesn’t just throw around money; Schaffer crafts out each deal dollar by dollar, year by year to ensure that it fits within the team’s projected cap situation. The way Snyder runs the team generates the cash flow—cash beats cap—but it’s Schaffer who puts it all together.



Without going into details, (I’ve been told that the eyes of most of my readers here glaze over at such information) through the creative manipulation of the cap Schaffer and his team, helped by Snyder’s cash, can fit a six-year, $30 million contract with $10 million guaranteed into cap space of under $2 million in the first year.



And what about the other $28 million? Aren’t they just mortgaging the future, putting it on a big credit card that will come due at some point in the future?



Not really. To continue the credit card analogy, there a plenty of people out there who run up large credit card debts that manage them just fine. The bill for the balance never “comes due” as long as the money is managed properly with an eye towards the future. The debt can be refinanced and restructured as needed. You can keep on making purchases on the card as long as you stay under the limit and keep an eye towards the future. And you figure that as the years go by, you should be making more money, making the debt smaller relative to your income



The salary cap never “comes due”. It’s an ongoing thing. You can push money into future years indefinitely. As long as you don’t push too much into one season, you can keep doing it. Deals can be restructured and money pushed back. And the cap goes up from year to year, devaluing the dollars that you are pushing back.



To be sure, others use such maneuvers, but few do it as frequently and with such careful regard for the implications down the road as Schaffer does. Words like genius and mastermind get thrown around too often, but they apply to Schaffer. Should the team collect another Lombardi trophy in the next few years, Schaffer’s name should be engraved on it.
Perhaps one day the Petes and Lenny’s of the world will learn to praise the Skins’ cap management instead of predicting disaster year after year and then making snide comments about cheating when their forecasts bear no relationship to reality. I guess they’d rather continue to be wrong.



That’s how they paid. Now, did they overpay?



There is nary a Pro Bowl appearance among Adam Archuleta, Andre Carter, Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle El. No league leadership in interceptions, receptions, or sacks among them. There are some highlight-reel moments starring some of these guys, no doubt. But their respective resumes, while better than pedestrian, are hardly the gold standard.



No gold changed hands, but a Brinks truck with some $40 million of guaranteed cash in it backed up to the facility at Redskins Park and dumped it on these four players (actually, Lloyd has not yet signed his deal, but he will get something in the neighborhood of $10 million guaranteed when he does). Did the Redskins pay filet mignon money for ground chuck?


First of all, in the year 2006, that is not filet mignon money. That went to center LeCharles Bentley, who the Browns are paying $36 million over six years with $12 million guaranteed, guard Steve Hutchison who will be paid $49 million over 7 years by either the Vikings or Seahawks, and running back Edgerrin James, who gets over $11 million guaranteed out of a four year, $30 million deal.



One thing that a lot of folks—media and fans alike—don’t seem to grasp is the fact that there is a lot more money to be spent this year than last. You hear a lot that each team’s cap went up $7.5 million due to the CBA extension. What you don’t hear much is that the cap was already slated to go up by $10 million even before the new labor agreement. Multiply that $17.5 million increase from 2005 to 2006 times the 32 NFL teams and you have over half a billion—that’s billion with a “b”—new cap dollars in play. It’s simple economics; when the money supply goes up, so do prices.



Still, it appears that the Redskins were happy to pay these guys more than anyone else was willing to. So, by that definition, they did overpay.
But if you get the player you want, it is really overpaying? Is it better to settle for someone who might save you a million or two but doesn’t quite fit your needs? A $2 million difference in guaranteed money on a six-year deal is $333,333 a season, or just less than the two-year veteran minimum salary. It adds up, no doubt, but it shouldn’t be enough to make you settle for second best.



Time will tell. Ultimately, the only thing that matters, the only way to judge whether or not the Redskins forked over too much money for a player, is results on the field. If the Redskins win and the new players fill their expected roles, it will have been worth every dollar and then some. If the team is not successful, it will be as though they had put a match to a dump truck full of $100 bills.

TV Report Spikes Abraham Rumors

Update: On the evening news in DC, George Michael said that the Redskins assured him that the rumor was completely bogus and that the Redskins no longer have any interest in acquiring John Abraham.

With many other area TV reporters such a report might not spike the rumors completely, but that’s not the case here. Michael is no lion of journalism or anything, but he is well connected to the Redskins. He hosts Joe Gibbs’ weekly TV show during the season and while all of the other TV types are sweating on the track during training camp practices, Michael is over on the other side of the field with Snyder and Jurgy.

One can say with confidence that the deal is dead unless something changes drastically.

Abraham Rumor Wont Go Away

Abraham Rumor Won’t Go Away

The John Abraham to the Redskins rumor just won’t go away.

