Good/Bad News for a Change - 2013 18MM cap penalty probably (not) going away

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Also I doubt the NFL would file a counter suit because I'm sure they feel pretty confortable that they have won each time the issue has come to court. Dotty is not pro player he is contract friendly and owner friendly. Which is why the Skins lost their appeal, and why the NFLPA lost their case.

Sorry, this is just wrong. Doty has historically been very player friendly and it has long been one of the owners' goals to get him removed from hearing appeals on CBA issues. It is why he was written out of the new CBA.

Originally Posted by SBXVII

God forbid he rule against the owners and what then? would he have to face the fact the owners negotiated in bad faith and the whole CBA is null and void? Then the two sides would have to start over in regards to a new CBA tying him up for long hours and meeting and more negotiations?

No. He ruled against them because that was what the law required. As a matter of law, The NFLPA the players had waived their claims - known and unknown - of collusion for anything that occurred prior to the new CBA being signed.

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Heck no it's easier to simply side with the owners and ignore the facts: the owners colluded, negotiated in bad faith, black mailed the NFLPA, and punished two teams for not violating any CBA.

Everything you say is true. The owners colluded and negotiated in bad faith - but then the NFLPA affirmatively waived their claims against the owners for all claims when they signed the new CBA. If they believed that more claims were out there, they shouldn't have waived them. They did so as part of a settlement. Once you say, "Okay, I am done suing you." You can't go back and say "Well, except for this."

As for "blackmailing" the NFLPA, I would suggest it was more of a quid pro quo. The NFLPA came to them first and said "Hey, can we make an arrgangement to get more cap space this year??" to which the NFL said "Sure .... just sign here and let us punish these two teams who refused to join in this, heretofore, unknown collusion against you and you may have some extra cap space this year."

As for the acts before the new CBA, they were fully and legally waived. As for the bad acts afterwords, the penalties were imposed in a procedurally correct fashion (per the arbiter) and were arrived at through a quid pro quo bargain with the union.

The key was the waiver. Without it, the NFL had no leg to stand on. With it the union and Snyder, as far as any appeals concerning violations of the CBA, are legally without remedy.

Also, the NFLPA could have said "Nope, we won't sign off on this. These two teams will spend their money on players and taking cap space away from them harms players." The NFLPA leadership did not do this and simply caved so that they would look better in front of their constituents.

While the owners played hard ball all throughout, I would suggest that the players were ultimately ill served by their leadership. The players gave up a lot of legal issues that seemed like small potatoes at the time but that have come back to haunt them (the Commissioner's authority on sanctions, the waiver) in order to get a shortened work year.