CURRENT RULE: 14.12 - There is a $10 million cap on all salaries in the KRFL. Therefore, players with an initial salary of $10 million may be signed for as many years as a KRFL owner desires at the $10 million salary level. Another example would be a $5 million initial salary player signed to a seven year contract would have salaries of $5 million, $6.5 million, $8 million, $9.5 million, $10 million, $10 million and $10 million for the respective years.
PROPOSED CHANGE: Eliminate the $10M cap on salaries and make all players subject to the salary escalation provisions of rules 14.10 and 14.11 (+$1M for contracts of 4 years or less, +$1.5M for contracts of 5 years or more). Conditions: (1) No initial salary can exceed $10M. (2) There is a $10M maximum salary cap penalty for any player cut with a salary over $10M, regardless of remaining years on their contract. (3) The following players are exempt from the salary escalation provision, and their salaried will remain at $10 million until the end of their current contracts as long as they stay with their current team and are not traded or released: Bensalem: DE Calais Campbell (contracted through 2016) Bronx: QB Matthew Stafford (contracted through 2016) Kutztown: QB Ben Rothlisberger (contracted through 2018) Las Vegas: QB Aaron Rodgers (contracted through 2017) Warrington: QB Joe Flacco (contracted through 2016)
EXPLANATION: It makes no sense to have to pay another $1M or $1.5M every year for a player like Riley Cooper when players like Brady or Rodgers continue indefinitely with no salary increase. This change will make more high quality players available to the league as free agents because it will be more difficult to hoard players. The conditions allow for a reasonable transition from current contracts and the salary cap penalty maximum will hopefully prevent a team from crashing because of a huge salary cap fine upon cutting a high value player. The escalation is no different than what everyone else pays.
Because of the exemptions granted in #3 above, this rule change would go into effect beginning with the 2015 season. I originally proposed this rule going into effect in 2016 with those players being subject to the salary escalation provision. Since they would not be, the rule can be implemented now, before the 2015 free agent draft. The only other player impacted by this rule change is Russell Wilson of Atlanta who was signed to a 10 year contract and whose salary would exceed $10 million for the first time in the 2021 season. However, under this new rule, Atlanta could release him with only a $10 million salary cap penalty instead of a much larger penalty under the current rule.