It had some legs prior to free agency mostly as speculation by the national media. It was the old “Danny Snyder likes to make the big splash” line of shaky reasoning. Since defensive end was an area of need for the team, however, it wasn’t totally out from left field.

When it looked like the Redskins were headed into the teeth of salary cap hell, the talk faded as it didn’t look like the Redskins would be able to afford to even think about the move.

The talk started up in earnest on Sunday night when, all of a sudden, John Abraham showed up at Redskins Park for a visit. This is the only known fact that we’re dealing with in this whole situation.
Earlier in the day defensive end Andre Carter, said to be the team’s top target at the position, left without signing a contract. It was thought that perhaps Abraham was brought in to put some pressure on Carter to sign. Whether it was because of the Abraham visit or something else, Carter notified the Redskins that he would accept their offer. This presumably put any deal involving Abraham to bed.

It did no such thing. There was a small buzz created last night around the message board circuit about a report on ESPN News that the Redskins would sign both Carter and Abraham on Tuesday. That seemed to die off as the night wore on.

Then, this afternoon it has sprung up all over again. Evidently there have been reports on WFAN radio, New York City’s biggest sports talker, that a deal between the Jets and Redskins for Abraham is almost done. The reported deal would send Patrick Ramsey and the Redskins’ second-round pick this year and their first-round pick next year to the Jets for the right to drop another Brinks truck full of money on Abraham.

While there is no point in evaluating a rumored deal, this would seem to be a pretty steep price. That doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. The Redskins’ philosophy evidently is to decide what they want and they pay whatever it takes to get it.
Stay tuned.

Either Way the Redskins Win

Either way, the Redskins win

You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net
Posted 9 AM EST 03.05.06

Within 12 hours, we will know whether or not there will be an extension to the NFL collective bargaining agreement. OK, there could be another movement in the deadline, but if there is that will mean that the two sides in the dispute are in agreement on anything remotely resembling a major issue. They might take Monday and part of Tuesday to haggle over what the deductible on the dental plan will be, settle the three thousand dollars they may be apart on the third-year veteran minimum salary, and the like.

So, sometime on Sunday when they either get it done or they don’t it will be possible to resume an informed discussion of what the Redskins will do during this offseason. In either case it will be a fun discussion to have.

It’s better for the Redskins—and for the NFL—if there is a CBA extension. Never mind the long-term ramifications (plenty of time to go into those after the issue is decided), the simple fact is that the Redskins, who currently have a salary cap figure of about $115 million, will be able to get well under a 2006 salary cap that will be around $105 million. Some simple restructures will get them under the number and trimming a few high-priced spare parts like Matt Bowen and Tom Tupa will give them room to address some needs through free agency.

Clearly, a CBA extension is a win for the Redskins. The alternative, however, isn’t exactly a huge loss.

Certainly, in order to get under the $94.5 million cap, the Redskins would have to take more drastic action. They would have to trigger a series of complex restructured contracts that about a half a dozen players have agreed to. More players, including kicker John Hall and nickel back Walt Harris, would have to be jettisoned. It would be difficult to sign any high-priced free agents and even the bargain basement types would have to be chosen carefully. For that matter, it would be hard for the Skins to sign their own free agents including safety Ryan Clark and tight end Robert Royal.

But the major purge of veterans predicted (some would say hoped for) by such national writers as Pete Prisco and Len Pasquarelli apparently will not be taking place. Due to the willingness of players such as Mark Brunell and Shawn Springs to participate in some pretty major reworks of their contracts, the Redskins won’t have to cut nearly as many veterans as the cap “experts” that Prisco and Pasquarelli consulted with for their articles thought.

(Before going any further, it has to be acknowledged that some scenarios less dire than those pained by Pete and Lenny but still rather gloomy were presented here in the past week or so. The difference between them and me is, though, that if my article turns out to be dramatically different from reality, I will come out and acknowledge it and examine why I was off base. Pete and Lenny will not.)

In short, if there is no CBA extension we will get to see the Redskins stun the media doubters. It appears that the dreaded cap hell will be averted. And not because the Redskins got lucky, but because they knew what they were doing. They were hoping for the best in terms of a CBA extension, but evidently they were well prepared for the worst. Said Jon Jansen’s agent Rick Smith of the organization, "They have a plan and they'll get it done. They weren't desperate. I don't know why there was this big doomsday [outlook] for them. They'll get to where they need to get."

Wow, you mean that Dan Snyder actually had a plan? The temperamental, reckless, wild-spending one actually knew what he was doing? A self-made millionaire actually anticipates what might happen and make contingency plans? Shocking!

