Cheese Curds - News Around The League 2021

[NCF]

I would go back there in a heartbeat.

[BSA]

I would go back there in a heartbeat.

Packers + Oktoberfest = Dream Tour

[YoHoChecko]

I would go back there in a heartbeat.

All I'm saying is that if Bakhtiari& Co. are in Germany for Octoberfest, we should probably have a bye week before AND after to be safe

[BSA]

old fantasy video, some really amazing and slick moves and Crosby makes an appearance

https://twitter.com/i/status/1402728380743618560

[BSA]

All I'm saying is that if Bakhtiari& Co. are in Germany for Octoberfest, we should probably have a bye week before AND after to be safe

This is WI, these are my people

https://twitter.com/lorinickel/status/1 ... 84?lang=en

[paco]

Looks like Sheldon Richardson is going to be a Viking.

[YoHoChecko]

Looks like Sheldon Richardson is going to be a Viking.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Drj820]

Vikings are getting better this offseason. I would say every team in the division besides the Packers have gotten better on paper.

[YoHoChecko]

Vikings are getting better this offseason. I would say every team in the division besides the Packers have gotten better on paper.

I think the Packers are also better on paper. This happens every year, where the team makes few big moves and everyone thinks "if you're not getting better, you're getting worse," but actually, your young players are getting better and continuity breeds efficiency.

We lost 1 or 2 starters from 2019 to 2020 and the team got better, even with near-0 immediate draft impact. Because players got better and the continuity raised performance.

This year, we lost one starter, granted an All-Pro OC, but have second year players like Dillon and Deguara ready to contribute, and by all accounts a more-NFL-ready draft class likely to make an impact, and continuing development and continuity from all units.

The only way in which the Packers may not have gotten better is if Rodgers doesn't return, which is admittedly a massive caveat.

[Drj820]

Vikings are getting better this offseason. I would say every team in the division besides the Packers have gotten better on paper.

I think the Packers are also better on paper. This happens every year, where the team makes few big moves and everyone thinks "if you're not getting better, you're getting worse," but actually, your young players are getting better and continuity breeds efficiency.

We lost 1 or 2 starters from 2019 to 2020 and the team got better, even with near-0 immediate draft impact. Because players got better and the continuity raised performance.

This year, we lost one starter, granted an All-Pro OC, but have second year players like Dillon and Deguara ready to contribute, and by all accounts a more-NFL-ready draft class likely to make an impact, and continuing development and continuity from all units.

The only way in which the Packers may not have gotten better is if Rodgers doesn't return, which is admittedly a massive caveat.

I dont think this is the same situation as years past. The Packers dont know who will be QB week one. Your final sentence is sort of the entire game. We also lost an AP Center. We may be better because our players improved, but the Bears got better because they have true hope at QB now. Lions added fire power at RB, and improved their OL dramatically. And the Vikings have added DL help as well as much needed secondary help.

They Packers had weaknesses at DL and ILB. We have not really addressed those issues, but are hoping for improvements from in house talent. As you noticed, I did say "on paper", and I feel its obvious on paper that our division opponents gave themselves the chance to improve on the field this offseason for more than most offseasons. Most years we just laugh, but this year I can look at the bears, lions, and vikings and see they all made tangible moves that I believe will help them be better this year.

[YoHoChecko]

They Packers had weaknesses at DL and ILB. We have not really addressed those issues, but are hoping for improvements from in house talent.

Yes. You said my last sentence was the whole game (and to an extent, I can't disagree), but THIS sentence is the whole game. In-house improvements are more fact than hope, honestly. We don't know WHERE they will come from, but the chances that no young players improve are nearly zero. Thus if you return the same roster, you have likely gotten better unless your roster is riddled with declining veterans.

The Bucs won the Super Bowl, yes, but barely beat us. We were the #1 seed. We lost by 5 in a game that wasn't well-played. They returned their whole roster, and are being lauded as having one of the league's best offseasons. I understand the Rodgers drama puts a cloud over everything. But in-house improvement is a virtual lock, to some degree. We will be worse at Center than we were last year. But we will be better at SOME positions, maybe it's CB2/3, maybe it's pass rush, maybe it's RG, maybe it's WR3.... we WILL be.

