GRAPEVINE, Texas — At the end, even the NFL's maverick owners decided that labor peace was better than the uncertainty of working without a salary cap.

They didn't especially like doing it, though, after two days of meetings that sometimes got quite contentious.

"No one hit anyone," Oakland's Al Davis said after the owners finally agreed Wednesday to accept a deal that will add close to a billion dollars to the players' pool in return for six years of labor peace. "Yeah, people were yelling a little bit, you know, but it's part of life. The idea is to go and get something done."

Davis, the NFL's most conspicuous antiestablishment owner, turned into a league supporter for this one. The agreement will add $850 million to $900 million to the player revenue pool, contributed each year on a sliding scale by the 15 teams that earn the most from non-television and ticket income.

And while those teams aren't happy to be throwing so much cash in the pot, they said they would rather do that than deal with the uncertainty of a 2007 without a salary cap and perhaps a work stoppage in 2008.

"The proposal was really a mean mother from the union," said Dallas' Jerry Jones, the leader of a faction of owners who for two years resisted the additional revenue sharing.

"We had a time today that we probably got into the Is and Mes a little bit. That's what we were all looking to stay away from. You get that kind of stuff started, that's kind of like drawing that line in the sand. Then everybody got ahold of it, looked back at it and said, `Let's get in here to straighten this out."

And they did, barely meeting a union-imposed 8 p.m. deadline to agree to its final proposal. In fact, they may not have met that deadline, announcing it at about 8:40, but no one seemed to care.

The deal will carry the NFL through the 2011 season. Two low-revenue teams, Buffalo and Cincinnati, cast the only votes against.

The agreement increases the salary cap from $85.5 million last season to $102 million, saving some veteran players who would have been cut and providing more money to free agents — either with new teams or by re-signing with their old ones.

And it's $7.5 million higher per team than the $94.5 million they would have had in the final uncapped year of the current contract if they had not accepted the union's last proposal.

Now the league's free agency period, put off twice by protracted negotiations, will start Saturday to give teams additional time to get under the newly elevated salary cap.

The cap will increase to $109 million in 2007, which would have been an uncapped year that would have widened the spending gap between teams even more.

"We want teams to get additional money to re-sign players, rather than cutting them," commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.

The deal was put together by nine teams who began on different sides of the revenue debate, including such high-revenue teams as New England and Dallas. The Patriots and Cowboys, who are in the top five moneymakers along with Philadelphia, Houston and Washington, were both involved in putting together the deal.

"Some of us had to give and take a little more than others, but things have a way of working out," said Washington's Daniel Snyder, another former hard-line owner. "Some of us are contributing a little more than others, but we've been doing that in the past, as well. We just wanted to get this done for the sake of the league."

The agreement comes after a week of on-again, off-again negotiations, culminating in a two-day owners meeting. Tagliabue predicted it would come down to the 11th hour.

"This agreement is not about one side winning or losing," Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the NFL Players Association said in a statement. "Ultimately, it is about what is best for the players, the owners and the fans of the National Football League. As caretakers of the game we have acted in the manner the founders intended.

"Moving forward, this new agreement gives us the opportunity to continue our unprecedented success and growth."

The deal probably saved a lot of veteran players from being released for salary cap reasons. Even Brentson Buckner, a defensive tackle cut last week by Carolina, was upbeat.

"It's also good for the guys like me because now somebody has a little extra money and they can go after a veteran who might have gotten squeezed out in this," Buckner said. "I'm sure the veteran minimum is going to go up, so guys like me can go out and get a one-year somewhere and feel good about the situation they are going into."

The real debate was between the owners themselves on the important issue of expanded revenue sharing.

Low-income teams say high-revenue teams should contribute proportionately to the player pool because they can earn far more in nonfootball income from things such as advertising and local radio rights.

Under the new deal, the bottom 17 teams in revenue will not contribute to the pool, which will be funded with the top five teams contributing the most; the second five less; and the third five less than them.

Still, two of the lowest-revenue teams voted "no."

"I didn't understand it," said Buffalo's Ralph Wilson. "It is a very complicated issue and I didn't believe we should be rushing to vote in 45 minutes. I'm not a dropout ... or maybe I am. I didn't understand it."

That 45 minutes followed a series of daylong caucuses and finally came out of a fusion of plans that Tagliabue said was forged by nine teams.