So when the 30 owners other than Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder voted on whether to follow through on $46 million in cap penalties for the Cowboys and Redskins, one of the 30 chose not to vote.
As Mark Maske of the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, and as we’ve confirmed, the Buccaneers abstained.
So why did the Bucs’ vote neither aye nor nay? Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Buccaneers were concerned by the unequal application of the penalties. Specifically, the Redskins and Cowboys were punished via the removal of $46 million in total cap room, but the Saints and the Raiders were simply prevented from sharing in the $1.6 million per team in redistributed Redskins/Cowboys cap room.
The Buccaneers could end up being a key figure in the coming arbitration. To the extent that the NFL contends that overspending in 2010 in some way disrupted competitive balance, the Redskins and Cowboys will surely point to the Buccaneers and other teams that grossly underspent in the uncapped year, which presumably would also affect competitive balance.