Hate the Salary Cap

RAMdrvr1 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-12-2004, 12:27 PM

I don't know about you guys, but I miss the powerhouse
football teams. The Cowboys, 49ers,Packers, Bears, Steelers, Raiders. Toe-to-toe all-pros. Even tho I'm
thinking mostly of the GB-Phily game, and things that
happened (or didn't happen), accross the board this past
weekend I was disapointed. Absolutely no defense in the
KC-Indy game, the Cowboys with Carter at QB and NO
running game even being in the play-offs, Balt. with a 4th
team QB, even thinking that you could make a 4th and
26, let alone making it. I love football too much to watch
this garbage anymore. I'm going to stick with high school
and college, where even in the best of games you can
expect mistakes to be made.

I don't know if you can tell, but I really miss quality pro
football.

wolfamngstsheep · #2 (**permalink**) 03-19-2004, 02:55 PM

I totally disagree with you. I love the Salary cap. I don't really care about dominant teams, I just want to see good games. Since 99-03 We have seen 3 awesome super bowls. When I was a kid I saw one good 2 good Super bowls and the rest were garbage. Frisco/Natti Bill/Giants.

RAMdrvr1 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-20-2004, 03:55 AM

I think that there is a difference between an awesome SB and a close one. For a number of reasons, it seems like all the teams in the NFL are just above average or below average. Ten years ago Tom Brady or Jack Dehomme wouldn't even have been starters for SB teams. And just because the SBs were usually lopsided didn't mean that the games leading up to the "big game" weren't total wars. When they came off the field, half of their jerseys would be bloody.
Three games that I will always remember [(Dallas-Pittsburg SB) (Dallas-SF play-offs) (Miami-San Diago Play-offs)] were so good! The only way you younger guys will ever see football that good again will be on NFL classics.

I love perfection in sports. Especially NFL and NBA. It's sad to know that I won't see it again.

Xevious · #4 (**permalink**) 03-20-2004, 05:36 AM

I understand your thinking as I was a Cowboys (w/Landry)fan when I was really young, but in modern sports I think you have to have a salary cap. If you look at the NHL, Baseball, and even the NBA you will see teams that try to buy championships. It's a joke that some teams have salaries that are 2 or 3x that of other teams or even single players payed more than whole teams. If you are a fan of a large market team, it's fine since your team should always have talent and have a shot at the championship, but it's just total BS that the small market teams have close no chance to win. Remove the salary cap and Dallas, Washington, Oakland, and others will drive salaries through the roof probably eliminating at least 50% of the teams from having a shot of winning the SB.

RAMdrvr1 · #5 (**permalink**) 03-20-2004, 10:14 PM

But football is different. First, almost every team sells all of their seats as long as they are competitive, and with the wild-card, most teams had a chance to be in the play-offs
every year.
Second, most of the teams fighting to be in the Super Bowl (Dallas, Oakland, Pittsburg, Denver, Buffalo, Minn.,etc.) are not considered the large market teams, yet how many times were they at least one of the SB teams?

O-S-U · #6 (**permalink**) 03-21-2004, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfamngstsheep

I totally disagree with you. I love the Salary cap. I don't really care about dominant teams, I just want to see good games. Since 99-03 We have seen 3 awesome super bowls. When I was a kid I saw one good 2 good Super bowls and the rest were garbage. Frisco/Natti Bill/Giants.

Agreed. I would take pariety over powerhouses. I can't stand teams that win, win, win, and win some more taking the fun out of competition.

Xevious · #7 (**permalink**) 03-21-2004, 10:29 PM

I wont' go into the specifics of each city, but I would not consider Dallas, Oakland, and Denver small market teams where football is concerned. A large population center does not mean a large fan base. LA, Phoenix, and Atlanta have huge populations but lousy fan support, while a small town like Green Bay has a fairly large fan base. The NFL was smart enough to maintain balance between markets of various sizes through revenue sharing.

The revenue sharing system in the NFL ensures the teams will get equal shares of the TV revenue which is where most of the NFL salaries come from. Ticket revenue is also split evenly. Extra revenue for each team comes from skyboxes, concessions/parking, and sales of merchandise. Note, even with the cap and revenue sharing there are teams that are closer to the minimum spending level than the max. These teams will never be able to compete without the cap.

