The NFC East rival Cowboys and Redskins have issued a joint statement after they lost their appeal of their salary cap penalty from the NFL, and the statement suggests that the teams don’t intend to fight on.
“We pursued our salary cap claim pursuant to the CBA and we respect and will abide by the arbitrator’s decision to dismiss. We will continue to focus on our football teams and the 2012 season,” the statement says.
That statement doesn’t specifically say that the teams won’t explore other avenues of relief, but it suggests that the teams are ready to move on. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Dan Snyder may have concluded that pressing the fight further could be damaging to everyone involved, even if Jones and Snyder still believe that they were treated unfairly.
And it’s easy to see why they would believe they were treated unfairly when the NFL docked the Cowboys $10 million in salary cap space and the Redskins $36 million in salary cap space, all for allegedly violating a salary cap that didn’t actually exist at the time. The Cowboys and Redskins are saying conciliatory things about respecting the decision on the cap penalties, but it would be completely understandable if they’re still privately seething.