2025 NFL offseason thread

[outofplace]

Gosh, I wonder what it could be?

Yeah, race is the issue for some of them. For others, he committed the crime of not being Bill Cowher.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Gosh, I wonder what it could be?

Probably too uppity.

 

[Webster]

Gosh, I wonder what it could be?

It's the cross and the sunglasses?

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

It's the cross and the sunglasses?

it's true that's why they play renegade instead of papa don't preach

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

it's true that's why they play renegade instead of papa don't preach

Oh Dada I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the Supreme Court

 

[DanOregon]

I'm always surprised more leagues and athletic associations don't try to copy the NFL's business model. Obviously football is king. As a sport, it's probably the easiest to gamble with spreads and over/unders, the game is exciting and violent (who doesn't love that?!) and there are few enough games during a season where EVERY GAME matters, so people watch.
But there are some things that NFL does, that others don't. The hard salary cap and revenue sharing make each city's fans feel they have "a shot" at a Super Bowl trophy, if not now, within a few years. While some teams are clearly better than others, you don't see the LA and NY markets dominating and hording all the best players. You don't see players taking weeks off (except after a playoff berth is locked up) for "load management" and the games are usually fairly competitive.
And to me, competition has been getting squeezed out of too many leagues. MLB with analytics and big market clubs. The NBA with its various luxury taxes and aprons and load management. And now college sports where NIL budgets are replacing the number of "five stars" on your roster as the coin of the realm.
Sure there are upsets here and there, but it's hard for a sports fan to find the magic when so many games seem almost decided before they even begin. The NHL and the NFL are about it for me.

 

[outofplace]

I'm always surprised more leagues and athletic associations don't try to copy the NFL's business model. Obviously football is king. As a sport, it's probably the easiest to gamble with spreads and over/unders, the game is exciting and violent (who doesn't love that?!) and there are few enough games during a season where EVERY GAME matters, so people watch.
But there are some things that NFL does, that others don't. The hard salary cap and revenue sharing make each city's fans feel they have "a shot" at a Super Bowl trophy, if not now, within a few years. While some teams are clearly better than others, you don't see the LA and NY markets dominating and hording all the best players. You don't see players taking weeks off (except after a playoff berth is locked up) for "load management" and the games are usually fairly competitive.
And to me, competition has been getting squeezed out of too many leagues. MLB with analytics and big market clubs. The NBA with its various luxury taxes and aprons and load management. And now college sports where NIL budgets are replacing the number of "five stars" on your roster as the coin of the realm.
Sure there are upsets here and there, but it's hard for a sports fan to find the magic when so many games seem almost decided before they even begin. The NHL and the NFL are about it for me.

The NFL does have some advantages over the other sports. A much larger percentage of their revenue comes from national broadcast contracts, making it easier to share revenue. The other major sports, especially MLB, are more regional. That said, they could choose a comparable model. The hard cap helps, but the hard floor is far more important. NFL teams can't do what organizations like the Pirates and Athletics do. The gaps between the teams that spend the most and the least are much larger in MLB.

Take 2024 as an example. In the NFL, the Browns had the highest payroll at $246.4 million. The Bucs were last at $174.5 million. In MLB, the Mets were at the top at $305.6 million. The Athletics were at the bottom at $60.5 million. The difference between the highest and lowest payrolls in MLB in 2024 was $245.1 million, almost as much as the highest team payroll in the NFL.

 

[HappyCurmudgeon]

The NHL, in my opinion, has the one true hard salary cap in North American sports. They actually determine the salary based on average annual value, so you can make the payments to a player in any form you like (backloaded, etc.), but the cap number is based on that AAV, so if a player signs a $30M contract over five years that $6M is number on the cap annually for every year.

The NFL can escape that because the contracts aren't fully guaranteed. The NBA's cap seems to a ton of provisions in it too. My guess is MLB will implement a floor cap once the Rays are sold and the A's move to Vegas. The luxury tax has tempered spending for some teams, but Steve Cohen is going to spend whatever and the Dodgers have figured out they can defer a shirt ton of salary for guys like Ohtani, who can supplement his current salary with tons of endorsements.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

The NHL needs to do something about the LTIR loophole that some teams have taken advantage of in recent years, but I agree with you, Happy.

Feels like there's a more level playing field in the NHL than in other leagues. No feeling of, "We'll never be a winning franchise," like so many teams in other leagues feel resigned to.

 

[outofplace]

The NHL needs to do something about the LTIR loophole that some teams have taken advantage of in recent years, but I agree with you, Happy.

Feels like there's a more level playing field in the NHL than in other leagues. No feeling of, "We'll never be a winning franchise," like so many teams in other leagues feel resigned to.

Agreed, but if an NFL team remains bad for more than three or four years, that's either horrendous luck or very poor decisions.

 

[DanOregon]

Lions' stadium will be called Ford Field through at least 2036 under new sponsorship deal

Ford Field will remain the name of the Lions' stadium after a new agreement between the team and Ford Motor Company.

www.nbcsports.com

You wonder who was driving the harder bargain on this one.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Agreed, but if an NFL team remains bad for more than three or four years, that's either horrendous luck or very poor decisions.

I'm a bit biased, but if a market the size of Green Bay, Wisconsin can be competitive and play in the big game, that's parity. Teams that are perennially bad have to look at themselves in the mirror.