Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL Owners Reject '4th & 15' & Players Union Remains Prepared

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

In a bonus Thursday episode, Geoff checks in from a live Twitter chat with updates on today's NFL owners meeting that decided against giving teams an alternative to the onside kick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome back to Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. It is me, Jeff Schwartz. I'm flying solo today. We're doing something a little bit different. We're going to try to sprinkle in these extra episodes if NFL news and notes arises like it has today, like it has later this week after Monday. We're doing things a little differently too.

I'm using this audio via Periscope. I'm recording on Periscope. Also recording audio for the podcast. We've got a lot to talk about today. NFL shot down the 4th and 15 new onside rule. There's some other new rules they include as well. NFL minicamps may or may not be happening. And something that I think is being missed right now is the NFL is actually set up really, really well labor-wise to get through any sort of revenue loss from the coronavirus, whereas baseball is not set up quite this way.

And I present to you a good argument as to why we should be rooting for the baseball players and why they have a great argument for why they need to be paid as much money as they first offered. So we'll get to all of that next. Thank you guys for joining me, as usual. Rate, review, subscribe. Really appreciate it. And we'll get to all of that next. Thank you guys for joining me. As usual, rate, review, subscribe. Really appreciate it. And we'll get right to it.

The NFL voted down the 4th and 15 on sidekick rule. It was 16 to 16 to vote. It needed 24 votes to pass. It wasn't fairly close. If you look at the vote, it was a Philadelphia's proposal. It didn't happen. A If you look at the vote, it was a Philadelphia's proposal. It didn't happen. A couple things that were said.

Competition Committee Rich McKay says there is definitely that theory that you don't want to make the comeback too easy. Troy Vincent added that someone said in jest, those who have Hall of Fame quarterbacks should be excluded from this discussion. The problem is the data shows that this play has just as much of a chance to succeed as does an on side kick so the last two years and start of 2018 season when the when the league instituted new kickoff rules right the recovery rate for onside kicks has been 10.5 percent so new rules limit where you can line up,

limit the movement of your players before the kick, and so it makes it really, really tough to recover onside kicks. Nearly impossible, right? And it was, if you look, too, from 2001 to 2017, it was at almost 20%, 19.5%. So clearly there's a drop-off now in the news. I was looking forward to this 4th and 15, a new way to do the NFL, give teams an opportunity, a chance to succeed.

We know now this is, according to Warren Sharp in Sports Illustrated, league-wide success rate on third and fourth and 15 and over the last 15 years was 16.5%. Now that's not filtered, obviously, just kind of per situation, right? Third and 15 is someone trying to run the football, someone trying to go for a fourth and 23. But nonetheless, it's not as easy as people think to convert in those situations. And Trevor Vincent's right, right?

It is skewed probably toward the better quarterbacks and the better offenses. Look, the NFL is always trying to find ways to evolve, and this felt like another way to to evolve what only happened twice in a game an untimed down balls at 25 you get the 15 yards wherever you get it at 15 16 17 you get 30 yards you get the ball right there and you play on if you do not get it the ball goes on the 25 and the defensive team would have been the old receiving team, the team who gets the ball. So it made sense, in my opinion, to try this out, to evolve, to be aggressive and find new ways for the game to progress and really to score more points. And that's something that actually is very interesting when you look at the possibility to score more points in these games.

This would 100% affect gambling in a way that gamblers really can't calculate for. I did a podcast yesterday with Ross Tucker, Steve Fezzik's on there. Awesome gambling insight. He was talking about how there's a mess with teasers, but just looking at over-unders, right? What this could do to an over-under. Fourth and 15 now, you're kind of right sitting at that total. Your under is locked in. You know, an onside kick typically is recovered by the receiving team,

and they run the ball three times, punt the ball back, game's over, right? But now, if they don't convert, obviously, ball to 25. You run the ball three times, and now you're still in field goal range kick a field goal boom over hits there's going to be a point where if this were to happen teams would just say look first down first and 10 and 25 we're down six we'll let them score we'll just try to score touchdown and get another fourth and 15 conversion there'll be teams allowing teams to score here. So from a gambling perspective, it's better this did not happen. But again, I'm all for the game to evolve and find different ways to either score points,

get fans excited, or find ways for teams to come back. Not often do teams even recover onside kicks, come down, and even win a game. I mean, I was part of one in college, in college, way back when it was Oklahoma-Oregon. Oklahoma fans will tell you about it. You know, they got screwed. We scored to go. We were down six, got an onside kick. We didn't even recover it. They recovered it.

But went down a couple of hours later and scored. Went up by one. And then they came down and missed a field goal where we blocked a kick. I can't remember a time when I played in my eight years where we recovered an onside kick that led to us winning a game or vice versa. So it's kind of interesting to see where this is going. I was hoping this would pass just to add some flavor to the game. It's a good time to do it right now, right? Maybe experiment in the preseason, but it wasn't close.

