By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com
So we got an extension to the extension and my prediction (uttered on Mike Florio's Pro Football Talk Live the day after the Super Bowl and resurrected today) lives!Good news? Yes. The tenor of the talks has been described to me as courteous and a lot got accomplished when the owners were present on Thursday which, of course, led to the initial extension that paved the way for today's. The details are the difficult thing to hammer out. For instance, if the players concede to a give up a couple of percentage points of their share of the "pie" the salary cap will drop. It was at about 128 million in 2009, the last year of the cap. If the cap drops to 124 million, for instance, that puts players' jobs at risk. The last thing the NFLPA wants is to see veteran players getting thrown overboard after the new agreement is reached because the cap drops. Another thing for the sides to consider is how to deal with the new rookie salary scale. For instance, Sam Bradford signed a 78 million deal with 50 million guaranteed last year. When his salaries start to escalate in the second, third and fourth years of his contract and get into the 14 and 15 million range, he'll be consuming more than 10 percent of the cap all by his lonesome. Can those exorbitant deals be somehow excised from the cap, grandfathered into the system so they don't result - again - in lost jobs for veterans? And where exactly will the money saved from the new rookie wage scale be allocated? Retired players? Current players? It's details like those that will take a significant amount of time to hammer out next week as the next deadline approaches. With the respective sides bunkering down for the weekend, they'll both be putting together proposals to have in hand when they return to the table Monday. Realistic proposals hatched in the next two days will help ease the negotiations when they get back to bargaining. .AOLWebSuite .AOLPicturesFullSizeLinkheight: 1px; width: 1px; overflow: hidden;.AOLWebSuite a color:blue; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer .AOLWebSuite a.hsSig cursor:
Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran