Thursday Night Random Stuff

I can't pass this up, here's A&M basketball player on the internet, shirtless, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart and Love Lifts Us Up (via Sturm).

Jessica Simpson is putting on a few.

Once again, good Cowboys/NFL news:

"The Cowboys released NT/DT LaRoi Glover this afternoon to better position themselves for the upcoming free agency season that begins Friday evening. Though Glover made the Pro Bowl for the fourth consecutive season as a Cowboy, he carried the largest salary on defense. That salary was not commensurate with his playing time; Glover became a rotation nose tackle in Dallas’ 3-4 scheme last year, sharing time with Jason Ferguson. Ferguson also had a large contract and the Cowboys obviously felt two large deals at nose tackle was a poor allocation of resources.

— In cap related news, Fox’ Jay Glazer reports that some team reps claim they’ve been kept in the dark on certain details of recent negotiations. This does not mean the players will cave on their bargaining position, but this is something NFLPA chief Gene Upshaw should address post haste if he wants to drive a hard bargain.

The union is asking for 60% of total revenues while the owners are offering 56.2%. This is a major, though not the sole obstacle to a new deal. The commissioner and owners claim the union is “overreaching” in its demands. I’ve seen similar complaints on this blog. However, this article states that in 2004, the salary cap represented 65% of defined league revenue.

And there’s the key term — defined league revenue. Under the current system, roughly $2 billion of the league’s $5.2 billion dollar pie is unshared. And this, as we have seen, is the issue tearing everybody apart. The new CBA was to have moved this $2 billion into the league’s equation — the union had managed to change the language to “total league revenue” meaning streams like luxury boxes, stadium naming rights fees and the like would be apportioned equally. In this context, it appears that the players will settle for a percentage halfway between the current 65% and the 56% the owners are offering.

In essense, there is roughly 40% of total league revenue that is not apportioned equally. The bigger market teams responsible for generating that revenue want to retain as much of it as possible. The NFLPA, according to this story, is trying to bargain in effect for itself and on behalf of some small market teams, with the claim of preserving competitive balance. We have not heard much on this but some owners felt the union should not involve itself in the owners internal business. The unanimous vote today to reject the union’s latest proposal shows that at least the owners agree on this.

Unfortunately, that appears to be all they agree upon."

And the Redskins are in cap trouble:

"The Washington Post today confirms what other reports have claimed — unless a new collective bargaining agreement is reached soon, the Redskins will be in salary cap purgatory.

The team is roughly $20 million over the anticipated $92 to 95 million cap. It is expected to release S Matt Bowen, CB Walt Harris, DT Brandon Noble, C Cory Raymer and K John Hall. WRs James Thrash and Taylor Jacobs and DE Reynaldo Wynn may also have to be cut.

Those moves would still leave Washington well over the cap limit. The team is trying to trade QB Patrick Ramsey to gain more cap relief. It will also have to rework the deals of RT Jon Jansen, OG Randy Thomas and QB Mark Brunell to get under the limit.

In many ways, the Redskins dilemma demonstrates the problems associated with trying to build a team through free agency. Of these players on the bubble Thomas, Brunell, Hall, Wynn, Thrash, Noble and Harris are all recent free agent signings."