Other teams, who do not receive the media scrutiny that the Snyder Redskins do, are being forced to turn to more desperate moves to try to make the cap. One of them, the Indianapolis Colts, might even try to sue the league to change its interpretation of the rules to get under the cap. This from the Indianapolis Star:

Dan Emerson, the Colts' general counsel, said the team has not ruled out seeking a temporary injunction to Wednesday's decision by Stephen Burbank, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Burbank, a special master who arbitrates disputes within the NFL, ruled the Colts could not convert substantial roster bonuses due Manning and Harrison into signing bonuses and prorate them for four years to lower each player's hit against the salary cap.

I think that it’s reasonable to assume that Prisco, Pasquarelli, and the rest of the Skins-bashing media out there would be having a field day throwing darts at Snyder if the Redskins’ general counsel had uttered a word about an injunction. So far, Colts owner Jimmy Irsay, who had to work hard to inherit the team from his father, has been free of media criticism.

Again, it would be better if an 11th hour, 59th minute miracle can be pulled out and a CBA extension went through. The start of free agency would be delayed for a few more days for the agreement to be ratified and digested and then the Redskins would be able to crank up Redskins One and start wooing free agent receivers and defensive ends. The only downside would be that their Plan B, their plan for getting under the cap without a CBA extension, would forever remain under wraps. We won’t be able to see just how smart the Redskins are and we won’t be able to see the critics squirm or, at least try to ignore the obvious. The meltdown on the Cowboys’ message boards and them trying to claim that Bowen was a key, irreplaceable contributor for the Redskins will be equally enjoyable to witness.

The start of free agency without a new CBA was supposed to be Apocalypse Now for the Redskins. If that’s the case, I think we’re going to love the smell of the napalm tomorrow morning. It will smell like victory.

Somebody Blinked

Somebody Blinked

It ain’t over until it’s over. And it was over. . .until it wasn’t.

The CBA negotiations have gone into overtime.

Sometime between this morning, when the NFL announced that the owners had voted unanimously to break off talks with the NFL Players Association and about 5:00 this evening, when the NFL announced that the free agency period would be delayed for three days in order for further talks with the NFLPA to take place, something happened.

Somebody blinked.

Earlier in the day, it appeared that virtually everyone involved was standing at the door of his own personal hell and was willing to walk through that door and into the teeth of whatever was awaiting them. For some, like the Redskins Dan Snyder, it was cap hell. For the players it was the certainty of a bloodbath of veterans getting cut and replaced by minimum-wage rookies and the uncertainty of a free agent market skewed by rules designed as poison pills to prevent things from ever getting to that point. For other owners, the so-called small-market teams, it was the prospect of a 2007 season without a salary cap, knowing that they wouldn’t possibly be able to keep up with the teams with deeper pockets. For Paul Tagliabue, it was facing going into retirement in a few years with the legacy of leaving with scorched earth behind him. And Gene Upshaw, while he’s managed labor peace well, is looking at again stepping into an arena where he’s not been very successful. He’s 0-2 in games of brinksmanship with the NFL owners as his union was routed in both league players strikes in 1982 and 1987.

So, standing at the precipice, somebody got a bit wobbly. The brave talk, the unanimous votes, the “we’ll play it out and see what happens” rhetoric of earlier in the day and the week suddenly rang hallow in someone’s mind. It was all false bravado. That somebody said, I can’t possibly be this dumb, can I? I can’t let this happen.

And he blinked.

Then he went to the phone and calls were made and all of a sudden things that appeared to be etched in stone in the morning suddenly transformed into mere lines in the sand. The start of free agency was delayed even though both sides were adamant that it would not be just a couple of days ago.

For both sides to have agreed to the delay, someone must have put a magic number out there, one that was, at the very least, good enough to the other side to jump start talks that were as dead as dead could be. That magic number must have represented enough movement for the other side to say, hey, I didn’t really want to go through that door anyway. Couldn’t hurt to sit down and talk a few more days, could it? Because I’m not really sure what I was going to do tomorrow when all the stuff hit the fan, anyway.

So the millionaire players and the billionaire owners will take another three days—or maybe longer, who knows--to try to decide how to split up this huge pile of money.

And either somebody will blink one last time and a deal will be done or all of the parties involved will return to the gates of hell and pass through them.

The Door is Still Open

The Door is Still Open

Welcome to the eleventh hour.

The sound you distinctly didn’t hear on Wednesday was that of the door on a new CBA agreement being slammed shut. That’s because the door remains open, if only a crack.

The owners are in New York on meeting Thursday morning. Allegedly, there will be no talk of revenue sharing, although it’s difficult to imagine that the number one issue facing the league, possibly the key to a last-second deal to get a CBA extension done, would not be brought up by somebody. It would be an elephant in the room, no doubt about it.