The teams that stay together improve. I agree that all the teams in our division got better on paper, but they NEEDED to. They didn't have the horses to get it done. And implementing big changes will likely take time. Justin Fields likely won't even begin the season as the starter. The Lions are putting together a whole new team (which can happen quickly or slowly, unknown). The Vikings faced a mini-rebuild on defense the past couple years. We are a top team in the league and we stayed as together as we could. That's pretty solid.

[Drj820]

They Packers had weaknesses at DL and ILB. We have not really addressed those issues, but are hoping for improvements from in house talent.

Yes. You said my last sentence was the whole game (and to an extent, I can't disagree), but THIS sentence is the whole game. In-house improvements are more fact than hope, honestly. We don't know WHERE they will come from, but the chances that no young players improve are nearly zero. Thus if you return the same roster, you have likely gotten better unless your roster is riddled with declining veterans.

The Bucs won the Super Bowl, yes, but barely beat us. We were the #1 seed. We lost by 5 in a game that wasn't well-played. They returned their whole roster, and are being lauded as having one of the league's best offseasons. I understand the Rodgers drama puts a cloud over everything. But in-house improvement is a virtual lock, to some degree. We will be worse at Center than we were last year. But we will be better at SOME positions, maybe it's CB2/3, maybe it's pass rush, maybe it's RG, maybe it's WR3.... we WILL be.

The teams that stay together improve. I agree that all the teams in our division got better on paper, but they NEEDED to. They didn't have the horses to get it done. And implementing big changes will likely take time. Justin Fields likely won't even begin the season as the starter. The Lions are putting together a whole new team (which can happen quickly or slowly, unknown). The Vikings faced a mini-rebuild on defense the past couple years. We are a top team in the league and we stayed as together as we could. That's pretty solid.

Sounds like we agree

[salmar80]

It's so EA Sports to call this year's Madden "MVP edition", and not have the MVP on the cover...

Tom Brady's first Madden rating at least had the speed right....

[RingoCStarrQB]

It's so EA Sports to call this year's Madden "MVP edition", and not have the MVP on the cover...

Tom Brady's first Madden rating at least had the speed right....

FO must have called someone to influence the cover .......

[salmar80]

The NFL's free prospect pipeline (= College system) is about to get a whole lot more interesting...

PFT:

The reckoning is coming. It hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s coming.

On Monday, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court (when is the Supreme Court ever unanimous on anything?) ruled against the NCAA on the question of whether the antitrust laws apply to rules restricting the benefits that any school may offer to student-athletes.

The outcome is narrow but the future implications could be very broad. For now, schools must be permitted to compete for student-athletes by offering educational benefits beyond undergraduate tuition, room, board, fees, and books. Enhanced education-related benefits from a given school no longer can be regarded as prohibited by the NCAA, a rule that in the opinion of the Supreme Court violates the antitrust laws.

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for the nine-member Court. A concurring opinion (basically, an agreement but an articulation of different reasons) from Justice Kavanaugh has gotten and will continue to get more attention than the primary submission.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh essentially calls the NCAA what it is, and what it has been for decades: A golden-egg factory that refuses to properly compensate the geese.

“The NCAA has long restricted the compensation and benefits that student athletes may receive,” Justice Kavanaugh writes. “And with surprising success, the NCAA has long shielded its compensation rules from ordinary antitrust scrutiny. Today, however, the Court holds that the NCAA has violated the antitrust laws. The Court’s decision marks an important and overdue course correction, and I join the Court’s excellent opinion in full.”

Justice Kavanaugh explains that his separate opinion is aimed at underscoring the fact that, beyond the rules at issue in the current case, “the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules also raise serious questions under the antitrust laws.”

