That’s basically what the salary floor is but they aren’t using the average. The owners proposed a $100 million salary floor and a $180 million upper limit. If you are above the later or below the former the team pays a penalty. Those that fall in between would share the money. The $100 million is close to what the average of the projected team salaries for 2022 will be but of course if you force them to pay more the average goes up.
What makes things difficult is that both sides contain parties with sometimes conflicting interests.
The owners have a disparity between big and small market teams. Small market teams can’t compete with the payroll of the big teams. The big teams don’t want to get into spending wars. They also don’t want to pay a tax to the little teams and then watch them pocket the money.
The union is trying to protect the salaries and future salaries of the big stars while at the same time working to get more money for the never stars. There are fewer voting members that are big stars. I think the players want a salary floor but either a much higher or no ceiling.
Maybe they should be pushing for a hard cap? Football has a hard cap and the teams aren’t that far apart on team salary. They certainly don’t have $150 million difference between high and low payroll.