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It’s the fourth quarter and the Colts are mounting a comeback. Coach Belichek’s choice is clear, he has to go for it on fourth and 2 so that his Patriots can seal the game and run out the clock. Risky?, absolutely, but Bill’s coaching legacy is a risky one in and of itself. He has made his name doing things like these, and with a quarterback like Tom Brady, there’s no doubt in his mind that he won’t succeed. The play starts; Brady steps back and fires a bullet into the hands of Kevin Faulk who seems to be over the first down marker. But he bobbles the ball as he falls backwards over the line and the spot is short. The Colts are given life, and with Peyton Manning at the helm, winning is almost a foregone conclusion. Within the next 2 minutes, The Colts offense parades down the field to score the game winning touchdown. On the Patriots side, confusion, “Why didn’t coach punt the ball and trust our defense?”, “Why didn’t we call a deeper route to get over the line?” while over on the Colts side there is a mad celebration accompanied by the overwhelming feeling of pride in going 9-0 with their Rookie Head Coach. This type of battle occurs every week in the NFL; epic struggles that end in pride or desperation and leave a team questioning its own morals. They continue all week but cease to exist the moment that Sunday comes around again and another wave of storylines arrive The NFL is the number one provider in sports entertainment in the world as we know it. It has been rated as the highest watched sport in America for the past 20 years and has continued to expand its horizons as the seasons pass, adding new teams, new rules and adding new elements to the game. The exciting plays, bone-crushing hits, flashy personalities and overall intensity of the game bring in thousands of new viewers per year and continue to leave fans in awe. That, however, is the not the only ingredient to the powerhouse régime the NFL has built since its creation in the late 1800’s. The fact that the NFL is a business comes as a surprise to many and the intricacies of the many contracts and clauses that help the NFL work would leave most baffled. When looking at the rulebook of the NFL, many would think of the Bill of Rights. Along with that come the salary cap and the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The salary cap in football and in any other sport is enforced so that all the franchises can only spend a certain amount of money on players. It keeps richer teams from being able to spend more money on players than smaller teams and therefore eliminates any unfair advantage a richer team could have. The Collective bargaining Agreement, or the CBA, is a contract created by the late Gene Upshaw, and it essentially keeps the salary cap in place. Within the past year, the owners of NFL franchises have opted out of the last year of the CBA hence causing there to be no more salary cap when the 2010-2011 NFL football season starts. There are rules in place that will come into effect when the salary cap is no more, but will they help the NFL to thrive more or less than the salary cap did? When looking at all the facts and the potential effects of both, it becomes clear that the NFL uncapped year will employs several rules and changes but overall it will have a positive effect on NFL franchises regarding competition and finance within the league. The focal point of this entire endeavor is to see how the NFL Franchises and players will react to the change, regardless of which change occurs. First come the franchises, which will have to greatly adjust their budgets because of the possibility. This provokes odd ways of making extra cash to keep up with the biggest of markets. The Dallas Cowboys have already started this trend by placing advertisements on their practice jerseys to get endorsements by just practicing. While this may seem like a harmless way to make cash, it leads down a very bad road. The next step in the process would be having advertisements on the game jerseys, which would lead to advertisements in the team name. No team wants to be known as the “Sovern Bank Green Bay Packers”. It takes away from the game itself and would be a horrible thing for the NFL to do. As long as it stops at practice jerseys, this trend is fine. There are several pitfalls to the uncapped league but it also presents many positives. It will effectively eliminate dynasties from the NFL. A dynasty is when a team has championship level success for a long period of time and generally dominates a certain decade. This has been the case with the 60’s packers, 70’s Steelers, 80’s Niners and even the 2000’s Patriots. This was all made possible because the teams restocked there rosters with prize free agents every off-season. With the new Final 4 and Final 8 Rules, this will no longer be an option of a playoff team. The rules state that the Final 4 and Final 8 teams in the playoff bracket each year will have almost no possibility of signing impacting free agents. This will effectively make it extremely difficult for good teams to become better in free-agency. This may also change the priorities for players because they can go into free agency and receive an unlimited amount of money, but sign with a lower level team. These two rules alone will successfully make sure that no team stays at the top for too long and develops another dynasty in the NFL ever again. Finally, the effect on the bottom level teams is just as great because it gives them the good free-agents that year. The reason that the competition aspect of the league must be improved can be summed up by two words, “Detroit Lions”. For those who don’t watch football, the Lions are annually the worst team in the league and this has begun to detriment their franchise. Not only are they losing fans but they don’t have any marquee names to market to the remaining supporters. This causes a downward trend because without fans there’s no one to buy the merchandise. The drop in fans will lead to a drop in ticket sales and the trend will spiral downward until it ends in financial turmoil. This all will occur while the Lions continue to lose 13 games per season. On the other end of the NFL spectrum are the New England Patriots. This exemplifies the mindset of an ageing NFL free agent. “I could probably get more money elsewhere, but I want to go to the Patriots because I want a championship”. This is why all the good free agents sign with New England and they are able to restock there team each year over the off-season. Over the last few years NFL rookies have