NFL owners opt out of CBA… but no disaster brewing

NFL owners voted this morning to opt out of the current labor agreement citing mostly fiscal reasons; these include that half of their revenues must go to the players and that bonuses cannot be reclaimed after a player violates his contract. But it’s not like the deal ends now – the vote was only to shorten the deal by two years so it ends in 2011, with an uncapped year in 2010. In the next two seasons, I fully expect the owners and the NFLPA to iron out a new deal which would negate the uncapped year and all the drama which people seem to be drumming up. For both the owners and players, too much money is on the line for them to not figure out a deal before disaster sets in for the NFL. In my opinion, one uncapped year could very easily be this disaster – not just because of the monster squads Dan Snyder, Jerry Jones, and others would build/buy, but because it would be nearly impossible to go back to a capped situation considering most teams would have doled out ridiculous contracts, and the players would be making boatloads of money. However, I still think all of this is irrelevant because we should have a new contract in two years.

Well… what would happen if the players went on strike in 2011? The answer is obvious – the Redskins would win the Super Bowl. Ok everybody screams homerism, but the Redskins have won the Super Bowl in both the strike years. The big strike was in 1982 where teams only played 9 games. 16 teams went to the playoffs and it was done tournament-style by conference. The Skins got revenge on the Dolphins in the Super Bowl for the loss in 1972. In 1987 there was a smaller strike which only canceled 1 game (although 3 games were played with replacement players). This Super Bowl featured the most dominant quarter in SB history – In the 2nd, the Redskins scored 5 touchdowns to 0 points by the Broncos. So maybe a strike wouldn’t be such a bad thing?