Quote:
Originally Posted by Giantone
There was no "collusion" against the players,no player was denied the right to make money(see A.Haynsworth) the NFL players Association agrees to this ,what was agreed to by 32 owners was not dumping the saleries during the uncapped year,something all but 4 did,why not all 32 just do it and it would benift eveyone?
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Now that I've addressed the Collusion part I'll address the rest. If your right in what you say about the dumping then why did the League sign off on the deals? All they had to do was deny the deals and pass the contracts back to the two owners with the instructions that per the agreement those contracts will not be accepted. Enough said. Done.
But they didn't did they? Why? because had they done that at the time the NFLPA would have had their proof the league had an agreement to keep the costs down and they would have filed the law suit. So the league approves the deals in order to get the new CBA done. No harm no foul. But there is a problem... the other 30 owners are upset that two teams failed to keep to the agreement and want to punish the 2 teams. How do they do that with out getting into trouble? by pulling the NFLPA into a secret meeting and having them agree to not file a law suit.
So if what they owners did was not an illegal issue or any form of legal issue why would they even talk to the NFLPA? Just go out and punish the two owners and be done with it. NO, the Exec Commity was scared that if they did punish then the NFLPA would have their proof of collusion and would have filed suit causing a whole bunch of new problems, ie; the CBA could be called into question all over again and possibly a judge would have made the two parties come to yet another new CBA agreement especially if the NFLPA could prove the owners specifically didn't spend to keep costs down. So the Exec Commity needed the NFLPA to agree not to file a law suit against them so they could punish the Redskins and Cowboys.
There was collusion. The NFLPA was strong armed. and the two teams who chose not to break the labor laws of collusion are being punished for it. Which is wrong. Especially after they approved the deals to now come out and say those deals were wrong. They should have been denied at the time if they were wrong but they weren't. There was no competative edge especially since the other 30 teams could have done the same thing the Redskins and Cowboys did. There was nothing stopping them. There was no law on their books saying they could not do it. They to could have benifited as well. Instead they stuck with the collusion of trying to keep costs down so the NFLPA could not show the owners were making more then they were reporting.