It was quite a spirited discussion between Smith and his sidekick Skip Bayless this morning. I've written a lot about Chip Kelly and all these moves he's made and now the move to take DeMurray from Dallas.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/does-demarco-murray-signing-with-eagles.html
Smith made some big accusations against the Cowboys today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0d2xLYiRBQ
While it might seem a little conspiratorial, I take his point. Certainly if I was inside the Cowboys locker room I might feel like if after Murray had the year he did the Cowboys lowball him what hope do I have?
Still I think that Skip Bayless gets it right: it's not about how evil Jerry Jones is-not that I usually defend him or the Cowboys as a Giants fan; there is no team I take more pleasure in beating than Dallas-but at the end of the day it's the salary cap.
Smith keeps going back to the complaint that players get criticized for being greedy but no one criticizes the owners: why do the owners get to think of the bottom line but not the players?
It's a fair question but I think what it comes down to is two words: salary cap. As Skip says, if you want players to make more money they need a better union. As owners go, Jerry Jones-like George Steinbrenner the late owner of my NY Yankees in baseball-is a natural ally to the players on this issue:
"Running back DeMarco Murray has left the Cowboys for the Eagles. Owner Jerry Jones has blamed it on the salary cap."
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/18/the-nba-owners-and-the-myth-of-competitive-balance/
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/does-demarco-murray-signing-with-eagles.html
Smith made some big accusations against the Cowboys today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0d2xLYiRBQ
While it might seem a little conspiratorial, I take his point. Certainly if I was inside the Cowboys locker room I might feel like if after Murray had the year he did the Cowboys lowball him what hope do I have?
Still I think that Skip Bayless gets it right: it's not about how evil Jerry Jones is-not that I usually defend him or the Cowboys as a Giants fan; there is no team I take more pleasure in beating than Dallas-but at the end of the day it's the salary cap.
Smith keeps going back to the complaint that players get criticized for being greedy but no one criticizes the owners: why do the owners get to think of the bottom line but not the players?
It's a fair question but I think what it comes down to is two words: salary cap. As Skip says, if you want players to make more money they need a better union. As owners go, Jerry Jones-like George Steinbrenner the late owner of my NY Yankees in baseball-is a natural ally to the players on this issue:
"Running back DeMarco Murray has left the Cowboys for the Eagles. Owner Jerry Jones has blamed it on the salary cap."
“We have great appreciation for his skills, and if there was no salary cap in place, DeMarco would be a Cowboy,” Jones said in a statement issued by the team. “This came down to an allocation of dollars within the management of the salary cap.”
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/03/12/jerry-jones-says-cap-kept-them-from-keeping-demarco/
So if the players want to get the union to fight this in the next collective bargaining agreement, Jones is one owner that might be an ally. Clearly, here Jones is blaming the cap as he'd like it gone.
This article does go on to suggest that Jones even with the cap may have been able to keep Murray had he really wanted to:
"That’s a obvious explanation, but the Cowboys could have found a way to keep Murray if they really wanted to. They didn't think he deserved a $42 million contract over five years with $21 million guaranteed because they think that, dollar for dollar, they can get better performance from someone much cheaper."
“Obviously there is emotion involved in these decisions, but it is critical that there be must be discipline involved as well,” Jones said. “If it were a question of having an open checkbook with no salary cap constraints, we all know things would have worked out differently.”
"That part is 100 percent accurate. With no cap, Jones would spend millions upon millions in an effort to build a championship team. While many believe it would throw the NFL’s competitive balance out of whack, it would be interesting to see how groups of hungry, underpaid players would compete with collections of superstars in the ultimate team sport."
It's the kind of 'natural experiment' I'd be interested to see. Think of it this way. There are competing interests. There is the interest of owners, of players, and the fans. It seems clear that most NFL owners want a salary cap-though not all; Jones doesn't and neither does Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/18003061/jerry-jones-says-cowboys-plan-to-fight-nfls-salarycap-sanctions
A salary cap would be a good thing for players or at least for superstar players-presumably without a cap the salary floor would also go. For simplicity's sake let's say that
1. A salary cap is good for owners: it benefits them as it lowers their labor costs.
2. It hurts players though as it lowers their salaries.
Again, this is to simplify it. In reality some owners are hurt by the cap-the owners with the most money-while some players are actually helped by the cap: the non-superstar players who at least have a floor on what they can make.
Yet, what trumps all this is number 3.
3. What's in the interest of the fans? What makes the game most attractive to them?
It's fair to say that anything that hurts the fans ultimately hurts both players and owners across the board-both wealthy and less wealthy owners and superstar and average players.
So would the fans like the NFL more or less without a salary cap? In answer to this question 'if it ain't broke why fix it?' sounds right.
After all, the NFL is the most popular of the major pro US sports today-it's fair to say football not baseball is America's real past time today.
http://www.amazon.com/NFL-Football-History-Americas-National/dp/0252080203/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426264530&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=nfl+the+new+american+pasttime
Baseball is less popular than it once was and it has no salary cap while football is more popular than ever and it has a salary cap ergo: the salary cap is a good thing.
Still from economics we know that correlation doesn't by itself prove causation. It could be that football is now more popular or other reasons. Maybe baseball is less popular because of the crackdown in steroids.
As to the NFL's popularity this long predates its salary cap.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/10354114/harris-poll-nfl-most-popular-mlb-2nd
I'm surprised about the NBA's relative lack of popularity.
The virtue of the salary cap for fans is allegedly that it gives us 'competitive balance', but there is skepticism both that it in fact gives us competitive balance-or that any league policy could-or that fans really care about competitive balance all that much.
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/56193798
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=schoenfield/060329
Anyway, if you're a player, you should fight against the cap or make it higher or something assuming you don't worry this would kill the game for the fans-and why would it? How did all those fans come to the games before 1994?
It's a subject that interests me in any case. A big part of the 'cold, business side of football' is an impression created by the salary cap. As a owner or GM you can only be so 'grateful' to what your great players have done in the past-the Saints for instance are often criticized for being 'too grateful' to their Super Bowl players from 2009. The trouble is that by paying everyone what they earned, you can't afford to improve weak areas or fill holes.
Without the SC, a big part of the 'human element' would return to the game. True it would give teams with deep pockets an advantage but isn't this competition? In any case, spending a lot of money is no guaranteed of success in any sport. Plenty of teams have opened the checkbook and seen it fail.
Having a big checkbook helps most with free agency. In the pre free agency era it gave less of an advantage. Again, from the fans perspective football also seemed 'less cold' prior to free agency as it seemed that players were as attached to the colors of our teams jerseys as we are.
Of course, this warm and fuzzy feeling came at the expense of the players who had far less in the way of choice. Often the loyalty players by necessity had to their team was not returned-even Joe Montana was thrown overboard when his usefulness was up-as in more recent times was Peyton Manning.
The key to success is have a correspondence of interests between players, owners, and fans which as is clear, is not always easy.
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