But collusion law prevents collective price setting; restriction of spending; restriction of fair market value; division of the market. None of these were affected by the agreement to prevent salary dumping. Teams could spend the money (other teams were over the previous cap as well but weren’t punished because of the way the contracts were structured) it was simply as to when that money would be accounted. The players didn’t suffer damages from the owners decision to uphold the spirit of the expiring CBA’s provision for the uncapped year. They were still going to get their money and they did.

For example, Miles Austin got $17 mil in the first year of his deal; all as a base salary. But if the deal was, say $7 mil first year base salary, and a signing bonus of $10 mil (divided across the life of the contract as it would pertain to the eventual cap) he still would receive the same $17 mil in that first year. The money to the players remained unaffected.

According to Bill Polian, the owners and the union had agreed the provisions of the uncapped year was not intended to allow salary cap dumping. He also said teams where warned if they did it the contracts may go thru but consequences may follow once a new CBA (along with a salary cap) was in place. At the time of these warnings the league had no idea the salary cap for 2012 was going to go down so they did it without the prior knowledge of this supposed bargaining chip.

Afterall there is an understanding not to use a poision pill – therefore the Vikings should be punished retroactively?

Since Goodell is unaware we are raising this issue to his attention so that punishment can be delivered uniformly and consistently. And he can prove that this punishment to the leagues top two earners was not biased or influenced by other owners.

Actually, when it comes to paying players, they are governed by law. When one group of a given industry controls all of the wages of another group, they do have to follow the law. Choosing sponsors is an entirely different situation, to use your example. The catch is that the players are the only ones that can bring a suit against the league. They did have a suit against the league for collusion, but had to drop it as a condition of the new CBA. They wont do anything now because the league threatened a lower cap level, which would have dropped the level for the first time in history.

What you don’t seem to understand is the definition of collusion. (perhaps reading FinFan68′s post @ 9:09 AM will help you). The difference between telling teams to not spend and not dump salaries is the key here reality.

How exactly is it illegal for the owners to decide to abide by the spirit of the expired CBA in reference to the uncapped year? This directive didn’t restrict the amount of money handed out to the players during that time, just when it was accounted for. So who were they colluding against? The lost cap space by the Cowboys & Redskins was subsequently redistributed among the remaining 28 teams to insure it wasn’t just lost.

The owners make many decisions as to how they’ll operate as a group that aren’t governed by what is LEGAL (i.e. whether one can chose their own sponsors). According to Polian, this was one of them.

the list goes on…

All of the contracts show significant “spikes” in 2010 – be it due to miscellaneous bonusses or a restructuring of base salary.

Granted, some teams (i.e. the Redskins) most likely took this practice further than others, but all of the teams are guilty of this to varying degrees. So the question remains “where do you draw the line of acceptibility”?

One answer would be to dock the exact savings from each individual team for 2012/2013. However, this would significantly decrease the available monies for free agents – something the NFLPA would never go for. It looks like the easy option – to placate both the NFL owners and the NFLPA – was to make examples of the (seemingly) two worst offenders and distribute the lost cap between the other teams.

Looking at this from my limited viewpoint, I suspect – and hope – this ruling can be overturned.

Another thing is that teams re-do deals all of the time where signing bonuses are re-worked as salary or reverse. Does that mean those teams have cheated? If they didn’t, and it is an uncapped year, how could the ‘Skins and Cowboys be considered cheaters?

Now if every other team stayed under the cap of the previous year the league has opened itself to collusion charges. If they then bought off the union by raising the cap this year, they have another problem. The Supreme Court has already said they can collude for things like schedules and salary cap, but it also said they are a cabal. Not one entity. They set the rules in their CBA agreement with the players. Colluding outside of that CBA is an Anti-Trust violation.

These fines say that the teams colluded and never negotiated the last CBA in good faith. Because they never had any intention of actually having an uncapped year. And since the players are documented to have argued that in court, their accepting the bride doesn’t help the league.

and for all u redskins fans–u do realize that there is something called a post season. yes u beat us 2 times so good for u. where did that get u–i know where it got big blue-super bowl.

FAIL.
———
It is not a FAIL for beelicker; your critical thinking skills have failed. Look at the Austin contract. He got $17M in BASE salary for 2010. That is absurd. The money is the same as a “normal” contract with signing bonus etc. but the cowboys put the money as base salary because that only counts against a cap for one year and in this case there was no cap to worry about being under. (cap-circumventing device) If that money was an up front bonus like normal, the amount of cap hit would have been spread evenly over the length of the contract. The 17 mil would have roughly been a cap hit of $4M in 2011, 2012, and 2013 but since they circumvented the system, they still get the player and basically no cap hit in the years they knew there would be one. That’s an extra 4mil advantage they shouldn’t have during free agency these years. It’s a scam against the other owners, not collusion against the players.

i absolutely love that the only thing redskins fans can say is that you beat us twice last year. and? you finished last in the division (as usual) and we won the super bowl. while losing those games was embarrasing at the time, it means nothing to us.

the redskins are in trouble (again). move on and stop lashing out at a team that had nothing to do with the decsions YOUR team made. they made their bed…….

——

But we’re still taking away your cap space. Wha? How can you concede that they did nothing wrong yet persist with the punishment. This makes even less sense than before!

Is that what you base your season on as being a success? Beating BIG BLUE twice? LMAO! We were successful cuz we beat the Giants twice, finished last in the division, and missed the playoffs AGAIN…GREAT JOB Foreskins! GREAT JOB….Keep up the good work!

I only hope that some team (read as Giants) planned it all out to spend every penny including the 1.6M extra and then would get slapped for going over the cap if it is lowered back.

The team that systematically dumped salary in the year were the Packers. The NFL is worried about systematic dumping and then punishes 3 contracts (Haynesworth, Hall and Austin).

I could see the hard feelings if the Redskins and Cowboys had gone out and signed a bunch of high end players on 1 year deals. That did not happen. The first thing the Cowboys did after the lockout was create 40 million in dead money that most teams like the Saints and Browns had already cleared off the books during the lockout.

No significance to the difference whatsoever. The league is simply not authorized to give directives/warnings of any type as to what LEGAL means teams are to use or not to use.

No other defense or explanation is relevant. Demanding that teams agree NOT to use loopholes legally available to them is collusion.

We all understand why they did it. What you don’t seem to understand is that it doesn’t matter.

What’s to explain? The Giants have won 9 out of the last 12 games vs the Skins. Yay, you won 2. Congrats. What did those losses cost the Giants? Nothing. They won the Super Bowl. What did those wins cost the Skins? Quite a lot. You had to give up a large number of picks to move up in the draft. So, who is the real loser here? The team holding the Lombardi? Or the one that had to give up it’s top draft picks and, now, part of it’s salary cap? Honestly, if I was a Skins/Dallas fan, I would be upset by this too. But to claim it’s all a Giants fueled conspiracy is nonsense. One, there’s no proof of that at all. Two, if you sit down at the poker table and the guy sitting across from you takes your life savings, whose fault is that, really? Skins and Dallas left themselves open for attack. Whether you think that attack is baseless or not, and you CAN argue that it is indeed baseless, the smart teams covered their you know whats.

How do you know that the Cowboys and Redskins in said meeting of owners didn’t say we don’t agree or want to go along? None of us were there so it’s quite possible they did voice their disagreements against collusion…