NFL taking away Redskins cap space

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by irish

I'm not at all surprised the NFLPA agreed. While the players may or may not have made less in the uncapped year (I suspect they didnt make less) that was only one year. The NFLPA agreed to the deal so that their players could make more every year after that because part of the deal was keeping the cap from going down. The NFLPA too the long term view of keeping salaries up for their members.

Also, for the fans this cap reduction news came out of the blue, but it didnt for the Skins. They were continually warned by the NFL to cool it yet for some reason they ignored the warnings. The sad part is that the Skins could have avoided this mess if they'd have just heeded the warnings and backed off a little. The NFL tried to save the Skins from themselves but the Skins were too arrogant to listen.

What I don't see in your response, is an answer to why any team should have had to "cool it" during the uncapped year. That is really the crux of the issue. If the league wanted that to be abided by, they should have put it in writing and have the owners vote on it. They didn't do that, because had they the NFLPA would have used it to show collusion during one of the most heated part of the new CBA negotiations.

I doubt that the Skins/Cowboys take outright legal action, simply because they don't want to harm the league's antitrust exemption, or negotiating stance with the NFLPA at some later date, but I am positive that they will put heavy pressure on the league to reduce or dismiss the penalties before this whole saga is said and done. My guess is that within a month of DSmith's re-election (or at this month's owners meetings whichever comes later), the penalties will be reduced to an amount which allows the salary cap upward adjustments for this year, and negates any penalty which would have been moved forward into next year