Really good post, hope to see more of them. My point on overspending was as it relates to the entire amount a team can spend. The salary cap prevents overspending and since there is a salary cap players salaries are capped by a restricted market put in place to restrict spending. Granted the players got a bone with a minimum required spend. Overall the operational costs for players, which is essentially the product is capped and protects owners from themselves and others. The Dallas Cowboys value is in large part a reflection of their market place and the revenue they derive from a Stadium built and owned by Arlington. While they share the same TV revenue they have other ways to make money lots of money. The Cowboys haven't won squat and yet still have a team valuation that is much higher then say the Colts who have one of the best winning records of any team in football over the last decade. The Oakland Raiders shouldn't even exist in the current NFL the fact that they run a profit and have a valuation beyond salvage is a testament to the Socialized product the NFL puts out. How much more is the Cowboys cost of operation vs the Raiders? You also have to calculate the subsidy many of these teams get from bonds issued by government to build there state of the art stadiums that constitute a huge portion of their net valuation and operating income. By the way when was the last time Dallas, the number 1 valued team in the NFL won anything? I completely agree on getting rid of Revis. My only point was wanting to make money as a motivation to excel which in Revis case has worked is not something that's a bad thing. I think it's a very good thing. People find all kinds of ways to motivate themselves to excel. If money works it's a very good thing.
What are you talking about? Holding out is ALWAYS a violation of a contract- that's why it's subject to fines. Revis had specific no holdout language that would protect the Jets and require him to play out his entire contract if he DID hold out. You may not like it but the CBA that the players agreed to permits players to be cut subject to any guarantees and up front money. But players are required to play out their contract regardless if they think they've out-performed it. You know how they protect themselves? By not signing long term contracts. Or holding out in violation of the contract they signed. Fairness does not play into it and the double standard you lament was collectively bargained for. _
Thanks Lots of good points in your post as well- we are probably largely in agreement. Definitely true that every team has the same limit on what they can spend. Even when the CBA was not in effect that 1 year, the league warned teams not to spend more than they would if last year's salary cap had been in effect (I don't know how that is okay...) and then punished two teams for doing just that. The Cowboys and the Redskins (the #1 and #3 valued teams in the league), got punished by the league for exceeding the imaginary salary cap even though it wasn't in effect. The league's argument in favor of the salary cap is: 1) it helps level the playing field, and 2) it helps smaller market teams be economically viable. (It also serves to suppress player salaries in a major way, saving teams maybe a billion or so dollars a year.) From the players' perspective, clearly the salary cap is a terrible thing, because they'd earn a lot more if the Cowboys could spend $375m a year, since other teams would then have to spend more to keep up / compete for top players. But what would happen would be that those top-earning teams would then get all the good free agents from the poor teams, who would then stand almost no chance no matter how good their GM and HC were (the only savior would be a QB, but in 4 years he would leave and go to a rich team.) The top 5 or so richest teams would then win about 80% of the Super Bowls, and a couple of times per decade team from the middle of the pack would sneak in and win one, and if your team was in the bottom 12 or so, they'd have almost no chance since they could only afford rookies and league minimum players. Winning would then increase the profits of the top teams, compounding their advantage until they could afford to have all of the best free agents (players would not sign extensions so readily because they'd want a crack at free agency, as in the MLB) and basically there would be 2 - 4 teams where the entire roster is Pro Bowl quality, 10 mediocre teams, and the rest would be horrible teams. So from a fan perspective, the salary cap is a good thing because now it's all about the front office, coaching, and players- not about how rich the owner is. That fourth variable, if allowed to rein free, tends to heavily skew things and lead to a few powerhouse teams and a bunch of unwatchable pointless teams (as in the MLB). Dallas hasn't won anything in almost 20 years, despite having one of the league's better QBs in Tony Romo. (Not one of the best QBs, but one of the better ones.) They had one of the NFL's great coaches in Tom Landry, but when Jerry Jones bought the team he basically forced Landry out because he wanted his own HC. He refused to allow Landry's son to buy season tickets (that's just mean, in my opinion.) After that came the dumbest, most lopsided trade in the history of the NFL, the infamous "great trade robbery" where the Cowboys got something like 2 years worth of draft picks in exchange for Herschel Walker. They parlayed that into 3 Super Bowl wins in 4 years. That's the kind of thing that then makes a team's popularity skyrocket, and the Cowboys became the default "America's Team" that you would root for if there was no NFL team near where you lived. Dallas is also in one of the country's biggest cities, which also helps. In the regular season, they've been pretty successful in a lot of years with Tony Romo, but Jerry Jones is as clueless as Al Davis- he just got lucky with Romo and that masks many of his terrible decisions. Usually the rest of the Cowboys suck for the most part, and they change head coaches so frequently that it's hard to build off of what's working- since every 1 - 3 years you have to start over with a new HC and a new system etc because Jerry Jones is very impatient. When the Patriots won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, they quickly became the second most valuable team in the league, despite decades of irrelevancy. They're near Boston, which is also a major city. So- I think that the formula for becoming one of the top earning teams is to: 1) be in/near a big city, and 2) win 3 or more Super Bowls within say 5 years. If you do that as a small market city, you don't have the local fan base- and if you're just in a big city but lose all the time, the fan base gets dispassionate (Cleveland.) The Giants are the #4 most valuable team, and the Jets are #6 even though we've been a much less successful team. NYC is so big that I guess there are still lots of fans of both teams, even though it's split. If the Jets won 2 - 3 Super Bowls in 3 - 5 years, I think they would outpace the Giants in popularity, but that's just a gut feeling. Oakland is a special case. They play in a stadium that is literally known for leaking raw sewage into the baseball dugouts. Oh yeah, it's also one of those crappy (pardon the pun) baseball/football hybrid stadiums they don't make anymore. Oakland is a very high crime rate small city- and clearly there would be no way it could maintain an NFL team without lots of subsidies from the other teams (by TV revenue sharing.) They are one of the major candidates for Los Angeles's team- they might move back there since it's ridiculous that the country's biggest city doesn't have an NFL team yet Oakland and Jacksonville do. Oakland's revenues are about $229m, and their profits are $19.1m, so their costs (including player salaries) are about $209.9m. So they spend about $107m on the front office, coaches, marketing, and everything else. The Cowboys take in $539m and have $250.7m in profits, so their costs (including player salaries) are bout $288.3m per year. That'd be about $166.3m for the non-player-salary expenses. So the Cowboys spend an extra ~$49m on non-player-salary stuff compared to the Raiders. The more recent stadiums aren't being funded by cities/states anymore (because of the bad economy) so teams with newer stadiums, like the Cowboys, will have lower income than they would if they were one of the last teams to get a taxpayer-funded stadium. Anyway, sounds like we're in agreement, but just wanted to share some extra info.
I love Revis. He just won the game for the Bucs! I'll gladly cheer for him against all the AFC rivals!
Haha true. I was kinda happy there but only because he got the game winning pick against the dolphins or else I really wouldn't have cared.
Yes he should have knocked it down, but any one would have caught that ball. It's your athletic impulse to jump up and grab it.
It's better to get the sure grab than to tip it possibly into the hands of somebody else (like idhegibo vs Bengals). Either way the game was over at that point. If there were more time on the clock I'd be with you on that but field position was irrelevant at that point.
Why would you wear that? Lol He knew exactly what people would say when he packed that. Why even think about wearing that?
Anyone who has ever believed different was deluding themselves. Revis is all about Revis, and noting else. He is like a mercenary. An excellent merc, too. He does his job. He just charges a shitload to do it. Look at how many big money contracts he has signed. He knows what he is doing.
Look. I even laid everything out while talking about how absurd it is to keep Revis. Even with 126M cap, about 100M goes to starters - that's about 5M/yr for starter quality. That means fringe players are signing for slave contract at 500k/year tops. This means Revis had to do 3 player's work on the field on every snap. Just unreasonably expensive. And when I laid that out, with huge chunks of salary concentrated on 10+ guys, etc, I was told clueless. [Can you believe that?]
How many of you will be demanding justice when the Jets cut Sanchez? Or Vlad the Impaler? Or WFH? Or Eric Smith? Or Bart Scott? Or Tone Time? Sanctity of a contract means absolutely ZERO to every NFL team (and it's fans) that has a player they want out of there. I equate a player holding out in mid contract to improve his lot in life to a GM cutting a player in mid contract to improve his lot in life.
Cab tv headline: Darelle Revis tells "bitter" Jets fans to "let it go." Ha! Thanks for helping to beat the fish though old buddy. Oh and nice sports coat :up:
