Redskins, Cowboys could go “nuclear” over cap mess

[skinster]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

I agree with that.

However, what's also written in the NFL Bylaws is that the Commissioner has the power to decide what constitutes "conduct detrimental", what "affects competitive balance", and that he has the power to punish teams for it.

On top of that, he apparently gave the Skins multiple non-written warnings in advance as to how he might view certain actions.

Whether you think the Skins should be punished or not, they were definitely playing with fire and got burned.

As a Skins fan, I accept that the Skins tried to pull a fast one, and I accept that the league is trying to punish the team. Where I personally have a problem is:

1) The punishment is unduly harsh. There is no way Haynesworth would have ever been on the Skins roster beyond 2010, and ALL of his cap hit would have legitimately landed in the uncapped 2010 year no matter how his contract was structured.

2) The punishment was delayed for two years and the team was additionally harmed by the timing.

3) The procedure for this was completely screwed up.

4) The League burned relationship capital with the NFLPA to punish two of its own teams.

The issue here is how vague "conduct detrimental" is. That term can be used to justify quite literally any possible punishment given. I'm pretty sure that the way the arbitrator will see that clause is if a team thinks up a creative way to cheat that has not been specifically mentioned in the rules. For example, lets say the bears/ravens draft trade miscommunication last year was two different teams, and was between two division rivals. And it was proven that the team representing the bears intentionally didn't report the trade to the league to improve the odds that some guy they felt would really help the team representing the ravens didn't get picked by them. That is not covered in the cba, but it is "conduct detrimental" that affects the "competative balance." This is the type of scenario that this term was used for, shady actions that are not covered by the cba. Not actions that are approved by the league as legitimate. I don't think there is any way the arbitrator can rule this in any way but the redskins favor.