For years, we’ve been arguing that the highest paid players should seek contracts that tie their earnings to a percentage of the cap. This would ensure that a long-term deal never becomes obsolete — because the cap constantly goes up.
The league (specifically the NFL Management Council) has resisted that, consistently. (Players who have tried in the past to get a percentage of the cap as their compensation include Kirk Cousins and Darrelle Revis. It’s possible others have tried to do it more recently. Joe Burrow would have been a perfect candidate for it.)
But the league is interested in another kind of cap-based formula when it comes to quarterback contracts. Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (who works for the league and thus must tread lightly here) recently mentioned it on Rich Eisen’s show.
“There has certainly been discussion within the league among certain owners about even the idea of a quarterback cap, that at some point you don’t want quarterback numbers to go over a certain percentage of your salary cap,” Pelissero said Tuesday, via BleacherReport.com. “To my knowledge, that hasn’t really gained traction, in part because so many teams have paid their quarterbacks.”
As we’ve heard it, it wouldn’t be an official, separate cap. It would be an unofficial, off-the-books (and, more importantly, off the CBA) arrangement pursuant to which teams would refuse to go above a certain level. All teams. Which would make it pointless for, say, Dak Prescott to force his way to the open market. The best deal he’d get from the Cowboys would be the same as the best deal he’d get from someone else. (It would be like a max contract in the NBA.)
It’s the natural reaction to the dismay expressed by multiple owners when the Browns gave Deshaun Watson a five-year, fully-guaranteed contract. The owners, who meet at least four teams a year and (as the union has long believed) collude their asses off about matters that are otherwise the subject of individualized negotiation between players and teams, would be violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement by establishing a secret, wink-nod arrangement among themselves to cap quarterback pay.
Pelissero, by acknowledging that the owners have talked about it, might have inadvertently opened Pandora’s Box. Moving forward, it will be useful to monitor closely the deals that are done, the cap charges that are associated with them, and whether quarterbacks who go to the open market find something better from another team.
The only way to properly arrange for a league-wide cap on quarterback pay would be to negotiate it with the NFL Players Association. And such efforts would quickly highlight the reality that there should be different bargaining units for each position, like running back. For that reason alone, the union would be inclined not to agree to such an approach.
For that reason alone, any conversations among owners about a quarterback cap (coupled with the proof-in-the-pudding from the deals to come) could lay the foundation for a collusion case against the NFL.
There’s already a collusion case pending against the league, regarding the refusal of teams to give fully-guaranteed contracts to certain veteran quarterbacks. This one would be a much bigger deal. If/when the league secretly implements a cap on quarterback pay and if/when the union can prove it, that would make for quite a compelling legal fight between management and labor.