There has been dissension and disagreement among the NFLPA rank and file with stars such as Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson giving it the thumbs down.

NFL players are voting on the collective bargaining agreement proposal hammered out with owners, who likely stifled their laughs as they sprinted at Randy Moss 40-yard dash speed to approve this CBA on Feb. 20. Players can vote until March 12 at 11:59 p.m. It takes a simple majority to approve the proposed 10-year CBA, which would replace the current 10-year CBA, which expires after the 2020 season.

NFL owners negotiating with the NFL Players Association is like what the Super Bowl was in the late 1980′s and the early 1990′s, an unwatchable, utterly predictable rout.


There should be. This is a bad deal for the players.

The centerpiece of the agreement is the NFL getting its long-desired wish to pack more football into the season, expanding the regular-season to 17 games. The owners will get the majority of the revenue from that while the players will take all of the risk — their bodies serving as collateral and collateral damage. The players settled for more of the same instead of utilizing the chip of a 17-game season to enact real substantive change.

It’s not too late for players to realize that as they head to the (electronic) polls. The Globe obtained a copy of the detailed CBA summary the NFLPA sent out this month. There are health and safety gains and a far less punitive marijuana policy aligned with current social mores, but this CBA does nothing to move the ball forward in major areas that depress salaries such as the odious franchise tag or removing the specious funding rules owners hide behind as an excuse to not usher in fully guaranteed contracts like other major professional sports leagues.


Underpaid star players seeking leverage actually lose ground, as the CBA all but cripples the tactic of holding out, making all holdout fines non-rescindable and docking holdouts a year of service time toward free agency if they don’t report to training camp on time.

That’s just bad business. The NFLPA is directly undercutting the members who move the pay scale the most. A rising tide lifts all boats and salaries. NFL owners are more than happy to increase the pay for those at the bottom of the pay scale because it won’t have a trickle-down effect.

Under this agreement, minimum salaries would rise 20 percent starting this season. That’s the owners appealing to the NFL everyman. Owners will gladly make concessions like that one or agreeing that players who sign one-year deals for less than $1.75 million won’t count against the compensatory draft-pick formula or increasing first- and second-round restricted free agent tenders by $125,000 apiece in 2021 and 2022 and original-round tenders by $50,000 in those seasons.

No problem, as they maintain their death grip on the economic system and stifle a truly free football market.

Most economic gains in this proposed CBA are geared toward those on the bottom rungs of rosters..The agreement expands rosters from 53 to 55 players, but the additional players must be called up from a team’s practice squad, cheap labor. The NFL also agreed to expand the practice squad from 10 players to 12 in 2020 and eventually 14.


Even with fifth-year options for first-rounders triggering fully guaranteed fourth and fifth seasons — the latter at the transition tag number, the average of the top-10 salaries at a given position — the economic needle simply isn’t moving enough the players’ way. The current CBA revenue split is 53-47 for owners. Under the proposed CBA, the players are guaranteed 48 percent of revenue, including legalized gambling revenue.

If the NFL hits a home run with the new television contract, increasing its take by 60 percent then the players move up to 48.5 percent. It rises to 48.8 percent with a 120 percent bump in viewing rights.The minimum cash spend for teams — the percentage of the salary cap they’re obligated to spend in cash — ticks up from 89 percent to 90 percent.

The players settled for incremental upgrades instead of a new NFL operating system. Even some of the ownership concessions that look significant aren’t. They’re dressed up to look like acquiesce. The dirty little secret is that the owners would like commissioner Roger Goodell’s brand of dartboard discipline to David Copperfield disappear as much as the players. So, the NFL agreeing to a neutral arbitrator rendering personal-conduct policy discipline benefits the owners as well as the players.

This is NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith’s second time tangling with owners at the bargaining table. He has come under fire from some players such as Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills and the passionate and profane Pouncey twins. But Smith is dealing from a weak hand. The most valuable employees of the most valuable sports league in North America didn’t even have vision coverage until this proposed CBA.


Still, it’s baffling that Smith would consent to another 10-year deal without putting an escape hatch in. The owners will always cry that they require labor peace to peddle to the television networks and streaming services, but there should be an NFLPA out in this deal after seven or eight seasons.

Perhaps, the players just tried to make headway on health and safety and post-career care, areas where billionaire owners appear more accommodating than budging on their bottom line. This deal does include an expansion of pension eligibility and a new NFL dedicated hospital network that would provide free primary care and mental health care.

Things like a mandatory three days off after Thursday night games if a team isn’t playing the following Thursday, moving the acclimation period before players are put in pads in training camp from three days to five days, and a bye week after the third preseason game are meaningful. They can’t be discounted or dismissed.

But the owners will exchange those for absolute player cost control and being able to depress football’s free market, an oxymoron.This is in no way intended to impugn the NFLPA’s executive committee. The committee includes Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson, former Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri, former Boston College linebacker Mark Herzlich, and Brown University alumnus Zak DeOssie. These are smart, dedicated men.


New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a member of the executive committee during the last CBA negotiations in 2011, endorsed the deal Thursday while he was in Quincy for the “Saving by Shaving” event to benefit pediatric research. Brees also revealed just how much of a commitment it is for NFL players to represent their fellow footballers in CBA negotiations.

“It’s a lot. It’s a lot. Listen, it’s a lot of work,” said Brees. “Shoot, I remember back in 2011, I was on the West Coast during the offseason training. I remember making about eight or nine red-eye flights to New York, Washington D.C.; I think we came to Boston actually for one . . . Just having countless meetings. Those were great memories because I felt like that was almost the start of the new era in regards to health and safety . . . player conditions. There were some big jumps made during that negotiation.”

The players needed some big jumps economically this time. Instead, they bunny-hopped back into the waiting arms of owners. The CBA playing field is always going to be tipped toward the owners until the players band together and show the same tenacity, toughness, and intimidating presence off the field that they display on it.

Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.