Revenue sharing is the key to getting a deal done. Last week at the combines, some executives like Rich McKay, the Falcons’ GM, said that they could get around to doing a revenue sharing agreement after a labor deal was done. Apparently, Gene Upshaw didn’t like that concept. When he announced on Tuesday that the talks had broken off, he said:
We're too far apart on our economics and too far apart on revenue sharing -- the ball is in their court. (emphasis added)
There is no parsing of that statement necessary. What he was saying, loud and clear, is, no, there will not be a CBA deal until there is one on revenue sharing. Why not?

It’s simple. A higher salary cap is no good to the union if there are a lot of teams who don’t have the revenue to pay it. If you have a handful of teams willing to pay run a payroll at or near the cap and the majority of the teams near the lower limit you haven’t really put more money into the pockets of the players.

Upshaw will not be around for the meeting; he presumably will be in Washington. But you have to think that if his cell rings and the caller ID is from the 212 area code, he’s likely to take the call. If he likes what he hears he could be on a Gulfstream and be in Manhattan within a couple of hours. Smiles and handshakes could ensue and the dotting and crossing could commence.

There are those who point to the wave of players who were cut on Wednesday and some contract restructures that took place as evidence that there would be no agreement and that teams were breaking the glass and pulling the emergency lever to get under the cap. Those folks have short memories; there are massive cuts every year. These are moves that likely would have been made CBA or no CBA. And we know that, for example, the contract restructure that Washington’s Mark Brunell agreed to was not signed. The team will not pull the trigger on it unless the cap space is needed.

So, here’s the potential scenario for today: Upshaw, after receiving incredible pressure from players and agents who find the free agent environment in the next two years to be completely unacceptable, even with an uncapped ’07, lowers his demands to 58% if total football revenues, a number that the owners have been willing to accept all along. Paul Tagliabue, nearing retirement and not wanting to leave a legacy of labor unrest after so many years of peace, twists enough arms at Thursday’s owners meeting to get the high revenue owners to create a local revenue pool that won’t give the small market guys everything they want, but enough for them to sign off on the deal. The cap goes up to $108 million, free agency is delayed a week to give all the lawyers a chance to finalize the documents and for teams to rethink their plans.

While it all sounds logical, it is not likely to happen. Logic does not seem to the prevailing modus operandi here. It’s more likely we will see the end of the NFL world as we know it.

But deadlines like the one looming at midnight tonight have a way of scaring people smart, so the door is still open that tiny crack.

Does Snyder Hold the Key?

Does Snyder Hold the Key?

As the CBA impasse ticks down to the last minutes of the last hour, it appears that the owner of the team with the most to lose in 2006 is the pivot point in the negotiations.

The Redskins are facing some very painful decisions in order to get under the league-mandated salary cap if there is no new CBA with the players association by midnight on Thursday. It appears that Redskins owner Dan Snyder is willing to forgo a considerable amount of money, perhaps as much as a billion dollars, in order to avert such a scenario.

According to a report by Dave Elfin in Wednesday morning’s Washington Times, Redskins owner Dan Snyder is willing to change his position on NFL revenue sharing in order to get a CBA extension done. Since Snyder and eight to ten other owners of high-revenue NFL teams have been steadfastly opposed to sharing a significant portion of local revenues with the rest of the teams in the league, that would mean that Snyder has pushed some more of his own chips into the pot in this high-stakes poker game.

These are high-roller chips, no doubt about it. We don’t know the kind of money being talked about here, but we can take an educated guess. Just to use a round number, let’s say that we’re talking about Snyder giving up 10% of the team’s revenue to go into a pot. According to Forbes, that would be about $28 million per year. Even if revenues are static, which they won’t, and Snyder owns the team for another 25 years, which is probably on the low end, he will be giving up $700 million. It’s easy to see revenue increases pushing that figure over the $1 billion mark.

That’s a billion, with a “b”. You have to look long and hard to find a business in any field that is willing to give up that kind of money.

In the Times article it was also reported that Denver owner Pat Bowlen was also among the higher-revenue owners willing to give up local revenues in order to get a deal done. His team also is faced with the need to make some salary cap choices if there is no new CBA. If Snyder, the king of the hill with the highest revenue in all of professional sports, and Bowlen are willing to share that much cash, it would be very difficult for the other “rich” owners to maintain their positions that the rest of the teams simply need to work harder to generate more revenue.

Will Snyder’s last minute gambit get a deal done? We’ll know in the next 48 hours.

Rich Tandler is the author of The Redskins From A to Z, a unique book that chronicles every game the Redskins played from 1937 through 2001. To get details on the book and to find out how to order, go to http://www.RedskinsGames.com.