Redskins, Cowboys could go “nuclear” over cap mess

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

2011 wasn't an uncapped year.

Good catch. Mistyped that, and it doesn't make sense as written. Should read:

"And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is a capped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year."

[T.O.Killa]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

Good catch. Mistyped that, and it doesn't make sense as written. Should read:

"And as someone else wrote, even if there were a $34m cap hit in 2011, it would still be OK because 2011 is a capped year, and they couldn't gain any competitive advantage in future years by shifting tons of money into an uncapped year."

Yeah, but they did gain an unfair advantage in futures years by going so far below the cap floor in the uncapped year that they could make this huge charge to 2011. Reducig the charge in future years.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by T.O.Killa

Yeah, but they did gain an unfair advantage in futures years by going so far below the cap floor in the uncapped year that they could make this huge charge to 2011. Reducing the charge in future years.

Certainly this points to the hypocrisy of the punishment, but unfortunately, hypocrisy and unfairness are not what are being evaluated (most likely). So while we all know that the decision was patently messed up, the overturning of it isn't as clear cut.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Certainly this points to the hypocrisy of the punishment, but unfortunately, hypocrisy and unfairness are not what are being evaluated (most likely). So while we all know that the decision was patently messed up, the overturning of it isn't as clear cut.

Yes... our best moral argument is that we shouldn't be punished for doing something that was not against any documented rules. Arguing that other teams are getting or have gotten away with similar tactics is a losing argument because it is wrong.

I'd like to point out that I strongly believe we've been screwed. I just don't think we were screwed in the manner that some of you seem think we were. The emotional arguments are not going to get us anywhere. Stick to the facts...we did not do anything wrong.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Yes... our best moral argument is that we shouldn't be punished for doing something that was not against any documented rules. Arguing that other teams are getting or have gotten away with similar tactics is a losing argument because it is wrong.

I'd like to point out that I strongly believe we've been screwed. I just don't think we were screwed in the manner that some of you seem think we were. The emotional arguments are not going to get us anywhere. Stick to the facts...we did not do anything wrong.

I'll agree with you on this. But the league is going to argue that we were causing salaries to go up or salaries for other players cause we were paying our two so much money in such a short amount of time.

But no one cared that PManning got a $100 mill contract? That clearly raised QB salaries especially to any team who had a QB with similar skills, ie; Saints, Giants, and Patriots.

Then there is the $100mill contract for AH. No one complained about that contract being too much for a player and how it would cause a rise in salaries to that positions and possibly force some teams to not be able to sign their DL.

The whole arguement is BS that the league is making. Lets throw their cards on the table..... they didn't want any one team going out this year and picking up all the good Free Agent talent screwing other teams from either keeping their player or keeping other teams from being able to compete for those players. The owners pissed and moaned and the Exec Committe along with Goodell came up with a cock eyed way of shafting the Skins and keeping them from using the full $36mill in CAP space that they would have used.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

I'll agree with you on this. But the league is going to argue that we were causing salaries to go up or salaries for other players cause we were paying our two so much money in such a short amount of time.

But no one cared that PManning got a $100 mill contract? That clearly raised QB salaries especially to any team who had a QB with similar skills, ie; Saints, Giants, and Patriots.

Then there is the $100mill contract for AH. No one complained about that contract being too much for a player and how it would cause a rise in salaries to that positions and possibly force some teams to not be able to sign their DL.

The whole arguement is BS that the league is making. Lets throw their cards on the table..... they didn't want any one team going out this year and picking up all the good Free Agent talent screwing other teams from either keeping their player or keeping other teams from being able to compete for those players. The owners pissed and moaned and the Exec Committe along with Goodell came up with a cock eyed way of shafting the Skins and keeping them from using the full $36mill in CAP space that they would have used.

Covered this earlier - the league is absolutely NOT going to argue what you wrote above - that would be obvious evidence of collusion.

