Comments on: Union denies link between cap penalties, De Smith contract

By: revangel5

revangel5 — Sat, 26 May 2012 17:20:54 +0000

Why was there an uncapped year? Because the OWNERS agreed to it in the last CBA. The uncapped year was supposed to hold risks for BOTH sides and give incentive for negotiating the new CBA ahead of time.
The risk to the owners was for high cash flow teams to do exactly was the ‘skins and ‘boys did. The risk for the players was for teams to spend way less, like the ‘Bus and others did.
If, in retrospect, the owners think the uncapped year was stupid, they can only blame themselves (unless they assumed collusion from the start).
When the uncapped year approached, the owners tried to eliminate their risk by engaging in collusion. And then, 2 years later, punish the teams that didn’t go along.

By: CKL

CKL — Sat, 26 May 2012 16:49:15 +0000

@ butthatmakes etc

One of the few issues the NFL and NFLPA seemed to agree on all along was a rookie salary scale. Why would they even have discussed that at all at those early points if a salary cap wasn’t pretty much a given? No cap, no rookie scale available to implement. There was NEVER not going to be a cap. Never.

By: cowboyscanada

cowboyscanada — Sat, 26 May 2012 02:10:03 +0000

‘boys and Redskins got screwed!

By: marima07

marima07 — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:52:35 +0000

Love these behind-the-scenes look at the business side of football, Mike. Thanks for your perspective and for explaining the issues so well.

By: kchoya

kchoya — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:58:20 +0000

“The teams shouldn’t have assumed that there would be a salary cap in the next CBA.”

Really? What would cause any reasonable person to assume there wasn’t going to be a salary cap?

The success of the NFL has been based on the ability of teams in small markets (Green Bay, Pittsburgh, etc.) to compete with team in big markets (New York, Dallas, etc.). If you’re truly OK with construting the uncapped year to mean that the big market teams could have created a competitive imbalance by monkeying with their players’ contracts to create huge amounts of cap space in 2011 and beyond, then you’re in the minority.

By: butthatmakestoomuchsense

butthatmakestoomuchsense — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:25:28 +0000

@kchoya -Yes, it’s OK by me.

It’s what the CBA called for, it’s what the owners agreed to. If the owners had a problem with a team laying out contracts in the manner that you described there should have been a clause specifically prohibiting it. There wasn’t.

In addition, there was no CBA in place for the 2011 season and beyond. The teams shouldn’t have assumed that there would be a salary cap in the next CBA.

By: goldrush36

goldrush36 — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:24:44 +0000

Too much is brought up about the capped/uncapped year. The point is they were told not to try to restructure contracts and dump the money in 2010 to avoid the cap in FOLLOWING years. Miles Austin made just shy of $20M in 2010…. Now they could and should make the argument that the league approved the restructured contracts with the pre-meditation of nailing them on it later. I applaud Jerry and Danny boy for standing up to that crook Mara and the way it went down, but they probably should’ve gone about fighting it another way

By: kchoya

kchoya — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:52:46 +0000

I HAVE A QUESTION for everyone who thinks 2010, being an uncapped year, allowed franchises to do whatever they wanted.

If you truly believe there were no restrictions on what teams could do, that means, for example, Jerry Jones could’ve restructured all of his contracts to pay each of his players $20M for 2010 and the league minimum for the remaining years of each contract. As such, the Cowboys would have Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Miles Austin, etc. under contact for the league minimum this year, leaving $100M+ to go out and sign tons of high priced free agents.

If you believe 2010 was an unrestricted, no-holds-barred year, you HAVE to be ok with that logical possibility. Ok by you?

By: thegreatgabbert

thegreatgabbert — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:52:08 +0000

De should be penalized for some of those caps. Severely.

By: butthatmakestoomuchsense

butthatmakestoomuchsense — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:31:30 +0000

I HAVE A QUESTION for everyone pointing the finger at the NFLPA, wondering why everyone just can’t get along, villifying Jeffrey Kessler, etc:

Why couldn’t the owners just play by the rules they agreed upon by allowing 2010 to be an uncapped year?

By: letsgonuclear

letsgonuclear — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:28:05 +0000

“The NFLPA contends that it didn’t believe that the cap penalties suggested collusion.”

They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means…

Seriously, 30 owners decided to punish 2 owners for not playing the game they were supposed to play. The owners “agreed” to limit what they’d do with the uncapped year. Given that they weren’t acting within the CBA, that was collusion. And the penalties imposed for not playing by those rules certainly amounted to evidence of collusion. Had the owners not colluded, there wouldn’t have been penalties.

What exactly does the NFLPA consider collusion?

And why didn’t Jones and Snyder fight this harder? Do they view limited cap space as an easy excuse for on-field performance as usual?