become increasingly stubborn in the signing of their contracts. This will not be affected by the salary cap change and should be given notice specifically. Whether this be the work of their agents, or their family or whom ever is giving them advice, this is a very glaring problem. Just this past year, receiver Michael Crabtree held out for several months and even threatened to go back into the draft the following year all because he thought he deserved more money. These kids haven’t played a second of NFL football and they think they deserve the biggest contracts in the league. It leaves them in a position of power among NFL locker rooms, which makes absolutely no sense considering their extreme lack of experience. The solution to this would be a rookie pay scale, which would not only take away from the rookies’ pay but also greatly reduce the amount of guaranteed money a rookie draft pick is given upon his entrance to the NFL. This also gives teams the option to cut the player if they don’t perform up to the expected level and then not have to pay them millions of dollars. This eliminates the number of Vernon Gholston’s and Jamarcus Russell’s of the league who are garbage but are bound to their teams because of the guaranteed money attached to them. The fact that Baseball is known as America’s #1 pastime is actually a politically incorrect statement. The NFL has made has had such an effect on the United States that over the past 28 years or so, football has statistically taken over the #1 spot among US sports in terms of attendance, merchandising, and TV ratings and viewers. The NFL has expanded to the point that it now has its own chain of websites and even its own TV network to go along with the numerous TV packages on FOX, CBS, NBC, and ESPN. This gives any American more opportunities than ever before to experience the unbridled excitement that comes with the NFL. Every August EA Sports designs a new Madden game so that anyone with a gaming console may control their own simulated franchise and have computer generated players under their power. This not only provides a large source of entertainment and tops the charts of games sold every year but it also helps the controller to understand the game of football at a more basic level. The NFL has its own “NFL Shop” that advertises and sells merchandise all having to do with the NFL. Not only can one buy a jersey of his or her team, but a couch, lamp, or dog sweater as well. With all this hanging in the balance with the CBA, the NFL cannot afford to mess up. It has a reputation to uphold and by having no salary cap, the league will continue to thrive at a high level. Because of the Final 4 and 8 rules, all teams will have a chance at a superstar which not only will make the competition better, but that results in better TV ratings, more jersey sales and more TV packages. As the league gets better, it gets more exposure and with more exposure comes more revenue for the league. Finally with more revenue comes more expansion and the process starts all over again. All these factors prove that the lack of salary cap will give the NFL more ability to make the game as presentable as possible for fans and because it is a business, more money can’t hurt either. An obstacle about the new rules in place is that is makes the NFL franchises more like they are in the MLB. The teams that have more base income (The Yankees) can spend large amounts of money to lure the best players over to their team as long as it’s only a certain percentage of their team income. This gives a certain unfair edge to the wealthier franchises. Some of the fortune is negated by the Final 4 and 8 rules but this subject is still a slippery slope in the NFL. It puts the smaller, cheaper franchises, who used to rely on everyone having the same salary cap, in some deep trouble in some aspects. Great Players and just average players will now be separated even more with no cap because not only does the max salary have no limit, but the minimum salary drops to around $100,000. Now, by looking at a player’s salary you will be able to tell exactly what kind of player they are. This may promote lower level players to find work elsewhere including the Canadian Football League or even the newly established American Football League. The change in salaries will prompt some lower level players to search for other ways to build a football legacy. This will lead to players jumping to other leagues such as the CFL of the AFL. With a lower level of competition, the other leagues will make these players look better which will earn them a possibly higher salary then they would earn in the NFL. With no ceiling to how high a player’s salary can go, the bottom also drops out. This of course means that the minimum NFL salary goes from $500,000 to $100,000 dollars. This raises an issue as to whether it is worth it to go out and risk ones physical well-being over an average salary when they could finish college and instead go for some less risky job that pays the same. I believe these thoughts will be in many players’ minds as they decide whether to enter the NFL or go off to pursue safer dreams in the world. The other side to that argument is that because money is not as much of a motivator for lesser players, only those with a love of the game will play and that is a good thing for the sport and the league. When it really comes down to it, taking away all the frivolous positives and negatives and different sides to everything, you get one thing. That is competition and it is really the answer to everything. Competition is what makes the NFL the high-level entertainment that it is. Competition is what really inspires good football and it is what every true football fan wants. Sure it’d be great to watch your team blow out everyone, but inside you live for the chance to see what they do when there backs to the wall. It inspires countless movies, shows, books, and brings out emotions and characteristics that we never thought we had in us. With the adrenaline pumping and the game on the line, some step up and other falter and that’s what the NFL is all about. Behind all these contracts, regulations, rules and standards is one team vs. another team. That’s what this league was built around and though it has strayed away from that in some respects, it can always be traced back to. When looking at all the facts and the potential effects of both, it becomes clear that the NFL uncapped year will employs several rules and changes but overall it will have a positive effect on NFL franchises regarding competition and finance within the league.