As expected, NFL players moved things forward over the past week, and when the final metaphorical whistle sounded Saturday night, they had voted to pass the league’s proposed collective bargaining agreement.
With the agreement, the Dallas Cowboys now know the terrain they will have to traverse in order to bring back their star free agents.
NFL players voted YES on the new collective bargaining agreement, per source.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 15, 2020
Requiring at least 50% of votes plus one, independent auditors worked through the night tabulating the final votes from a week-long process. In the end, the players chose to take the owners early offer in negotiations that still had over 18 months before the threat of any missed games.
On a micro level, the new agreement limits the Cowboys options in being able to keep both quarterback Dak Prescott and wideout Amari Cooper. Two of the league’s leading free agents have not been able to reach an agreement with the club, but Dallas could have had the ability to tag both due to a quirk in the final year of the previous CBA.
Now that the new deal is in place, teams will no longer get to use both a franchise and the transition tag in the same year. Like all other years, it is once again either or. The tag deadline was moved back until Monday, to allow teams the chance to process the results of the CBA vote and finalize their plans.
Only a handful of teams are in the same boat as Dallas, but on a grander scale the CBA approval means a lot for everyone league wide.
The 11-member council rejected it, twice, by votes of 6-5 and 7-4. However, the player representatives from all 32 teams approved it prior to the scouting combine, by count of 17-14. During the voting process, the players have elected Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter as the new president, along with other new officers.
The new CBA covers a lot, including expanded rosters, raising the minimum salary for players, and giving them a slight increase in their share of shared revenue. Though titled “all revenue” it’s actually only around 90% of the money the league brings in which is then shared with the players. Players will get between 47% and 48.5% under the new proposal (distributed to each team evenly in what is known as the salary cap and salary floor).
The other key components are a future 17-game season, and an immediate increase of the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams, adding extra wild-card games for each conference.
The full 456-page CBA proposal can be read here.
60% of the players in the league are minimum-salary guys, so the league wisely gave them an immediate raise of around $100,000 a year. With the roster expansion, it also means around 60-100 more players will have full-pay jobs. Higher-paid players aren’t getting a bigger share of the pie, but with in-stadium gambling being approved around the country and a new TV deal just a few seasons away, the growth will be monumental simply because the league’s revenue growth will be monumental.