NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that it is “certainly our intent” to have a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place before the start of the 2019 season and there have been three meetings with the NFLPA toward making that a reality.
Peter King spoke to people on both sides of the talks about whether that’s a likely outcome for this Monday’s Football Morning in America. A source on the player side told King that there have been “baby steps” toward an agreement in the initial round of meetings with another session on the schedule for this Wednesday.
A team source told King that they believe there’s a 50/50 chance of getting a deal done before the Bears and Packers open the season on September 5. The source said that keeping the current setup that sees 47 percent of revenue go to the players makes that outcome likelier, but the players may be looking for more in order to do a deal this early and King reports the revenue split has not come up in negotiations thus far.
King also touches on a proposal to expand the schedule to 18 games with each player limited to playing in 16 games. He spoke to someone on the team side who cast doubt on that getting into the CBA and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said he hasn’t “seen anything that makes me think that it would be good for the players.”