If you remove the salary cap and somehow maintain revenue sharing you will still have an unbalanced league since many owners have large income sources outside of football. Do you really want Dan Snyder making the NFL equivalent of the Yankees by paying his team 2-3 times as much as other teams? Only 12 out of 32 teams make the playoffs, should the fans of teams without deep pockets be happy just making the playoffs?

Baseball provides the best example of what happens when there is no cap. I would have to check on this stat, but since 1994, I think the Marlins are the only baseball team to make the world series and have a team salary that wasn't in the top 10. It’s also obvious that everyone except Yankee fans are sick of seeing the Yankees in the World Series.

Like I said earlier I understand the desire to see the clash of dominant teams in the SuperBowl, but the salary cap is the only way to be fair to all of the teams and their fans. The cap seems to work too since the NFL is the only major league sport where the viewer-ship has increased the past several seasons. That may not be a fair conclusion but I think it's related.

osubuckeye45 · #8 (**permalink**) 03-22-2004, 12:37 AM

There IS a difference between a good game and a close one.

I get ill every time I see a commercial for the Patriots Super Bowl video. In the commercial, they say "The Patriots won one of the greatest superbowls of all time." I disagree with this to an extreme. It was not great. It was close, yet. But great? Not even close. Boring describes it better.

RAMdrvr1 · #9 (**permalink**) 03-22-2004, 12:37 AM

And so we agree to disagree. Couple of your examples I'd like to talk about. Dan Snyder. This is the same Dan Snyder who gave 34 yr. old Mark Brunnell, who couldn't start for Jacksonville, a 8 yr. contract to guide Washington? And he got injury prone Clinton Portis to run in a division where every team has very tough run defenses? Let him spend all he wants. All he has done is destroy a proud franchise and their salary cap.
I never said that Dallas, Oak., or Denver were small markets. I said they were not large markets (New York, Chi., LA, etc). You mentioned LA as far as fan base was concerned. People in LA goes to whatever is fasionable, and to them, football isn't one of them. People in Atlanta don't even support the Braves until play-off time. One other thing. I read in the Sporting News that last year was the 1st yr. in the last 11 where tv viewers decreased from the previous year.

So we disagree. That's OK. You choose parity, and I choose quality. I suppose you could never have both without getting rid of free agency.

osubuckeye45 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-22-2004, 12:42 AM

Without parity, all you have is Baseball. The Yankees Vs whoever else makes it..isnt that how it goes anymore for the World Series? Yep...The problem is not the salary cap. It's free angency.

Xevious · #11 (**permalink**) 03-22-2004, 01:29 AM

RAMdrvr1,

Your point about free agency is kind of what I was getting at the whole time, although I might not have explained it clearly. Regarding Snyder, he might be ruining the Skins, but that is still at least in part due to the constraints the salary cap puts on him. Without a salary cap I would be concerned about the team he could field.

I don't totally disagree with your preference either since along with being a Cowboys fan, I was a Lakers fan back in the 70's & 80's. Those teams had epic matchups vs. the Steelers and Celtic teams. I'm sure these are the types of games you are refering to. But after Dallas fired Landry, and Magic retired, I got sick of rooting against the dominant teams like SF, (Jerry Jones)Cowboys, and the Bulls.

I just think the days where 2 "dynastic" teams meet in championships aren't going to happen anymore with the huge salaries which are in part due to free agency.

Shalom

RAMdrvr1 · #12 (**permalink**) 03-23-2004, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by osubuckeye45

Without parity, all you have is Baseball. The Yankees Vs whoever else makes it..isnt that how it goes anymore for the World Series? Yep...The problem is not the salary cap. It's free angency.

I'm not sure why people are unable to see that free agency, at least to the extent that we have it today, is the result of the salary cap. Teams draft a player, develope him for 2-3 yrs., and then lose him because they are unable to pay him what he is now worth.

As for the Yankees, they have an owner who's total focus is to win. When he bought the Yankees, there was no YES TV,no free agents, and he still won. There is no way to defend the Yankees, because people have been programmed to hate them because of their spending. Well, they were in 25 or so World Series BEFORE free agency or big TV money, and people hated them then, too. Before George, even. And despite the spending, they have lost two World Series and a play-off series to Flor., Ari., and Ana., all mid-small market teams. People don't understand that, because of the luxury tax, George just gave your team the money to get two-three free agents. Instead of worrying about the Yankees, find out why your team didn't spend the money the way they were suppose to.