Drew Rosenhaus has negotiated NFL contracts since 1988, and he can't remember many free agent markets worse than the one that developed — or didn't develop — this year.
Only one player, wide receiver Mike Wallace, signed a contract worth more than $9 million annually. The average per year on deals for unrestricted free agents fell overall. Many established players waited weeks or months before taking one-year, minimum-salary pacts.
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But Rosenhaus doesn't blame a salary cap that hasn't risen much in the last three years nor the NFL Players Association leaders who agreed to a collective bargaining agreement owners negotiated under the shadow of a threat to cancel the entire 2011 season.
"I don't think it's the CBA's fault or the union's fault or the negotiations," Rosenhaus, who has nearly 100 clients on NFL rosters, told USA TODAY Sports. "I think it's that teams have the ability to control the market. And they've done that."
But make no mistake: As the 2013 season opens today, NFL players are making more money than ever.
According to NFLPA figures obtained by USA TODAY Sports, teams spent nearly $10 billion on player salaries and benefits in 2011 and 2012, representing more than half the league's record revenue in the first two years of a CBA that emphasized cash over cap spending.
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The players' 54.45% share of all revenue in 2011 was the highest in more than a decade. And though spending dropped roughly $259 million in 2012, the 32 teams again spent more than the CBA required, easily exceeding the 99% of the cap that must be spent in actual dollars.
Those figures might sound hollow, however, to the young backup squeezed for a pay cut before the final roster reduction or the 10-year starter receiving nothing but one-year, $1 million offers.
"It's where we are right now, the salary cap the way it is," Tennessee Titans general manager Ruston Webster said. "Teams are more willing to draft and develop than they are to pay monster deals to free agents."
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Some point to the cautious approach as evidence of collusion, though NFL executives scoff at the idea owners or GMs would conspire to hurt rosters in a win-now league.
The issue is power, and teams have it more than ever over all but the best players, thanks to an oversaturated marketplace, contracts that aren't fully guaranteed and a small percentage of players commanding the majority of the pot.
Teams scrimp, save
In some ways, the NFL's middle class is still paying for the uncapped year of 2010. It was at the tail end of a six-year CBA extension that owners vowed to avenge in the next round of negotiations in 2011.
In the first year of the earlier deal, the cap spiked from $85.5 million a team to $102 million. And it kept rising, to a high of $127.9 million in 2009 — up 49.7% in a four-year span — as union leadership trumpeted players' 60% take on league profits.
The reality was players were getting 50% to 53%, once teams deducted expenses. That was still too much for owners, who cited a bad economy and flat revenue projections during the 2011 lockout, knowing players would take the best offer before they'd sacrifice paychecks.
The union received concessions on hours (shorter offseason program, no two-a-days) and working conditions (less hitting in practice) and tried to make up for short-term wage sacrifices with better benefits, including 401k, pension and the $620 million legacy fund for disabled retirees.
"Our job as a union is to protect players' rights under the collective bargaining agreement," George Atallah, the union's executive director of external affairs, said in a statement.
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"The goal of any collective bargaining agreement is to establish the best possible framework for wages, benefits, hours and working conditions for the largest number of employees over the longest period."
The major structural change was the shift to a revenue-sharing model in which players are guaranteed 46% to 48% of all league revenue in cash, without teams writing off expenses and using bookkeeping maneuvers to claim they had met spending requirements.
The cap number is dictated by projected revenue from TV rights, NFL ventures and local revenue, which this year are pegged at $9.995 billion — up 42.3% in a decade. The only team that releases detailed financials, the publicly held Green Bay Packers, announced record revenue ($308.1million) and profits ($54.3million) for 2012-13.
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Yet the cap remains well below the last uncapped year under the old deal and has risen only slightly — from $120.375 million a team in 2011 to $123 million this year. Several teams were scrambling to get under the cap by Wednesday's deadline.
"We're in a tough landscape," said agent Mike McCartney, who previously worked in personnel for two NFL teams, "because even in the last week of August a lot of teams (were) looking around their roster and saying, 'How can we save a few bucks off our cap?' I'm not sure that's where we should be in this league."
Passers get bucks
Trouble is, it's a buyer's market.
The rules of the uncapped year kept four- and five-year veterans from becoming unrestricted free agents in 2010. Many played under one-year tenders. So, a year later, the number of unrestricted free agents skyrocketed to 487. Many of those players again took one-year deals in hopes the market would improve. But that only kept the market oversaturated in 2012, when 431 players became unrestricted free agents.
"I'm at the point where I'm happy with what I got," said veteran tight end Dallas Clark, who signed a minimum deal with the Baltimore Ravens in August that included no guarantees. "But it's scary as a player to see that some of these players aren't getting paid what they deserve."
Quarterbacks dominate the market as they always have, with Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan, the Baltimore Ravens' Joe Flacco, the Dallas Cowboys' Tony Romo and the Detroit Lions' Matthew Stafford re-signing for
$17 million or more a year.
That's one reason the annual value of deals increased for players re-signing with their old teams while annual value for unrestricted free agents was down. The top five players on each team's roster account for nearly 34% of the total salary cap, leaving a limited pool to pay everybody else, and players are taking what they can before teams sign someone else.
Those with the least leverage become piggy banks at cut-down time. Tackle J'Marcus Webb agreed to erase the escalator he'd earned from the Chicago Bears; New England Patriots tight end Michael Hoomanawanui took a cut to the minimum salary. Webb got cut anyway.
"Squeezing a guy Aug. 28 over a hundred thousand bucks — it's not for cap room," said Blake Baratz, agent for Packers tight end Jermichael Finley and others. "It's not because the player didn't earn it. It's not because they don't like the player. It's because they can."
On the flip side, teams aren't rushing to upgrade contracts for underpaid players, and severe penalties for training camp holdouts all but eliminate leverage for trying to get a raise. The trend toward a young, inexpensive workforce is stronger than ever.
Gains too late for many
A handful of teams — the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles and even the Miami Dolphins, who gave Wallace his five-year, $60 million deal — came out of final cuts with more than $17 million in cap space, thanks to unused space from previous years.
But other teams, particularly those with GMs who have taken over recently, are still trying to shed contracts negotiated under the old CBA and turn over their rosters.
New TV deals worth more than $3billion annually kick in next year, meaning the cap — and salaries — could begin growing more quickly as soon as 2014. Even a conservative view suggests the deal should look better financially for the players before it expires in 2021.
But wage gains from 2017 to '20 won't mean anything to many in the league now. Careers are short. And as long as teams hold the power, players can only play well and hope it pays off.
"We're in a cycle where it's in vogue for certain teams to be very careful with their spending," Rosenhaus said. "I've always believed that the clubs that are aggressive, that go out there and spend money, are the teams that will be the most successful. You get what you pay for."
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