“LAST CAPPED YEAR” LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKELY

When posting on Tuesday an item regarding the formal launch of the NFLPA’s search for a new Executive Director, I didn’t really think through the implication of the NFLPA’s announcement that the process will be finalized during the March 2009 meeting of player representatives.
This means that, unless the union is comfortable with the notion of a new CBA being finalized by interim Executive Director Richard Berthelsen, no new agreement will be in place by March 1, 2009.
And this means that 2009 will be the “last capped year” under the current CBA.
In 2006, the looming commencement of the last capped year forced the two sides to get a deal done. Basically, once the various teams digested the implications of the changes to the salary cap accounting rules that are triggered when the very next league year won’t have a salary cap in place, management realized that it made plenty of sense to get a deal done.
Though the rules of the last capped year in 2009 won’t be quite as restrictive as they were in 2006, it will nevertheless be painful for some of the teams to comply. So once the NFL absorbs the final year with a salary cap, the NFL might be more willing to take a year without a salary cap, which isn’t nearly as favorable to players as a superficial consideration of the absence of a cap suggests. (For example, the minimum requirement for becoming an unrestricted free agent moves from four years to six.)
And if there’s a year without a salary cap, it will be very difficult to put a cap back in place. Which means that it’ll be difficult to get a deal done on a new CBA.
Which means that we might very well be covering the UFL in 2011.