The NFL is approaching talks for a new collective bargaining agreement. The league is widely expected to push for an 18-game regular season. But that’s not enough. Roger Goodell is exploring one more major change. This includes a potential cap on how much a single player can earn. And as that report surfaced, former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Chase Daniel voiced his frustration, calling it a direct shot at the position that drives the league: quarterbacks.

“Owners leaking the idea of capping individual player earnings is a DIRECT shot at the position that drives the league…QB,” Daniel shared on X. “Franchise QBs haven’t needed to be deeply involved w/ the NFLPA, but threaten their earning power & that changes overnight. The league & CBA is built on a negotiated revenue split….not a ceiling on individual value. Now, it’s no longer a free market.”

Daniel’s reaction came right after reports suggested the league could seriously explore placing a ceiling on individual salaries. And when you break it down, the logic from the league’s side is not hard to follow.

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There is already a fixed salary cap. If one player commands a massive portion of it, it naturally limits how much is available for the rest. The exact mechanics of how such a rule would work are still unclear. But early speculation points toward something similar to the NBA model, where max contracts are tied to preset formulas.

On paper, that kind of system could appeal to a large portion of players. More balance would mean more money distributed across the roster. It would not be the first time the league has moved in that direction, either.

Back in 2011, the NFL introduced the rookie wage scale to control spending on incoming players. Before that, contracts like Sam Bradford’s $78 million deal with $50 million guaranteed, signed before he even played a snap, showed how unchecked the system had become.

That gap has been corrected over time, but another issue has taken its place. Star players, especially quarterbacks, now take up a significant percentage of the cap. And that is where Daniel’s concern begins.

The offense revolves around the quarterback. They are often the face of the franchise and the voice of the locker room. So if the league moves to limit individual earnings, it is not hard to imagine pushback from players like Dak Prescott, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow, who sit at the top of the pay scale.

This naturally leads to the next question: would NFL quarterbacks actually push back hard enough to consider a strike? Chase Daniel certainly believes that possibility is very real.

“If all 32 starting QBs got together and decided they wanted to strike, the leverage flips immediately back to players,” he added. “Instead of limiting salaries, you’re pushing the split even further in the players’ favor in the negotiations.”

Still, there’s a structural wrinkle there. Quarterbacks, despite being the highest-paid players, are not heavily represented within the NFL Players Association leadership. Case Keenum serves as the only quarterback on the executive committee. And Davis Mills is the only lead player representative at the position.

So when a proposal like this surfaces, it shifts the dynamics. If the league is perceived to be targeting the earning power of quarterbacks, it could pull more of them into the negotiation process. And that is why Daniel did not hold back, because from his perspective, this is about value, leverage, and who ultimately controls the market.

And while a cap on individual player earnings is still in the early discussion phase, Roger Goodell’s push for expanding the regular season to 18 games is steadily gaining momentum.

Roger Goodell to discuss an 18-game regular season

“We have not had any formal discussions about it and frankly very little of any informal conversations,” Roger Goodell said earlier this year at his Super Bowl LX news conference. “It is not a given that we will do that. It’s not something we assume will happen. It’s something we want to talk about with the union leadership.”

The current Collective Bargaining Agreement runs through March 2031. But with the annual league meeting now underway from March 30 to April 2, Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports reported that multiple NFL executives believe the conversation around expanding the regular season “will intensify” during these meetings.

Those discussions are expected to be part of a broader push from Goodell and team owners, with what Robinson described as more assertive efforts to address schedule expansion heading into the summer.

“Everyone understands consensus-building time is coming for both [the league and NFL Players Association]. It’s going to take time to get to [negotiations] opening a CBA and rolling up sleeves on whatever gets put onto the table,” one executive said. “It might take a year or two, but you really can’t do that without a broader conversation [amongst owners]. I think that starts to get some momentum in Florida.”

For the NFL to move to an 18-game regular season, Goodell will ultimately need agreement from the NFL Players Association. And while nothing is concrete yet, and the union has not fully aligned with the league’s push, any such change would likely come with adjustments elsewhere. This adjustment would directly affect the preseason, reducing it to two games. Whether that actually materializes is something that will play out over time.