This is the first i\'ve heard of this. In Vic Caruuci\'s question and answer.

\"I\'ve seen a couple mentions lately that there will be no salary cap in the NFL for 2007. Is that true?
-- Joseph

Yes, based on the terms of the current collective-bargaining agreement between the NFL owners and players. It has negative implications for both sides. Owners would have no limits on what to spend on player salaries, while players would have to wait six years to become unrestricted free agents rather than the current four years.

And the owners and players designed it that way in an effort to encourage both sides to keep extending the CBA (as they have three times since 1993) and avoid labor strife that would result in a work stoppage. Neither side wants to deal with the uncapped season, which is the last of the current agreement. \"

I think this would be horrible for the league and especially for teams like the bears who have seemingly \"cheap\" owners.

Players, owners want to prevent labor dispute by 2007
By Larry Weisman, USA TODAY
JACKSONVILLE — When the NFL and its players settled their long-standing differences with a breakthrough collective bargaining agreement in 1993, they changed the game.
The implementation of a salary cap and true free agency after four credited seasons were the two key elements and the system has worked well enough to enrich both parties. Franchise values continue to soar, player salaries keep rising and the ensuing parity produces different playoff teams each season.

To head off the potential for labor problems in the future, the agreement included a \"stub\" year — a year in which neither side got exactly what it wanted. That final year has been moved back several times by extensions and amendments but now it is not so far away.

It is generally just referred to as \"the uncapped year.\" It will happen in 2007 without a new agreement.

No cap would mean no limit on spending for players, who would see free agency after six seasons instead of four. If NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw can point team owners toward an incentive to extend the current deal again, it is the uncapped year.

\"If we go there,\" Upshaw says, \"the players will never go back.\"

What Upshaw has proposed is a recalculation of the NFL revenues that make up the pool from which the salary cap and benefits package is derived. He would also like to see the NFL\'s higher-revenue clubs shouldering a high burden of the costs. This is a sticking point for many of the owners of those clubs, who claim that their higher costs, in terms of debt for new stadium construction, aren\'t sufficiently factored in.

Upshaw acknowledges that this concept is \"a major shift,\" but he says he doesn\'t want to see the league divided by differences between the cash-rich clubs and the ones struggling in smaller markets or older stadiums. He doesn\'t want the divisions he says exist in baseball, where payroll disparity is vast. An uncapped year, of course, could foster exactly that scenario.

Talks have been ongoing, and Upshaw is hardly panicking about an extension.

\"It\'s not like we have to do it tomorrow,\" he says. \"We have to do it soon. We are getting close to the uncapped year.\"

New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, saying Upshaw and NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue generally find common ground, expects an agreement well before the uncapped year becomes a factor.

\"I think we\'ve got two people, in Paul and Gene, who have shown us that working together will resolve the thing,\" Benson said. \"I have confidence in the people on both sides of the ball. I think you\'ll see something happen pretty quick.\"