The secret location of the 5th meeting between Owners and Players has been revealed to be in Minnesota, which is also home to Arthur Boylan, the US Magistrate Judge assigned to run Court-Ordered mediation. He’s been involved in previous talks too.
Other attendees regularly at these meetings are Commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA exec DeMaurice Smith, Panthers Owner Jerry Richardson, Giants owner John Mara, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and on the players side Tony Richardson, Domonique Foxworth and Jeff Saturday of the Jets, Ravens and Colts respectively.
The meetings are showing progress, but there is still a lot of work that has to be done to strike a deal in time. A lot of people have set July 15 as a sort of deadline to save preseason as we know it. Report by Jason La Canfora of the NFL network says the parties have begun working on the rookie salary cap. It hasn’t been an easy thing to agree on so far. Last year No.1 overall pick Sam Bradford received 50 million dollars in guaranteed income. Both sides agree that has to be fixed, but its the decision on what to do with that money thats the issue.
Owners want to reduce the amount these top rookies make, but players say that savings shouldn’t go in the owners pockets, but should still end up going to the players, just DIFFERENT players; ones who have proven themselves. Also, if your not going pay these top picks that much money, the players say the owners should allow them to reach free agency quicker.
Right now top picks are allowed to be signed to 6 year contracts, so that the owners can get their 50 million worth, but with situations like Oakland’s Jamarcus Russell, some of these players are not even reaching their potential.
Both sides have spent the last few weeks getting into revenue splits, which is going to get tricky because in 2014 a new TV deal gets done, and a lot more money will come flowing in.
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