Like I said, 16-16 with the votes. I need 24 votes. Maybe we'll table it for next year and we'll see what happens. But I was said, 16-16 with the votes. I need 24 votes. Maybe we'll table it for next year, and we'll see what happens. But I was looking forward to something new in the NFL. Didn't happen. Oh, well. Sky Judge. I have not heard at the time that we're recording this right now if the Sky Judge idea is going to go through for the preseason.

It got voted down, and I believe there's a modified version of it that would allow this to happen in the preseason. Remember, Sky Judge was something the AAF started doing and the XFL. They have someone upstairs. They have the Sky Cam, but someone upstairs who is a referee, an official who looks at every play and has the capability to buzz down and say, hey, we messed this play up. Now, the language is shortened to figure out exactly what they're allowed to review.

Spot of a ball, fumble of a ball, possession of a ball. Penalty, maybe. That definition is tough for me because, again, what penalties should you review and not review? We had the whole pass interference fiasco last year that I was for that. It ended up being a fiasco, right? It just was bad for the game. That's gone now, thankfully.

But is Sky Judge going to fix that? So I think it's worth experimenting in the preseason to see if this was going to work. But also, too, look, they've got 20 seconds to figure it out. And you don't want a situation where a Sky Judge is always stopping the game to just check on something.

Now, you could argue that, hey, if he checks on something and they get it right, that they're doing their job. But all you guys out there, you guys bitch and moan about the NFL games taking too long, football taking too long. Well, imagine if in a 120-play game that there's 17, 18 times where the referee's like, whoa, whoa, let's hold the ball. Let's make sure that we got this call right. The sky judge has got to weigh in. Because theoretically, that's how much time they would have to get, right? 20 seconds maybe and have to buzz down and be like, hey, I'm going to look at this play extra.

So I get it from there's some procedural issues the NFL's had over the years that the sky judge would be great. There are reasons why I think it needs to be there at least experiment with the idea of of this uh the sky judge but again it's going to be hard to implement in the NFL what's really interesting about the talk by the way of sky judge the kind of robot umpires and and whatnot is that do we want it to be perfect do Do we want every call to be perfect? Do we really deep down, of course, you want your favorite team to get the right call and you want it to not affect the game

and gambling lines and all that. But human error is kind of part of sports, right? Human error is part of what we love, in my opinion, about sports at times. There's still something in us that enjoys the human element of the game, the human element of the game, the human element of the referees. I think something where it would be just every call exactly perfect is not the

spirit of replay. I've always argued this. I look at baseball. Is the spirit of the replay to really look and see if the second baseman dragged a tiny bit of his toe on second base. Is the spirit of the rule to see a guy slide home and his foot is just above home plate? Clearly, he's safe, right? He's in there. He beat the throw home. Is the spirit of the rule to zoom in and be like, okay, well, there's a paper thin between his foot

and home plate. Guy's out. To my opinion, that's not the spirit of the rule. Spirit of review is supposed to fix egregious calls i feel like we get the sky judge it just again situation where we're just not fixing egregious calls anymore we're fixing just simple stuff that is kind of part of human error part of the game i don't know something to consider when you think about if we really deep deep down down want to have a sky judge in NFL. And I get it.

There are situations where there definitely needs to be a review made and a change of a call done. I don't know if we really want everything to be perfect. All right, let's get to NFL minicamps. There's some thought that minicamps are going to happen pretty soon. I'm just going to bleed in a little bit to my next subject. But as we're seeing now, Governor of Texas said, hey, we can have sporting events with fans with 25% capacity. We're seeing states now open up and allow athletes to come back. We're seeing the college side, the SEC is back soon, the Pac-12, June 15th.

California said, hey, look, we're open for athletics. I believe the government has made athletes essential workers, which, look, my wife's a nurse. She does not work at the hospital for COVID patients. She's an essential worker. Labeling athletes essential workers is ridiculous. It almost lessens the actual essential workers. It lessens their job, in my opinion, their importance.

They're really essential workers, athletes or not. But I sort of get the idea because you need to get a lot of the international players that are overseas back in the country to declare them essential workers. Maybe it's easier to get them back in the country. Nonetheless, that was whatever. It's done. So we're seeing New York talk about, hey, we're going to have training camp. We're seeing everyone move toward now an idea of, hey, we're opening up.

Gyms are opening up. You can do outdoor activities. And so the idea is like, look, hey, let's get the athletes back. We're in the college side, right? The NFL is probably going to mirror this a little bit in the middle of June. Hey, let's get our athletes back here. It's safer for them to be in our building, in our complex, working out with us than it is to be at the gym. So let's get everyone back to where they're supposed to be in the facility,

and let's get them working out and training and seeing how healthy they are. And I think that the NFL is going to do that. The NFL is going to bring guys back and say, hey, look, we're going to start this up again. We'll come in for a month, get a little mini camp, maybe even two weeks. We'll get a little mini camp in. It's not really a physical mini camp. Let's make sure guys are in shape and healthy and whatnot.

Just mentally, right? Meeting a new coach, getting the playbook a little bit, just spending a weekend with your buddies or a week with your buddies, whatever it is. The mini camp is now a week long. But that idea, I think it's going to happen. I know JC Tretter, the PA representative, now the new president. By the way, I'm really psyched for him to be the president.

