Cleveland Browns' Restricted Free Agents: No CBA in 2010 Helps a Lot

As of right now, if the NFL cannot get a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place, then the NFL's 2010 regular season will not be a capped year.

One would think that not having a salary cap would mean that the richest of the rich NFL owners would pick up every big name free agent player that is on the market, kind of like how the New York Yankees operate every year in Major League Baseball.

This is a possibility, but unless a player has been in the league for six years, that player will not be an unrestricted free agent during an uncapped year.

Under an uncapped year, any NFL player who has not been in the league for six years will be a restricted free agent, unlike a capped year, where players are eligible after only being in the NFL for four years.

This means that all the players who have been in the NFL for four years now will not be able to cash in on a big payday in an uncapped year, which is unfortunate for those players who deserve a big payday.

The Cleveland Browns will be one of the few teams that will luck out in an uncapped year because they will have six starters who would have been unrestricted free agents in a salary capped year.  Those players are: linebacker D'Qwell Jackson, running back Jerome Harrison, fullback Lawrence Vickers, linebacker Matt Roth, safety Abram Elam, and safety Brodney Pool.

Of those six players, the Browns may have only been able to retain a couple of them, but now they will have the chance to match any offer made. Or, if they decide not to match the offer within a week, then the Browns will be compensated with one or two draft picks.

New Browns President Mike Holmgren may not have an interest in retaining most of these players anyway once he finishes his evaluation of the current roster at the end of the season.

However, regardless of what Holmgren decides, if another team really wants one of these players, then that means more picks to add to the Browns' already NFL-leading 11 picks in the 2010 NFL draft.