Are you ready for some FOOTBALL! - Hot Stove Edition

[Imran Siddiqui]

Only 6 hours late with that one, reismark :cure:

[Darsnan]

Black Thursday

Dolphins released Sam Madison, Reggie Howard, Damion McIntosh, and Tebucky Jones to get under the cap.

MIAMI (March 1, 2006) --The Miami Dolphins released Pro Bowl cornerback Sam Madison and three other players to make room under the salary cap for the start of free agency.

The Dolphins also cut backup cornerback Reggie Howard, left tackle Damion McIntosh and strong safety Tebucky Jones. The cuts put the Dolphins under the $94.5 million salary cap, assuming there will be no extension of the league's collective bargaining agreement.


The Dolphins are parting ways with Sam Madison after nine years.
Madison was due to make $3.42 million in base salary in 2006, while McIntosh was set to make $3.3 million, Jones $3 million and Howard $2 million.

Madison's release ends his nine-year career with the team. Madison was the first cornerback in the team's history to make the Pro Bowl and has 31 career interceptions, including two last season. He spent seven years opposite Patrick Surtain, who also went on to become a Pro Bowler and was traded to Kansas City last season.

Madison had recently offered to take a pay cut to stay with the team, but the Dolphins declined the offer. Madison also recently had his agent ask the Dolphins to cut him in hopes of making more money with another team.

Howard had joined the team in 2004 as a backup for Madison and Surtain but couldn't win a starting spot last season after Surtain was traded.

A team spokesman said all the cuts were motivated primarily by economics and meeting the salary cap rather than the organization being unhappy with any player's individual performance.


I've seen some other significant names let loose today from other teams as well. I think the owners are sending a message to the players that unless you are a Tier 1 star, your paychecks not safe....

D

[Sava]

interesting

the Bears need help at CB

although I don't know if Madison would be an option or not

there's also Charles Woodson and Ty Law

though I know any of those veterans would come at a cost

Angelo will probably look to the draft

[reismark]

Latest from Bristol: The owners have pushed back the cap deadline to Sunday night at 6 PM and gotten the talks going again.

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

Hopefully they'll be able to get a deal done (which would allow for a higher salary cap and along with that less of these major names just being let go). Last thing I want is to see guys like Derrick Brooks and Simeon Rice get cut just because of the cap and the increased difficulty in restructuring deals assuming no deal.

[pchang]

Sounds like the Colts are screwed. Did they copy their contracts from Carmen Policy?

[Lord Avalon]

The owners really need to come to an agreement on revenue sharing first. I think all revenue should be thrown into the pot - otherwise small market teams get screwed (unless they have a really rich owner). Once the owners agree, then they can deal with the players on percentage.

The cap # is going to affect how much of a payday Shaun Alexander & Edgerrin James (et al) will get. If it doesn't go up, then Edge isn't going to "get paid" like he wants. Not that he would have been before this - how much cap space do you want to put on an aging RB, even one as good as James, especially when you've got such a huge chunk taken up by Peyton? But it could be even less now, such that maybe he'd take the best deal elsewhere.

[Sava]

honestly

I would not think it would be a bad thing if the salary cap went away

I am against the whole idea of revenue sharing

if small market teams can't generate the revenue needed to compete, then they have no business (no pun intended) being in the league...

I'm sick and tired of tired of this watered down NFL... where most teams can only be good on one side of the ball, where talent has to be divied up because you can't go out and get lots of big name guys because of the cap.

I say let there be a few years without the cap... see what happens.

Sure, small market teams may suffer. Well, too bad... there shouldn't be franchises in a lot of those cities then.

I think the league needs to contract anyways.

The complaints against this that I hear is that "ZOMFG THEN YOU WILL HAVE A TEAM LIKE THE NEW YORK YANKEES AND THAT WOULD SUCK"... why? The Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000. If they want to overspend, let them. It's their money.

Why should other teams "share" the revenue that successful NFL franchises create?

Let the failing franchises fail... let the successful ones succeed.

[-Jrabbit]

IMO, a big reason the NFL has become far and away the dominant sport in the US is that there is competitive balance. This was accomplished through a combination of factors that work together to allow fast turnarounds.

Those factors include free agency, the salary cap, scheduling based divisional finish, draft position, and revenue sharing.

The fact that the Yankees haven't won the WS in awhile is NOT proof that inequality of spending is OK. They're in the playoffs every freaking year. In baseball, you still have dynasties - but you need to look at playoffs, not WS success. The Yankees are always in. The Braves are always in. Even though teams like the Twins and A's get in occasionally, only 1 or 2 such miracles can be expected per year, if any. And there are a bunch of teams that are NEVER in -- Milwaukee, Texas, Washinton, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Tampa etc. But they live on.

By contrast, football's scheme has ensured that every city has hope. The 2005 Bears and Bengals are great examples. In the NFL, dynasties like the Pats are the result of superior management of equal resources. In MLB, it's about outspending your opponents. The fact is that the NFL has a huge diversity in Super Bowl and playoff participants year after year. And that promotes the league across the board.

Final point: Watered down product is a huge problem for both sports. but eliminating the cap won't solve it. Look what happened to MLB when they tried to contract money-losing teams. The union will not allow the industry to eliminate 52 jobs and $95 MM in salary (per team) to its membership.

Not.
Gonna.
Happen.

Not even if Bidwill shows up in bankruptcy court.

Football will live and thrive regardless of how this comes out. No work stoppage is all I care about. The bottom lines is that this is a high-profit, guaranteed-income industry squabbling in public about how they're going to divvy up their billions.

[OzzyKP]

I did a quick/rough analysis of the salary cap issue on my blog:

http://www.oneandfour.org/archives/2005/10/does_the_salary.html

Does the Salary Cap Make Leagues More Competitive?

Last night's World Series win by the Chicago White Sox (their first since 1917) got me thinking. One often hears complaints about baseball, that its not as fair as leagues like the NFL or NBA where there is a salary cap. That in baseball major markets who can raise more money can afford to buy better players and thus create a situation where they are nearly unbeatable by smaller markets. Such people favor a system like the NFL has because it ensures a more level playing field and gives everyone the chance to win.

I've heard complaints like that about professional hockey too, which until this year never had a salary cap. Considering the NHL just made this big move, following the lead of basketball and football, will it create more competition in the league? Would baseball be better served if they adopted such a system as well?

One can suppose that if a salary cap makes a league more competitive then there would be a greater variety of teams winning that league's championship. Instead of a big market (like New York for example..(damn Yankees)) dominating year after year, a salary cap would produce a more diverse collection of teams crowned champion.

I crunched the numbers. The first of the big 4 sports to adopt a salary cap was the NBA in 1984. So from 1984 to 2005 I looked at who won the Superbowl, World Series, NBA Championship, and Stanley Cup. The NBA and NFL each had 22 champions, and the MLB and NHL had 21 (due to strikes/lockouts). The results are quite interesting.

Everybody's boogeyman, Major League baseball was actually the most competitive with 15 different winners in 21 seasons. 71% of World Series' during this time were won by a unique team. The worst, the league that had salary cap the longest, was the NBA with only 6 different winners in 22 seasons. Only 27% of the NBA Championships were won by unique teams. Rather than a few teams dominating a league without a salary cap, they seem more likely to do it with a salary cap. Between both those extremes is the NHL with 10 different winners in 21 seasons.

I think it can safely be said that judging purely from the standard of having an open and competitive league, the salary cap has been a stunning failure for basketball and not having a salary cap has been a great success for baseball.

The NFL is different though. They adopted a salary cap in 1994. So from 1984 to 1994 there were 6 winners of 11 Superbowls, and from 1995 to 2005 there were 8 winners of 11 Superbowls. An improvement since the cap. Percentage wise the last 11 seasons of football have been just a hair more competitive than baseball (72.7% unique in football vs. 71.4% unique in baseball) Not a very significant improvement.

Over all, putting all the salary cap leagues/years together and pitting them against the non-salary cap leagues/years, not having a salary cap seems to be more competitive. 58% of the championships were won by unique teams in non-salary cap leagues, vs. 42% of the championships won by unique teams in salary cap leagues.

Very interesting.

So will the salary cap make things more competitive in the NHL? It doesn't really look like it will. But the dynamics of every sport are different, so I'm not going to answer definitively. It did make for a small improvement in football. But I don't think it should be given the reverence many pay to it overall, it doesn't seem to do all that much good.

Plus its always more fun to hate those damn Yankees.

[Lord Avalon]

I agree with Jrabbit - it's not about which team wins the championship, but which teams are in the playoffs competing for it that will tell you how "well" things are going.

[Jaguar]

The championships aren't plentiful enough to pass judgement.

But look at the division winners. Until the Nationals came to my home town, I was primarily a Braves fan.

The last time the Braves lost their division, I was two years old. I think that says it all.

[joncha]

lol It says you are teh young. LOL

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon
I agree with Jrabbit - it's not about which team wins the championship, but which teams are in the playoffs competing for it that will tell you how "well" things are going.

Indeed. Ozzy's analysis is very, very flawed. The question is which teams end up getting to the postseason and how many teams are perpetually left out. Now the NFL does have its Arizona Cardinals, but Cincy now looks like a power and every team's gotta shot.

In MLB, Kansas City has NO shot. None, nada, forget about it. The same can be said for Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, etc. If you are a fan of one of those teams, the game isn't fun. Your team simply has no hope of doing anything,

[pchang]

Not all salary caps are equal

The NBA cap is a soft one. You can go over the cap if you resign your own players. Basketball only has 5 players on the floor at anytime. It is the easiest one to get a core group of good players and then keep them for a long time. The NFL has a hard cap. Pro Bowl players routinely change teams in free agency. This is very rare in the NBA.

[-Jrabbit]

Another factor is the structure of the games themselves. Basketball is a 5-man game with a 12-man roster, highly susceptible to domination by one team because all you need is 2 superstars, decent management and a bit of luck and you can put together multiple championships. Jordan, Olajuwon, Magic, Bird, Isiaih, Shaq -- pretty consistent.

Combine that with the soft cap (where you can always outbid other teams for your own free agents), and it's the easiest sport to keep the core of a team together.

Baseball (25-man roster, 9 on the field) and football (52-man roster, 11 on the field) are much less susceptible to domination by one man.