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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Much angst is in the air over a looming deadline in the NFL's Collective Bargaining Agreement with the players, and harsh talk already is heating up.
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Gene Upshaw, head of the NFL Players Association, has said that if the owners allow the salary cap to expire, the players never would agree to another one.
Several owners, including a couple of the richer-market teams, have said the current deal has given too much to the players.
Even though the agreement is only two years old, commissioner Roger Goodell says, "I think we're starting to realize that (the economics have) swung significantly towards the players, and that it is a big concern for our ownership."
In other words, the stage is set for a fight between owners and players.
But the fact of the matter is that, even if the club owners opt out of the agreement as expected in November, allowing the salary cap to expire following the 2009 season, the forecast of general gloom-and-doom for the league and untold riches for the players is far from certain.
First, some background.
Two years ago, the agreement, the last major act of former commissioner Paul Tagliabue's regime, was rammed through at the last hour on a 30-2 vote, with Cincinnati's Mike Brown and Buffalo's Ralph Wilson the only opposition. Some owners claimed they didn't even get a chance to review the deal.
The deal revolved around a big change in the way the salary cap was computed, and what was included in the revenue on which the cap was based.
As a result, the cap has risen dramatically, to more than $116 million per team in 2008 from about $85 million just three years ago. That's an increase of more than 36 percent in three years.
The increases are fine for teams with huge stadium income, like Washington and Dallas, but not so fine for teams that don't have big money streams from new buildings, like San Francisco and Oakland, or for smaller markets like Jacksonville.
Goodell insisted in his state-of-the-league message to the media this week that "margins are tight" in the current economy.
This is where we get into the deadline.