The NFL will not enter a lockout following the 2020 NFL season. According to NFL insider Tom Pelissero, the owners and players have agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA. The previous deal, signed in 2011, was supposed to run out at the conclusion of the 2020 NFL season. However, this new deal keeps the league going through the 2030 NFL season.
NFL players voted YES on the new collective bargaining agreement, per source.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 15, 2020
The final vote: 1019 YES against 959 NO. So, very close, but a new CBA is passed and agreed to.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 15, 2020
NFL Players Approve New CBA
The biggest changes with the new proposal involve a 17-game schedule and proposed playoff re-alignment. The NFL has long wanted an additional regular-season game, and talks of adding a seventh seed to the playoffs emerged earlier in the offseason. Both of these changes will come to fruition under the new CBA, although the 17-game season won’t be affected until 2021. The playoff reformatting, however, will take place in 2020. In order to make room for the 17th game, the NFL has shortened the preseason, which is a good thing. Additionally, players who signed contracts under a 16-game format will see their salaries rise for the 17th game, although said reimbursement caps out at $250,000. For the highest-paid players in the league, this represents a pay cut.
The biggest gain for the players is a leniancy on drug testing and an increase in overall profit margins. According to various reports, players testing positive for TCH will no longer be subject to suspensions, and the increase in revenue going ot the players will result in larger paychecks on a per-game basis.
Additionally, the new deal also means that teams can only use either the franchise tag or the transition tag in 2020 – not both. This allows more players to reach the open market, which means higher salaries for players. Overall, the new CBA creates $700 million extra dollars for the players while increasing the base salary by $100,000. The owners definitely got the better side of the deal, but the players still had plenty of reasons to agree to the new terms.