Graziano speculated as to that based on something someone else wrote, but the logic was full of holes. IIRC, it went like this:

- Reports were that multiple teams complained about the Skins and Cowboy moves
- I can think of three teams that had trouble holding onto players because the franchise tag at those positions went up that year
- Those must be the teams complaining and that must be the reason why

Nevermind the fact that 29 owners voted to ratify the sanctions and that 26 of those 29 benefited at least indirectly from the 3 teams losing their players.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by T.O.Killa

Yeah, but they did gain an unfair advantage in futures years by going so far below the cap floor in the uncapped year that they could make this huge charge to 2011. Reducig the charge in future years.

Not sure how going below the cap floor helps in future years - unless your argument is that saving money in 2010 means they have more cash on hand to spend in 2011?

If you're going to give a player $X over Y years, better to have as much cap hit in the uncapped year as possible.

Please explain how teams spending below the cap floor in 2010 gained any competitive advantage by doing so.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

Not sure how going below the cap floor helps in future years - unless your argument is that saving money in 2010 means they have more cash on hand to spend in 2011?

If you're going to give a player $X over Y years, better to have as much cap hit in the uncapped year as possible.

Please explain how teams spending below the cap floor in 2010 gained any competitive advantage by doing so.

I guess the theory here is that by not having to abide by a spending floor those teams that chose to spend minimally did so by not signing players to contracts. Absent these multi-year contracts these teams theoretically saved future cap-space. Essentially they have more future space since they don't have contracts on the books that they might well have had if a spending floor existed or they spent more freely in the capless year. I think the potential advantage isn't quite as great but it exists to some degree. Or more accurately...I don't see how spending less than an imaginary cap floor is more egregious than spending more than the imaginary cap limit.

[T.O.Killa]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

I guess the theory here is that by not having to abide by a spending floor those teams that chose to spend minimally did so by not signing players to contracts. Absent these multi-year contracts these teams theoretically saved future cap-space. Essentially they have more future space since they don't have contracts on the books that they might well have had if a spending floor existed or they spent more freely in the capless year. I think the potential advantage isn't quite as great but it exists to some degree. Or more accurately...I don't see how spending less than an imaginary cap floor is more egregious than spending more than the imaginary cap limit.

That is part of it, but teams were allowed to dump contracts, also. If we had cut DHall and Haynesworth, we would not have got in any cap trouble and we would have been even father under the cap.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by T.O.Killa

That is part of it, but teams were allowed to dump contracts, also. If we had cut DHall and Haynesworth, we would not have got in any cap trouble and we would have been even father under the cap.

Agreed...that's where I really scratch my head as to the reasoning behind all this. I draw a very fine line of distinction between what we did and simply having cut them. Both achieve similar results yet it is totally inconceivable to think that we would get punished for having just cut them. So the "competitive advantage" could have been achieved through actions that definitely wouldn't have been subject to sanction. And make no mistake the league's argument is that we gained this "advantage" now and into the future so whether we cut them or did what we did is irrelevant. The result is the same...freed cap space. But in one case it's ok and in another it's not? Hope the league has on its spikes walking that slippery slope.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Agreed...that's where I really scratch my head as to the reasoning behind all this. I draw a very fine line of distinction between what we did and simply having cut them. Both achieve similar results yet it is totally inconceivable to think that we would get punished for having just cut them. So the "competitive advantage" could have been achieved through actions that definitely wouldn't have been subject to sanction. And make no mistake the league's argument is that we gained this "advantage" now and into the future so whether we cut them or did what we did is irrelevant. The result is the same...freed cap space. But in one case it's ok and in another it's not? Hope the league has on its spikes walking that slippery slope.

If you give a player $X over Y capped years, you still have to fit the total amount into the caps for those years, and teams have the freedom to decide how much cap hit to take in each of those years. If one year is uncapped, and you dump most of the cap hit into that year, you're essentially getting a good player for very little cap hit in the later years.

If you cut the player, you're not getting the benefit of the player in those future years.

