Before football fans can worry about the draft or free agents they should be worried about whether the league and the player's union come to an agreement on the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Hear, hear. I was wondering if someone was going to mention this. I didn't wish to 'cause I don't follow it much. Y'see, after baseball lost a World Series, and the NHL lost a season, and the NBA lost its mind (and I think they're nearing a "labor" problem too - god what a joke, a million bucks a year for pine splinters and they call themselves "labor"), I'm almost completely weaned off the pro (that includes NCAA) leagues.

Play sports, don't pay sports!

The CBA should be a legitimate concern simply because without it there is no NFL, but labor disputes have not been a huge problem over the history of the league. I am just wondering if Chad Pennington a free agent worth noting. I think he had one good season, but it's been so long who can really remember. The J-E-T-S are reportedly going after Jay Cutler aka the next coming of Brett Farve anyway. Brett Favre is good, but he only one Super Bowl and he robbed Barry Sanders for one of his MVPs. People should be looking for the next Troy Aikman or someone of that cloth. Anyway, I am digressing. The Jet that the Jets ought to concern themselves with is John Abraham.

According to ESPN.com apparently talks have broken down between the the players' union and the NFL. The current CBA doesn't run out until after next season, but without an extension it makes it virtuosly impossible to sign free agents and draft picks this year.

As for Chad Pennington, after having two surgeries on the same shoulder I think he's doing the right thing by trying to get more guaranteed money. Cause he didn't have a strong arm to begin with, now he'll never be able to throw an accurate out pattern to the far side line.

Don't get me started on Brett Favre.

After I posted this I began hearing all the negative talks surrounding the CBA and that teams will be unloading some big salary players to get under the $95 million dollar sallary cap for this year. The Broncos already unloaded Mike Anderson and Trevor Pryce. Many teams will have to do this, especially the teams who always have pushed the threshold of the cap, i.e. Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Bucs and others. However, this might be a golden opportunity for a few teams who never spend any money. Even with the lowered salaray cap, the Arizona Cardinals are something like $20 million dollars UNDER the cap for this year...which means they might be the only team that could afford any of these 'high dollar' free agents that are going to become available in the next few days. But, the red birds have never spent any money before...why would they now?

Sorry for the long rant, but another interesting part of this is that if the NFL and Players don't agree to a cap for next year, the 2007 season will not have a cap at all! Which I think is a good idea...the playoffs were a joke and the level of play has gone down in my opinion. The NFL has the highest percentage of revenue sharing than any other professional sports league, that will always make every team competitive. There is no need for a cap if they make players go 5 yrs before they can become a free agent.

"For whom the bell tolls...time marches on!"

The NFL owners just got together and voted unaminously not to accept the player's association latest offer. So as of right now we will be moving towards a the lower cap that Sports Mouth mentioned. Along with the Cardinals there are few other teams out there that this won't affect that negatively. My team the Packers are one of those teams.

I haven't done enough thinking about whether no cap is good or bad for the league. I do want to comment on Mouth's statement that "there is no need for a cap if they make players go 5 yrs before they can become a free agent." The thing about that is the average NFL player is only in the league for 3-5 yrs. That being said I don't think the player's association would agree to any deal where the player would have to wait that long especially without gauranteed money.

I think D Weezy is right on regarding the player's not agreeing to a 5 year wait before free agency and things are going to get pretty crazy if Gene Upshaw (Players Rep) stands by what he said yesterday. He mentioned that if the NFL goes back to no salary cap that he would never allow a cap be put back in as long as he works for the players union...So the owners of the mid-market teams would fight like hell to make sure that there is a restriction on free-agency (like in baseball), throw in guaranteed or non-guaranteed contracts and you've got a whole different league in two years! It is going to be interesting to see what happens.

On a humours note...I read on ESPN today that if the NFL has no salary cap in 2007, NFL owners do not have to pay for their players health insurance and 401k contributions! How crazy is that?

"For whom the bell tolls...time marches on!"