Per espnews under breaking news.

Interesting. Hopefully this means they're going all out to get a new CBA in place, but it kind of sucks for teams who have already cut a bunch of players to get under the cap that they extended the deadline this late.

 

NEW YORK -- A few hours after NFL owners voted to continue their standoff with the players union, the league extended its deadline for free agency by three days.

 

The breakthrough came with a mutual agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association Thursday afternoon. The delay could open the door for more negotiations between both sides that could lead to a labor extension.

 

Things looked bleak Thursday morning when owners rejected the union's latest proposal. No new talks were scheduled. The owners were willing to give the players 56.2 percent of total revenues. The players were asking for 60 percent along with a revenue sharing formula among owners.

 

Now, there is a little breathing room to try to do a deal.

 

 

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2351271

 

The rest of the article is basically rehased from one posted earlier this morning on ESPN.

mortensan was on mike and mike a few minutes ago and he believes it will get done today.

 

take it for what it is worth I guess

Boy, Mort sure hit the nail on the head there.

 

This sucks. They need to get this crap taken care of.

Mort's source says the owners are asking the NFLPA for another 3 day extension.

According to WSVN 7 News in Miami, the NFL has delayed Free Agency another 72 hours and according to Drew Rosenhaus, Sam Madison will probably sign with the Giants and his Dolphin days are 100% over.

Didn't teams who made pre-emptive cuts to get under the cap get kind of a get out of jail free card?

The owners are supposed to vote on the newest proposal from the union tomorrow, so I guess there's some progress...maybe....hopefully.

 

 

 

At a meeting Tuesday in Dallas, NFL owners will vote to accept or reject a players' union proposal to extend the Collective Bargaining Agreement, ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting.

 

NFL management, led by commissioner Paul Tagliabue called the union an hour before the Sunday midnight deadline to say that they take the proposal to all 32 owners, Mortensen reports. Twenty-four of the 32 owners must OK the deal for it to be ratified.

 

Monday in New York, Tagliabue, NFL Players' Association executive director Gene Upshaw and lawyers for both sides are meeting to put the players' latest proposal into a written document to present to owners for approval.

 

"There are no negotiations [Monday]," Jeffrey Kessler, an NFLPA attorney and negotiator, said in an e-mail to ESPN. "We are just reviewing language on our proposal for submission to the owners for their approval vote. The deal goes to the owners [Tuesday] for approval up or down. If up, we have a deal. If down, we go to the uncapped year. Nothing in between and no more negotiation."

 

If owners and players can't agree to an extension on the current CBA, 2007, the final year of the current contract, would be an uncapped season.

 

The league and union agreed to postpone free agency another 72 hours until Thursday at 12:01 a.m. ET. Teams have until 9 p.m. on Wednesday to get under the salary cap of 94.5 million.

 

"The NFL negotiators called us tonight after our negotiations broke off to indicate that they will take our complete package to the owners for an approval vote on Tuesday," Upshaw said late Sunday night. "We have therefore agreed to extend the free agency deadline until midnight Wednesday in order to provide time for that vote to be accomplished. It was the NFL's previous rejection of our proposal earlier this evening that caused the talks to break down."

 

The deal that NFL owners will vote on guarantees that players will receive 59.5 percent of all football revenue over the six-year extension of the CBA, Mortensen reports. That 59.5 percent includes a "cash over cap" formula that addresses the concerns of low revenue clubs about how much teams actually spend on their payrolls in a given year.

 

The deal also includes the ability to give credits and make adjustments on individual teams' spending on cash over the cap, according to what Upshaw told Mortensen. It is possible that a team that exceeds the spending limit will have their salary cap adjusted the following year by the amount they spend over the cap.

 

That formula could be the subject of major debate during Tuesday's owner meetings in Dallas between low- and high-revenue clubs. Sources told Mortensen that New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft has emerged as the most vocal high-revenue franchise that is a strong dissenter to a new revenue sharing model.

 

Upshaw said he still thinks revenue sharing is the key, although Harold Henderson, the NFL's executive vice president for labor relations, said it was never discussed Sunday. Upshaw also said the players would do as well or better sticking with the current agreement.

 

"Under our previous cap agreement, we got just less than 60 percent of all of the revenues. The NFL now wants us to cut that percentage to less than 57 percent. Given the enormous revenue growth the NFL is experiencing, I am not about to give back gains which we have made in the past. It is clear to me that we will do much better under our current CBA in 2006 and particularly in 2007, the uncapped year," Upshaw said.

 

Dallas owner Jerry Jones, who has been opposed to revenue sharing, reiterated that Monday.

 

"I'm not happy with the proposal. I didn't think that we would be entertaining the kinds of propositions that we got from the players. I'm not happy with it at all," he said. "As you well know, I don't think anyone particularly cares how happy I am."

 

Kevin Mawae, who had been the New York Jets' player representative until he was cut Sunday, said the players had thought this is the way it would end.

 

"I think it's playing out exactly like we thought it would," he said. "We said as a union that in order for free agency to go off without a hitch, the owners would have to figure out how to divide up the revenue. It's not necessarily the percentage that we're asking but how they spread the wealth."

 

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2356310