The last year of the deal is an uncapped year.

They can do some of what people perceived would happen in an uncapped year, because they have so much cap room.

"If we were to go into an uncapped year, that would be the wild, wild West," Steinberg said.

That uncapped year would trigger a spending frenzy.

It would also extend the salary cap through 1999, which was an uncapped year in the original seven-year agreement.

Teams, of course, want to lock up players until after the uncapped year.

The lure of being a free agent in an uncapped year is so strong that players are thumbing their noses at considerable amounts of money.

It moves the uncapped year from 1999 to 2000 in time for the free-agent signing period, which begins Thursday.

"The football union has this huge leverage that the hockey players don't, which is an uncapped year," Ross said of the 2007 season.

The owners do not want to edge too close to the uncapped year of 2007, where salaries would no longer have a ceiling.