Cowboys, Skins lose cap space (everyone point and laugh)

And even if it was deemed unfair, none of the other teams in the league would support the Cowboys and Redskins in an appeal.

 

The league deciding to enforce punishment on teams for spending that did not violate the terms of the CBA would be collusion.

The league and the owners cannot collude to keep prices down, and using an non-agreed upon repercussion to penalize teams that spent within the rules of the uncapped year should be a violation.

Now, it is possible that the "repercussion" is agreed upon under the table by the Skins and Boys and they will publicly say it isn't true and then privately operate within the restraints.

 

You aren't hearing me. This isn't a retroactive move to ping them for an exploited legal loophole. I'm still trying to find it, but there were a lot of rules put in place back in '09 for the uncapped year, and one of them was about cap hits. Basically saying that while you could spend money on FAs in the uncapped year, they were not going to allow teams to absorb major cap hits from cutting/trading players - those cap hits were going to be deferred.

The moves were allowed, they were legal....but the league was clear that the cap hits were going to be placed post-lockout. Here they are.

It's not a punishment.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...es-about-not-dumping-salary-in-uncapped-year/

I distinctly remember hearing about it as we approached the uncapped offseason - I had been very excited about the opportunity to dump tons of dead weight without penalty - but this was set up for that exact reason. Remember, the signing bonus is paid immediately, but the bonus cap hit is spread out. When a guy is cut, the cap hit is accelerated to all land on that year - a big deterrent to cutting someone with multiple years left. It's a cap management issue, not a financial one. The uncapped year would have let teams gone on a bloodbath, but this was put into place to keep it from happening.

 

I have to agree...every contract goes thru the NFL for approval and of course that means salary cap as well...if it wasn't in compliance, then make the teams rework it then...

 

It was NOT about signing players.

It was about using the uncapped year to "hide" accelerated cap hits from cutting longterm contracts. The league told all teams not to do it, because those cap hits would be put back in place after the lockout if they did.

The Cowboys and Redskins went ahead and cut a lot of big contracts anyway.

It wasn't illegal, this isn't a punishment, the league told everyone that this is what would happen if you dumped salary in the uncapped year. The cap hits were going to be deferred.

 

For the Cowboys it WAS about signing a player specifically Miles Austin as noted in this article.

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowboys/post/_/id/4690655/miles-austin-extension-in-cross-hairs

The Cowboys only cut a couple of players during the uncapped year so it had more to do with the contract to Miles. Seems a little shady that since the league office approved the contract however since my Cowboys haven't been relevant in about 20 years I am not sure it has that much impact on us trying to be good again. Maybe this will force the organization to cut some players that need to be cut.

 

Ah...so they were still hiding a cap hit (really, hiding a prorated signing bonus for future years) by making his first year base act as a signing bonus.

Thanks for that.

I still stand by what I said - this isn't retroactive punishment. They were warned off from pulling stunts like this and did it anyway.

 

What you aren't speculating on is whether or not each team broke any rule to be retroacted cap hits this year.

It doesn't matter if the NFL warned teams from taking advantage of the uncapped year, it only matters that these teams did what they were allowed to do, as outlined by the CBA.

Its like the guy who takes advantage of poor rules to get what he wants. He may be a douche, and you can warn him that his moves are douchy, but he broke no rules so you can't go retro punishing him.

 

If there was unwritten rule that salaries were capped at a certain amount with no salary cap isn't that collusion? If I were the players union I would be suing the NFL. If I was one of the players who is no longer in the NFL, why not do it, it is free money.

 

Whether it is retroactive or not isn't the point.

The CBA called for an uncapped year. The league can't then privately set up their own rules for the owners on how they will spend money. If the CBA gave them the ability to do things and then the league punishes them for doing it then the league is in violation of the CBA.

Furthermore, the players would sure have loved to use the fact that the owners were creating private rules which included punishment during a negotiated uncapped year to control what teams did with money in court.

 

I don't see the players argument, can you elaborate?

The Redskins and Cowboys pissed the other teams off, nobody is on their side. Its not a battle worth fighting. For the Cowboys, the way they manipulated things, I think it actually works in their favor. So what if they're penalized 2.5 mil the next years, their gain was greater.

 

If teams are being punished about going over a hypothetical cap ceiling in an uncapped year, shouldn't teams also be punished by going under the hypothetical cap floor? Both things happened, and both are normally not allowed in regular years. Interested in seeing what happens here, but I'm thinking the Cowboys and Redskins are going to push the ramifications back as far as possible and drag out a fight.

 

Fifty plus years as the best run sports league on the planet; every bit as tough on each other as they are on the players and TV networks.

 

Im going in that the Skins and Cowboys win this arguement. The league is either going to have to prove they themselves colluded or punished teams unfairly (Tampa Bay) and selectively chose how and who to punish.

 

What's the latest on the lawsuit?