If the playing field was so level, why did they bother to install a salary cap and the current FA structure? Just because? Small market teams were spending so little money that the big market teams easily loaded up on talent and the product on the field was becoming uninteresting. That's how the playing field wasn't level. Teams like the Cowboys had carte blanche in terms of free agent talent acquisition and built truly deep rosters.
The only problem is that, even with Plan B, most of those Cowboys players in 1993 were Cowboys draft picks. They did a great job of holding on to their players, but under Plan B, they could protect those players anyway. Solid drafting and the Herschel Walker steal were bigger factors than the lack of a cap in the Cowboys success.
LOL- Without a doubt. If Woody could dump a ton a cash for elite players next year with a removed cap, I think he'll find it much easier to sell PSL's. We might actually have a hot ticket too. Woody hopefully will have to dip into his Johnson & Johnson fortune. His shampoo might prevent babies from crying but his Jet have me on the verge of it every year, lol.
Right, and most of those players were coming into their 4-5-6th year in the league around the time the salary cap era was being planned - they were entering the prime of their careers, and in today's salary cap age would have been coming up for new contracts. The Cowboys were able to structure contracts for a front-load to avoid the cap affecting their continued success until after the 1996 Super Bowl win, when they started having to let some of their impact free agents test the waters. Is it any coincidence that this is the exact time the dynasty ended? The playing field suddenly became more level.
I suppose we have different views on what it means to have a level playing field, then. Again, the Cowboys drafted the vast majority of their talent. Aside from Charles Haley, they didn't engage in much trading. Aside from Deion Sanders, they didn't really overpay for free agents. Like I said, I view their draft success to have had more of an impact on their on field success. Their economic advantage didn't help them in the war room. They were on the same level as everyone else in that regard. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, this wasn't the Yankees going out and splurging on free agents in order to gain an advantage. Could they have had the same success today? I don't know. In all likelihood, they'd have lost a couple of those players to free agency. However, with the rules changed for other big market teams as well, their success in April may have had the same overall impact.
The salary cap is what keeps the NFL on top. It's what lets the Minnesota Vikings seriously compete with the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. It's what allows the Buffalo Bills and Arizona Cardinals to survive at all. If the salary cap goes away we'll lose a half dozen American franchises to other richer areas of the world fairly quickly. London, Rio De Janeiro, Mexico City, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Toronto all represent better opportunities for the NFL than areas like Jacksonville, Buffalo, Minnesota, Arizona, Oakland (both Bay Area teams suffer badly because it's a one team market) and Detroit. There are scenarios in which we lose the Jets if the salary cap goes away for good. Woody would be able to command quite a high price for the franchise on the open market if the wealth of some of the prospective areas above began bidding for them. Cash beats long-term debt in a declining economy.
I've already acknowledged how the Cowboys acquired most of their talent (BTW you forgot Ken Norton) so it seems like you're harping on the same point again. You don't have to run out buy a team like the Yankees tried to in order to tilt the field in terms of assembling competitive talent levels - you just have to keep the team together. I still maintain that Dallas was able to keep their core of players while teams that didn't care to maintain a competitive roster (Bidwills) or teams that couldn't afford to and allowed players to sign with other teams or simply traded them away. The MINIMUM salary cap qualification in the CBA has had more of an effect on the parity (read: level playing field) of the NFL than the maximum has had.
Good Points up until the Jets leaving. I agree the NFL has risen to #1 because of parity. There is no way in hell the Jets are leaving the Tr-State area, especially not anytime soon. New stadium is the immediate reason, but long term now team would leave this market. He'll make more here then if he moved to Alabama or some crap like that. LA would get a team in the cap was gone.
They installed a salary cap b/c they implemneted free agency. The players got FA and the teams got a cap to keep salaries down a bit. Ther wasn't FA so what did small market vs. big market have to do w/ anything? The salary cap had NOTHING to do w/ Dallas' dynasty.
The Minnesota Twins haven't moved, why would the Vikings? The Arizona Diamondbacks aren't leaving, neither are the Oakland As, or Detroit Tigers. Saying that the underspending teams aren't as competitive is one thing, but saying that any American team, in any sport, would move to Brazil or Germany is just silly.
What about Ken Norton? He was drafted by the Cowboys, who let him go rather than overpay him. If anything, his example would only help a case against the 49ers after they acquired him. Again, I think we have different concepts of what it takes to consider the playing field tilted. You list consequences of the system that really didn't impact the Cowboys, a team that played in a division with 2 other big market teams and still managed to dominate with homegrown players. They didn't exactly take advantage of those teams unable to keep their players. As long as we disagree over the concept of what constitutes a level playing field in this situation, I don't really see any progress being made in the discussion. BTW, I'm not certain using the example of the Cardinals helps your cause. I'd again point to the draft as the primary cause of the Cardinals' lack of success. This wasn't a team drafting future super stars only to have to let them go. This was a team that spent a 3rd rounder on Tom Tupa. Aside from Garrison Hearst, who wasn't a success until he left, who were they forced to let go? I'd argue their most successful draft pick in that rough time period was Larry Centers, and he was there for nearly a decade.
OK but you didn't do a good job. The implemtation of the cap had NOTHING to do w/ Dallas. It was implemented b/c of FA which coincidentally came about when Dallas was beginning their dynasty. Their wasn't any competitive advantage for big market teams pre-cap. Plan B FA began in 1991 and no big name guys in their prime were plan B FAs. Dallas was built through the draft, they didn't have any advantage over any other team.
If the NFL opens up to permanent international competition there are interests out there rich enough to make offers that virtually no NFL owner could refuse. Can you imagine the offer that a company like Toyota could make to move the Jets to a location in Japan and call them the [fill in the location] Toyota Jets? What would that be worth in advertising value alone in the US, not to mention the other international venues that would open up? Remember that sports teams in Japan are usually named after both their location and the company that owns them. There's no reason to believe that would change if the NFL expanded over there. So Woody is sitting on a mountain of debt with a consistent revenue stream that meets it and gives him an ok profit, which is likely the situation he is in now. Toyota calls him up after Japanese interests have been given the ok to pursue NFL teams and offers him 2 billion dollars for the Jets. What does he do?
There's no way a football team is going to be based on the other side of the world. None. Jet lag alone would kill any possibility.
All jet lag would do is to change the way teams make travel plans. Instead of waiting until Friday to travel teams would travel on Tuesday so that they'd be all caught up by the time game day rolled around. The hypothetical Tokyo team would be the one traveling huge distances half the time. In a cap-less world it would make up the difference by paying it's players a premium. Players would flock to Tokyo to get higher salaries, including a big cost of living adjustment. They'd work for a half dozen years there and be set for life. It'd be a great place for a player with a checkered history and inability to stay out of after hours trouble to play. Nobody in Japan cares what you do after hours and there's a huge culture built around NOT checking up on people. Not to mention it's hard to get in trouble back in the 'hood when there's no 'hood for 3,000 miles.
That scenario will never happen. Teams can't handle the jet lag from playing on the other side of the world in exhibition games, much less repeatedly during a season. Hell, teams have problems just playing on the opposite coast.