“The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student athletes in innocuous labels,” he writes. “But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America. All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on the theory that ‘customers prefer’ to eat food from low-paid cooks. Law firms cannot conspire to cabin lawyers’ salaries in the name of providing legal services out of a ‘love of the law.’ Hospitals cannot agree to cap nurses’ income in order to create a ‘purer’ form of helping the sick. News organizations cannot join forces to curtail pay to reporters to preserve a ‘tradition’ of public-minded journalism. Movie studios cannot collude to slash benefits to camera crews to kindle a ‘spirit of amateurism’ in Hollywood.”

Amen to all of that. And those words will set the stage for broader and more aggressive attacks on a system that has allowed the various universities to stuff their coffers full of cash, to pay everyone involved with its sports programs except the athletes, and to continue to delay inexplicably the moment at which those who deserve to receive real financial rewards for the billions flowing from their talents, efforts, and sacrifices finally will be treated fairly.

“Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor,” Justice Kavanaugh states. “And price-fixing labor is ordinarily a textbook antitrust problem because it extinguishes the free market in which individuals can otherwise obtain fair compensation for their work. . . . Businesses like the NCAA cannot avoid the consequences of price-fixing labor by incorporating price-fixed labor into the definition of the product.”

Here’s the kicker from Justice Kavanaugh, the ultimate truth from which the NCAA has been running: “The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.”

The NCAA tries to hide behind the notion that there’s a magic or a purity to amateur athletics and the traditions they have spawned. That facade is beginning to crumble. Justice Kavanaugh takes a flamethrower to it.

“[T]hose traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated,” Justice Kavanaugh writes. “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”

No, it isn’t. And the NCAA surely knew it before today. Roughly a decade ago, as society began to ask tough questions about a billion-dollar business that fails to fairly compensate its most important workers, the NCAA likely realized that the reckoning someday would arrive. The goal has been to delay it for as long as possible.

Today’s ruling shows that the NCAA and its members will enjoy several more budget cycles free from line items for on-field labor costs. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion shows that the NCAA can run, but it can’t hide.

[YoHoChecko]

Beginning of the end of college athletics. Only a handful of programs can afford to pay players, and if they DO pay players, every non-revenue sport will be eliminated to afford it. Every one.

If this is just about letting them have the rights to their likenesses, that's great. I'm on board. If this is about rich programs being able to pay players and 75% of colleges can't, college sports is over. Not just football; in fact, least of all football and basketball. The rest of them are going to be flat out cut, along with the scholarship opportunities that go along with them.

Almost every depiction of how college athletics works financially, including those depicted in these Justices' opinions, is highly incomplete and inaccurate. As a former employee of a collegiate athletic office and a graduate with an actual degree that is called "Sports Studies with a concentration in Sports Business" I can swear to you, these arguments are all incomplete.

The money that everyone thinks is flowing actually isn't there. College athletics programs usually operate at a loss even including donations. And the revenue-generating programs (usually just football and basketball but at some schools baseball makes money and in select places women's volleyball and gymnastics, even turn a profit) completely subsidize the non-revenue sports (everything else).

Now back to opinion, though an informed opinion: When schools start paying players, college athletics is less than a decade from completely ending. Period.

[go pak go]

I agree. The U of Minnesota has already cut nearly every unpopular sport blaming it on Covid loss of revenue.

I don't know how this will work out because the NFL has a hard cap and the NBA has max contracts so why can't the NCAA do the same thing? But importantly, this will change the college universe tremendously.

And this is already after a growing pressure of the public screaming college is too expensive and wasteful spending, etc.

[YoHoChecko]

I mean we have a case study for how this will play out.

When Title IX passed the gender discrimination and equality portions of it indicated that the school had to offer athletic scholarships roughly in proportion to the breakdown of the student body. So if the student body was 55% women and 45% men (pretty typical ratio on campuses, then they had to offer scholarships at approximately the same breakdown... Now, they were given time to adjust; the compliance measure checked to see that they were making progress towards it, not that they were all the way there, but over time, they had to get there.

