NFL needs fiscal timeout

[whoman69]

The difference between the NFL and MLB is that in baseball the value of players was set initially by arbitration. Agents argued that a player who had 60% of the production of a highly paid superstar should get 60% of that type money. Because of the revenue structure of the league it shut smaller market teams out of the free agent market and forced those small market teams to trade away players that would soon be overpriced by this faulty logic.

In football because of the watering down of talent across the league, to stay competitive owners pay record contracts to the 10th best player in the league. It pushes up the bar for everyone at that point. There are some teams that have historically stayed out of these bidding wars like the Steelers and Packers and still maintained competitiveness by making intelligent decisions. Other teams like the Chiefs have not been able to draft intelligently and are forced into the risky business which is the free agent market. In football those who have entered the free agent market can either be coming into their prime or be washed up at the same point in their careers.