They'll still draft even if there's a lockout.

When the owners wanna take the players pay out down 16%, add games etc etc, if I was a player I wouldn't agree to that either.

It is a tough issue...I would like to see how they got that 18% pay cut figure. If they are using the numbers from the desired ' rookie salary cap' to try and say that it is a pay cut for ALL players then I would have an issue with that. A big issue. I think rookie pay is WAY too high for kids that haven't played one snap...

I am sure that both sides are going to have tons of propaganda....sigh...I just want to have football on Sunday.

I know the owners pay for some of it, but that's called a friggin' investment. They wouldn't be laying that money out if they weren't getting a return on it, these people didn't become billionaires by throwing their money into a hole.

No it's pay in general, the players are fine with a rookie cap.

Basically right now in the agreement it says the players get 59% of the gross income of the league, that's how they set the cap.

The owners want it moved down to 43%, would you agree to that?

Also the thing that blows my mind is why fans always side with owners in these situations.

Well, this is a shocker. Something I agree with you.

Not to mention that the owners are citing stadium costs and such, which I would call BS on that, considering most of that $ was funded by the taxpayers and their own personal donations.

I'm guessing they want to recover some of their "donations" so to speak.

Basically we have billionaires crying poor, so they want to dip the players pay, meanwhile the NFL's revenue is only increasing.

In the end this comes back to the big and small market teams can't agree on anything including revenue sharing. I'm sure the proposed pay cut comes mostly from the smaller teams who see it as a way to have a lower cap..lower cap easier to compete for players.

Well there was an earlier article about this that basically said the players favor a system of free spending on salaries with no cap, which would basically put us back into the 80s and early 90s where teams could essentially buy Super Bowls. That kind of crap isn't going to endear me to their side either.

Of course they'd like that, they'd all get more money. When I've read that the players have thrown something like 5 proposals at the owners and been met with nothing, not even a counter.

That makes me think the owners want a lockout in some kind of "lets break them" statement.

My point was that it's pretty hard to pick a side on this, and ultimately it will be the fans that get screwed.

On the other hand, the players would gladly accept the deal they have now, even with a rookie salary cap. This is all about certain owners not wanting to share their money anymore.

Sure, although I do have a hard time siding with billionaires who are crying poor as they own something worth 500 million dollars.

Considering the long term health affects I think football players deserve to get paid.