He said, hey, look, we're not quite sure. I think I have the tweet right here. We're not quite sure about if we're coming back yet. You know, we're not. Yeah, he said that players, our union has not agreed to any reopening plan. Any reports about coming back to work are hypothetical. You know, the NFL pr said we're not putting dates on a potential return so but i think they're working there i think that the talk about this

obviously there is some reason why they're talking about it because i think do you think it's going to happen and the reason why the nfl is going to happen and obviously they have months to prepare for the season that's a big part of this as well, is the NFL kind of has the power over the players and the other leagues don't. And the other leagues, the way their structure is set up, it's not beneficial to them to play without the revenue being generated that they previously had.

So right now, baseball is having an issue with figuring out what they're going to do. The NFL has a hard cap. So let's just say the hard cap is $200 million. With that $200 million, there's a spending minimum, and obviously the max is $200 million. So you fit all your players in your roster under $200 million. Well, let's say next year, for example, the revenues aren't as high

because 2020 was down. The cap might not rise. It might go down. It might go to $195, $190, $185. But whatever it is, theoretically, in theory, the owners could say, look, it is what it is, man. Cap went down to 185. Fit your team under, my team really, under the cap.

Make it happen. And teams would have to do it. It's our cap structure. Hard cap. It's the way it works. You know, players get, what, 48% of their revenue now? 48% of their revenue. That's what they get.

We get 52. Revenue's down. We're all down. Okay? We're all down. It's the way it works. get what 48 of the revenue now 48 of the revenue that's what they get we get 52 revenues down we're all down okay we're all down that's the way it works now in theory that's the way it works obviously practicality they find ways to boost the salary cap up in 2011 new cba the the nflpa took our player performance checks which we get the end of the season i believe rolled into uh the salary cap and raise artificially raised the salary cap. I don't think anyone really wants the cap to go down very much because imagine if you're an owner of a team that has a chance to win

and now you've lost $20 million on the cap. Well, you have to cut a bunch of players to have a chance to win, almost even as the playing field doing it that way. So I would understand why they'd find ways to prop it up but if football done right that's how it works well baseball there's no hard salary cap and there really is no spending for you i've spent time trying to find this up baseball players just get paid what their market value is based off of what someone else made or whatever they can negotiate to get it done and because of that they're having issues now trying to figure out how to make the salaries work Mike Trout makes 33 million dollars okay he makes 33 million dollars of of there's no cap of nothing right

just that's his salary 33 million dollars so if you say hey we want you to take 50 percent of revenue now as a whole in baseball how do you calculate what Mike Trout's salary is going to be? You can't. Because it's of nothing, right? Like if you make $100,000 in your work and now your work says, hey, we want you to make 50% of the revenues, you're obviously going to take a pay cut in that.

How do you figure out what someone who makes $100,000 makes and someone who makes $178,000 makes? There's, right, there's no, they don't make $178,000 of $1 million or $100,000 of $1 million. Their salary is $178,000. Someone else's salary is $100,000. Now, how do you figure out what cut of revenue of the 50% those two employees get? That's what's happening in baseball right now. of 50% those two employees get.

That's what's happening in baseball right now. They can't figure out who gets what, where it goes. And the players offer 50%, basically 50%. We'll play 50% of the game. We'll progress out of 50%. The ownership said, kick rocks. Now they're trying to figure out a way to make it work. It doesn't appear to be any close to getting done. But their owners are asking for a fundamental change

to the salary cap structure. Hey, we've never done this on revenue before, and we continue to spend, as profits have gone up the last couple of years, we continue to spend less and less on player contracts. As our revenue goes up, we've spent less on player contracts. So we've given the players less percent of the revenue as profits go up. Now when profits go down, we want you to take a big cut as well. But when things are going well, we don't pay you more, right?

So it's a huge problem. I don't want people to understand exactly what's happening in baseball. The NFL, it's not a problem. It's a problem for the reasons I listed out earlier, where it can affect your team's performance if you cut guys. But there's no negotiation to be done.

Hard cap. Baseball doesn't have a hard hard cap so what do you pay mike trap i know they're i know they came up with some weird formula the players aren't going to do it scott boris came out with great stuff today about how baseball players shouldn't subsidize owners losses because owners have taken out loans and made bad investments and haven't allocated their money properly i agree baseball might not happen basketball's gonna have some of this issue but they've already played a bunch of their season so they've been paid already and they might they'll work out some sort of playoff share but baseball's a lot of trouble i think baseball might figure it out but i don't know so football

look it's interesting you never really try to set up for a pandemic it's not why you set your league up or really you have a pandemic plan but but the NFL salary gap ends up working really, really well for this idea of a downturn. So we'll see what happens. All right, guys, thank you for joining me on a bonus weekly episode of Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you.

We'll be back in our usual spot on Monday. Everyone have a great weekend. Please rate, review, subscribe. Talk to you guys next week. Have a good one.