"Football's back!" NFL Roger Goodell exclaimed at a news conference after the agreement was signed, ending the four-month lockout. He said the 10-year agreement "is extraordinarily great for our game."
The agreement was signed after members of the NFL Players Association unanimously approved the deal offered by the league's 32 owners early Monday.
Terms were not immediately specified, but NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said the agreement covered a number of aspects, including safety issues and pensions.
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"We managed to talk about things that make football better and safer," Smith told reporters. "There are a number of issues that (needed) to be considered. ... The good thing is, the only way to talk about these things is if you're a union."
Both sides over the weekend discussed details that players wanted resolved, including the contractual handling of player injury, an opt-out clause in the 10-year deal and, "most pointedly, the potential timeline for the recertification of the NFLPA (NFL Players' Association) as a union," the NFL said.
An originally proposed agreement included a new rookie compensation system, a salary cap of $142.4 million per club in 2011 and additional retirement benefits, according to the NFL.
In a bid to reduce injuries, the pact limited practice times and full-contact practices. Clubs were to receive credit for actual stadium investment and up to 1.5% of revenue each year.
Current players could remain in the player medical plan for life, under the owners' plan. They also would have an enhanced injury protection benefit of up to $1 million of a player's salary for the year after his injury and up to $500,000 in the second year after his injury.
Player representative Jeff Saturday acknowledged that the lockout "has been (a) roller coaster for the fans," but he echoed the cheerfulness from both sides: "With dialogue, things began to happen," said Saturday, a center for the Indianapolis Colts, "and ...now instead of these meeting rooms, I get to be in football meeting rooms (at training camp)."
With the deal Monday, free-agent signing can begin this week and the four-week preseason can go forward, according to the NFL, with only one hitch: The first preseason game -- the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams -- was canceled because of the delay in opening camps, Goodell said. It had been scheduled for August 7.
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The regular season is set to open on September 8.
The league's owners imposed the lockout on March 11, suspending the labor deal in place at the time in hopes of creating a new financial structure. Ten players, including marquee quarterbacks Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, subsequently filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league on behalf of other current and eligible NFL athletes.
A judge in early April joined that action with another filed by retired players.
After the lockout, the two sides faced off in courts and around conference tables. The issues revolved around how to divide the billions of dollars of revenue reaped via the league each year, rules of free agency, the rookie wage scale, retirement benefits and a host of other matters.
The heart of the issue between the players and the owners was how to divide the league's $9 billion in revenue.
Under the old agreement, NFL owners took $1 billion off the top of that revenue stream. After that, the players got about 60%.
The owners said the old labor deal didn't take into account the rising costs related to building stadiums and promoting the game.
The players argued that the league had not sufficiently opened up its books to prove this.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
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