Dallas Cowboys 

Owners OK extension to contract

NFL PLAYERS Association president Troy Vincent had just landed in Hawaii yesterday when he received the news that the league's owners had approved the union's proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement by a 30-2 vote.
"I wasn't at all surprised," Vincent, the Buffalo Bills cornerback, told the Daily News. "They didn't really have much choice. When you're talking about $47 billion [in revenue] that's coming to the NFL over the next 6 years, I mean, my baby twins could sit down and cut that pie up. We knew they'd eventually come to a consensus that [approving the union offer] was the best thing."
That consensus did not come easy. The owners spent 2 days in a hotel in Grapevine, Texas, near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, debating the union's proposal, which called for the players to receive 59.5 percent of the league's revenue.
Before they could approve the NFLPA's offer, the owners first had to settle their own revenue-sharing differences between such high-income teams as the Eagles, New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys and such low-income teams as the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars.
"This wasn't about the players' percentage [of the revenue]," Vincent said. "It was about the players' percentage and revenue-sharing. They had to settle that if this league was going to continue to thrive. Players want competitive balance. That's what this league has been built on. That's why this league has enjoyed the success it has enjoyed. Because we've got competitive balance. Every coach, every player, goes to [training] camp believing their team has a chance to make it to the playoffs."
The new labor agreement will give the league 6 more years of labor peace, through 2011, and pushes the 2006 salary cap to between $102 million and $103 million. If the owners had not approved the union offer, the cap would have remained at $94.5 million and teams would have been forced to release upward of 150 players last night to get under the cap by the 11 p.m. deadline.
Free agency will begin tomorrow or Saturday, after the sides get more opportunity to examine the deal. It was supposed to start last Friday, but was twice pushed back.
"It was a good compromise," Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said. "We're happy with it; 30-2 is a good vote."
Buffalo and Cincinnati voted against the plan.
The approval of both the union offer and a revenue-sharing plan by the league's 32 teams might have been commissioner Paul Tagliabue's finest hour. During his 17 years as the league's czar, his powers of persuasion with the owners have been underwhelming. He has been very good at getting cities to pony up money for new stadiums, but very bad at getting the owners to do what he has wanted them to do.
But during these past 2 days, which could end up defining his tenure as commissioner, he managed to push all the right buttons, starting with an impassioned speech Tuesday on what a labor war would do to the league's second-to-none success. In the final hours before yesterday's vote, he tapped three owners - the Giants' John Mara, the Broncos' Pat Bowlen and the Panthers' Jerry Richardson - to help him get the necessary 24 votes to approve the union's contract offer and get a consensus on revenue-sharing.
"It was our choice to give them the two extensions," Vincent said. "And we did it under one condition - that all 32 owners see our proposal. If they didn't approve it, we were prepared to move forward. But they went in there and grinded it out and got the votes. Paul did an impressive job of convincing the owners that this was the best thing to do."
If the owners had rejected the union's proposal, they were staring at the likelihood of an uncapped year in 2007, which would have been the final year of the current collective bargaining agreement. NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw already had threatened to decertify the union when the CBA expired in '08.
"[Labor unrest] wouldn't have been good for anybody," Vincent said. "Not the players. Not the owners. Not the fans. We've learned valuable lessons from baseball, basketball and hockey about roads we don't want to go down if we can avoid them."
The specifics of how the owners resolved their revenue-sharing differences weren't clear last night. Low-income teams had wanted high-income clubs to contribute more money to the players' share of the league's revenue. The high-income teams were loath to do that, feeling the other teams had the same revenue-producing capabilities they did.
"Some teams are contributing a little more than others," said Redskins owner Dan Snyder, whose team is one of the league's top revenue producers. "This is really win-win."
The owners arrived in Texas Tuesday hopeful of maintaining labor peace. But their own revenue-sharing differences seemed to be too great to resolve. During their 2 days together, optimism and pessimism took turns ruling the room.
"There's something here, or everyone wouldn't have agreed to meet here, roll up our sleeves and see what we can do," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said early on. "But there's nothing here that makes you want to rush over here and jump for joy. It's going to be long and drawn out and tough."
"We're not even close to a consensus," the Colts' Irsay said early yesterday.
Tagliabue and Upshaw had agreed on a Wednesday 8 p.m. EST deadline for a vote on the union offer. But the owners ended up going about 35 minutes past the deadline before the 30-2 vote.
"This agreement is not about one side winning or losing," Upshaw said in a statement. "Ultimately, it is about what is best for the players, the owners and the fans of the National Football League. As caretakers of the game we have acted in the manner the founders intended. Moving forward, this new agreement gives us the opportunity to continue our unprecedented success and growth."

NFL agreement caps big day

NFL owners chose the certainty of a salary cap over the prospect of life without one, and they're paying for it.

The league agreed Wednesday to the union's proposal, including a revenue-sharing component that will cost owners nearly a billion dollars during the next six years.

The deal will carry the NFL and its 32 teams through the 2011 season. Two lower-revenue teams, the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, cast the only votes against.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said $850 million to $900 million in players' salaries will be added over the life of the deal because of the revenue-sharing component, which the union fought for through the on-again, off-again talks.

Now the free-agency period, which had been put off twice by protracted negotiations, will start either Friday or Saturday to give teams additional time to get under the newly elevated cap.

The spending limit for teams will be $102 million this season, $7.5 million more than it would have been without a deal. The salary cap for the 2005 season was $85.5 million.

The cap will increase to $109 million in 2007, which would have been an uncapped year that would have widened the spending gap between teams even more.

''We want teams to get additional money to re-sign players, rather than cutting them,'' Tagliabue said.

The deal was put together by nine teams who began on different sides of the revenue debate, including such higher-revenue teams as the New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys.

''We were willing to make some sacrifices to get this thing done,'' said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the most vocal opponent of revenue sharing. ''The proposal from the union was a mean mother.''

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, Jones' ally among the higher-revenue teams, was more upbeat.

''It's really a win-win situation,'' he said.

Added ailing Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, a longtime maverick who was one of Tagliabue's leading supporters during this debate: ''The whole idea was that no one was totally dissatisfied. We had to have labor peace. That's why I came all the way here.''

The agreement comes after a week of on-again, off-again negotiations culminated in a two-day owners meeting. Tagliabue predicted it would come down to the 11th hour.

It did, and it perhaps went beyond. Tagliabue said an agreement was reached at 6:59 and 59 seconds Central time, a second before the deadline to notify the union. League spokesman Greg Aiello originally announced the deal had been reached at 7:35 p.m. after league officials earlier said the 8 p.m. deadline didn't specify what time zone.

The union didn't seem to care.

''This agreement is not about one side winning or losing,'' Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, said in a statement. ''Ultimately, it is about what is best for the players, the owners and the fans of the National Football League. As caretakers of the game, we have acted in the manner the founders intended.

''Moving forward, this new agreement gives us the opportunity to continue our unprecedented success and growth.''

The real debate was among the owners themselves about the important issue of expanded revenue sharing. Lower-income teams say higher-revenue teams should contribute proportionately to the player pool because they can earn far more in non-football income from things such as advertising and local radio rights.

Under the new deal, the bottom 17 teams in revenue will not contribute to the pool, which will be funded with the top five teams contributing the most, the second five less and the third five less than them.

Cowboys Sign Two Wide Receivers

The Dallas Cowboys have re-signed wide receivers Patrick Crayton and Terrance Copper to one-year deals. Neither receiver played a lot last year, but Crayton showed some potential.

Crayton missed five games due to injury last year. In the games that he played, he had 22 catches for 341 yards and two touchdowns. Crayton will be entering his third season in the league with the Cowboys.

Copper played in every game last year, but usually as a special teamer. He had one catch for five yards only.