Now, football had 90 scholarships. No other sport comes close, really. Some schools with a lot of land (mostly southern schools) started women's equestrian teams that could get about 70 scholarships. Most don't have that option (it's expensive as well as land-intensive). So what happened? Were women's sports programs expanded? Some places, a little. But MOSTLY, men's sports got eliminated. So a ton of schools now have women's soccer and women's lacrosse, but no men's versions. They almost all got rid of their wrestling programs. More got into women's, but not men's, gymnastics.

This post isn't a complaint. It is just an illustration that when schools are forced into it, they would much more quickly eliminate programs that they can't carry than to expand programs or find new revenue streams to make them work.

If you take Football and basketball and make their expenses increase, sure they'll try and raise some ticket prices and lean on boosters, but that'll be pennies to them. The next thing to go is literally every other sport; gonna be gone. And that's even without considering the competitive impact in which MOST schools simply won't be able to afford to field a football team if players are paid. So collegiate football will very quickly become maybe a 20-school operation at Division I

If we don't think that college sports are a good thing--no other country ties their athletic programs to their educational institutions--that's fine. I'm not even making a judgment on this outcome in these posts; I'm just explaining my best guess as to what WILL happen.

[go pak go]

Is it that colleges won't be able to afford to pay players or more that only your top 10 schools will pay players big bucks and the rest won't and therefore you have say 200 players actually making any decent money and the rest still playing the "amateur" college ball?

I absolutely foresee a widening gap between the top schools and everyone else. I also see elimination of further sports programs by all schools to concentrate expenses on the money making sports.

And I too don't necessarily think getting rid of smaller level collegiate sports is a bad thing or a good thing. It is a thing. I personally have zero attachment for most garbage sports except every 4 years when I want to see USA men and women show the rest of the world we're the best at everything in our Olympic gold medal count.

[YoHoChecko]

Is it that colleges won't be able to afford to pay players or more that only your top 10 schools will pay players big bucks and the rest won't and therefore you have say 200 players actually making any decent money and the rest still playing the "amateur" college ball?

It's absolutely both.

It's been a WHILE since I've been involved in looking at this sort of data, but I know that when I was studying it (15-20 years ago; getting old), 85% of collegiate athletic offices operated on a deficit and relied on tuition money to make up the difference.

So that means that 85% of those programs definitely can't afford it.

Then you get to the 15% who are making profits each year (which generally are returned in part to the school to lower the need for tuition payments, but only after capital improvements to team facilities and such). Within that 15% of schools, there will be those big time programs who can throw more money at it, and there will be more marginal programs who can afford to shell out money for a player or two, but can't compete with the big boys.

I would think of the, let's say now, 90% of school who lose out, most are going to be Division II and Division III programs, which will simply have some sort of very small stipend in order to keep their football programs while eliminating other sports to compensate. You're going to have a bunch in that range though that simply choose to eliminate football if the costs grow too much.

Then in the top 10%, you'll see a widening parity gap.

Now this is all assuming a pure market-based recruiting outcome, rather than a compromise outcome decided upon within the new front of no antitrust exemption. I think right now, we're mainly looking at the SCOTUS saying that the limits on non-educational benefits are too great, so having access to your likeness and receiving a larger (most already get one) stipend is the easy first step. But if it also means a return to giving athletes "jobs" in which school boosters pay players to make sure the grass grows (this is a real "job" my father encountered on a college campus as a sportswriter) then the wild wild west and widening divide of talent crops up.

Again, I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad; we will adapt to what comes. And something needed to change. But the whole "we should pay players' and especially the market-centered language of some of the SCOTUS quotes like "we wouldn't have all chefs make the same wage because people prefer low-wage chefs" makes it sound like the movement is toward financial recruitment, where star players make more money. Again, that could be through some sort of revenue sharing of their likeness or jersey sales, it could be simply by allowing them to sign endorsement and sponsorship deals. It could be direct payments and bidding.

But again, I'm more concerned with the fact that college athletic programs will cease to exist outside of revenue-generating sports than I am concerned with the impact on the revenue-generating sports. We can figure that out.