As details of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that has reportedly been agreed to between NFL owners and players have become available, very few have been more specifically relevant to the Buffalo Bills than to any other team in the league. Knowing Buffalo's small-market situation and fan angst over the possibility of the team relocating, there are two details that are worth mentioning along those lines.
- According to Mike Florio of PFT, the league's revenue sharing format has changed. Under the previous agreement, $2 out of every $5 earned from seat sales was put into a pool used to settle stadium debts, with whatever was left over going to small market clubs. Now, revenue sharing will involve a 10 percent tax on the local revenues of any clubs that qualify as big-market, with that money going to clubs (including the Bills) that qualify as small-market.
- Much of the conversation about the league's salary cap has centered around the cap floor that all teams must spend to. Per Andrew Brandt of NFP, that cap floor will be 99 percent of the cap for the first two years of the deal, then drop to 95 percent for the next eight. More importantly, in those final eight years, a cash floor of 89 percent will be enacted - this will prevent teams from tying up cap space in bonuses and incentives, and force teams to spend 89 percent of the cap in actual dollars to its players.