Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch raises a great point regarding Rams running back Steven Jackson, who is holding out despite a rookie contract that covers 2008, his fifth NFL season.

If the Collective Bargaining Agreement isn’t extended by 2010, then 2010 will have no salary cap, and only players with six NFL seasons will be eligible for unrestricted free agency.

As we’ve recently pointed out (and as we first learned three years ago when Brian Westbrook was contemplating a holdout from the Eagles), a player under contract who fails to report 30 days before the start of the regular season does not accrue a year of service for the purposes of free agency.

And so, in Jackson’s case, he won’t accrue a fifth year in 2008 if he doesn’t report at least 30 days prior to the start of the regular season.  Thus, his first shot at accruing a fifth year would come in 2009.  And then, come March 2010, he’d be eligible for restricted free agency only.

But there are two glitches in the reasoning offered up by Thomas.  First, as long as Jackson shows up by Week Ten of the regular season, he’d get credit for the fifth year of his Rams contract, making him an unrestricted free agent in March 2009, even though he’d only have four years of NFL service for free agency purposes if his holdout lasts beyond 30 days before the start of the regular season.

Second, the CBA provision in question is based not on the first regular-season game of the player’s team, but the first regular-season game, period.  Thus, if Jackson shows up on August 8 (which is 30 days before the Rams’ opener), he’ll be three days too late, since the regular season starts on September 4 with the Redskins at the Giants, not on September 7.

Potential awkwardness in this case could arise if Jackson gets credit for the fifth year of his contract and the Rams restrict his movement with the franchise tag as of March 2009.  In 2010, Jackson would be a restricted free agent, if there’s no salary cap.  As we pointed out several months ago, however, Jackson’s one-year RFA tender would be determined by multiplying the 2009 franchise tag by 1.1,resulting in far greater earnings that restricted free agents otherwise receive.

Per Thomas, the Rams reportedly have offered Jackson a deal worth $7 million per year, which would place him among the top four highest-paid running backs in the league.