The real point where the Skins got screwed is that if in 2010 anyone had objected or told them there would be action taken based on how they restuctured the contracts, they absolutely would have cut Haynesworth before the end of the 2010 league year in February 2011 instead of holding on to him and trading him for a draft pick. There was no way on earth Haynesworth was going to be on the roster in 2011. The worst punishment that should have come down is to take away a 5th round pick in 2013 (what we got for Haynesworth) and have Hall's contract count $3m against the cap for the next 3 years.

That's the absolute most benefit the Skins have gotten out of restructuring. $36m over 2 years is ridiculous.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

Not sure how going below the cap floor helps in future years - unless your argument is that saving money in 2010 means they have more cash on hand to spend in 2011?

If you're going to give a player $X over Y years, better to have as much cap hit in the uncapped year as possible.

Please explain how teams spending below the cap floor in 2010 gained any competitive advantage by doing so.

I'd guess:

Less spent money means more pocket money
They didn't spend as much on players as the other teams
They tried to spend less in order to keep salaries down for their advantage

The key issue has been brought up over and over. The reason for an uncapped year was to force the two sides to work harder to come to an agreement in order to keep either side from feeling like they were getting screwed during the uncapped period. In this case neither side could agree, both sides let it get to an uncapped year. Heck the owners wanted an uncapped year and even Locked out the players.

So what is the fear of an uncapped year?

Players: owners not spending as much and keeping more of their money.
Owners: other owners spending $$$ on players raising salaries and CAP.

But that is exactly why the uncapped year was put in place to help force the two sides to come to an agreement prior to the uncapped year. It didn't happen. So two teams take advantage of the uncapped year and the league has issue's with the fact. Guess what they never should have let it go to an uncapped year. Basically what it is is the owners wanted their cake and to eat it too. Uncapped year, change in some of the rules, Rookie salary CAP, force the NFLPA to agree to their demands, AND no one team spending too much.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

Not sure how going below the cap floor helps in future years - unless your argument is that saving money in 2010 means they have more cash on hand to spend in 2011?

If you're going to give a player $X over Y years, better to have as much cap hit in the uncapped year as possible.

Please explain how teams spending below the cap floor in 2010 gained any competitive advantage by doing so.

Like you said, saving cash in an Unfloored year allows a team to restructure a contract and give upfront cash in a later year. Does it mean the saints, for example couldn't have come up with the cash for Vilma, who knows, but certainly if a team saved cash, accrued interest on that cash, etc etc, they did brighten their balance sheet for years when the floor and cap were back in place.

None of this is relevant to the arbitrator, but it just points to the hypocrisy of this particular sanction, which I put more on Mara than I do on Goodell. I don't believe Goodell ever would have acted on this just on his own.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Like you said, saving cash in an Unfloored year allows a team to restructure a contract and give upfront cash in a later year. Does it mean the saints, for example couldn't have come up with the cash for Vilma, who knows, but certainly if a team saved cash, accrued interest on that cash, etc etc, they did brighten their balance sheet for years when the floor and cap were back in place.

None of this is relevant to the arbitrator, but it just points to the hypocrisy of this particular sanction, which I put more on Mara than I do on Goodell. I don't believe Goodell ever would have acted on this just on his own.

I agree about Goodell. The whole situation screams vindictiveness and I think Goodell generally seems astute enough to have not pursued this without being ordered to. I really don't think he would have done this in this manner on his own. He's carrying out his order from the EMC because that's what employees do. Especially ones with million dollar salaries on the line.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Like you said, saving cash in an Unfloored year allows a team to restructure a contract and give upfront cash in a later year. Does it mean the saints, for example couldn't have come up with the cash for Vilma, who knows, but certainly if a team saved cash, accrued interest on that cash, etc etc, they did brighten their balance sheet for years when the floor and cap were back in place.

None of this is relevant to the arbitrator, but it just points to the hypocrisy of this particular sanction, which I put more on Mara than I do on Goodell. I don't believe Goodell ever would have acted on this just on his own.

Not spending cash in an uncapped year doesn't create additional cap room in the future. This isn't baseball where Pittsburgh can't afford to spend what the Yankees do becuase they don't make enough - because of revenue-sharing all the teams make enough to afford to pay up to the salary floor.