Cowboys lose 10 million in cap space UPDATE x4: NFL's statement post #226

[marionbarberthe4th]

Bold V


"I don't want to make our case here," Jones added. "But all of our contracts were approved by the league and you can't approve a contract that is in violation of league rules. You can't even get it on the books if it isn't in sync with league rules. So you start there."



Less than two weeks after the Cowboys were stripped of $10 million of salary-cap space on the eve of free agency, team owner Jerry Jones said the club plans to fight the penalty and has already reached out to the league and the Washington Redskins, the NFC East rival that received a similar penalty.

"We will and have expressed that we don't agree with that," Jones said Friday at the Hilton Anatole, where the AWARE luncheon, a fundraiser for Alzheimer's disease, was taking place. "What we're doing is a combination procedural and legal and all of that"

Jones added that the Cowboys are "talking with not only the league but the Redskins and whoever we can visit about it....The Cowboys are resisting that to say the least and don't agree with that and how it was figured. I guess the Redskins feel the same way. We're trying to work through that"

The Cowboys were punished March 12 and Jones said they were given little warning about the penalty, which was handed down by the NFL as retribution for the manner in which they structured receiver Miles Austin's contract in 2010, a year when the league was operating without a salary cap. That season, Austin was given a $17 million base salary.

"That's about when we knew about it," he said.

"I don't want to make our case here," Jones added. "But all of our contracts were approved by the league and you can't approve a contract that is in violation of league rules. You can't even get it on the books if it isn't in sync with league rules. So you start there."

After the Cowboys and Redskins received what many outsiders viewed as unfair and draconian penalties for exploiting rules that were in effect that year, reports circulated that both teams' financial flexibility was sacrificed in negotiations with the NFL Players Association so the league could institute a salary cap with a higher ceiling in 2012.

That didn't sit well with Jones, even though he said that the team was able to accomplish its goals in free agency by adding seven newcomers, including cornerback Brandon Carr.

"There were a lot of things rather than Cowboys cap room that I would have rather leveraged the players union to give the NFL," Jones said. "There are many things we would have liked to have had that we bargained in the collective bargaining agreement that if you got some leverage you wanted to gain apart from docking the Cowboys $10 million. I can answer that easily."

Now, Jones is working in concert with the Redskins -- an arrangement he admits is odd.

"First of all, there is no joy in Mudville, having to team up with the Redskins on a point with the league," Jones said. "They're competitors, not cohorts. It just shows you, independent of that, some of the issues we have with this cap space issue. Sometimes you can have strange bedfellows and this is one of them."

We coulda had Mario. There was interest on both sides

 

[Everlastingxxx]

We coulda had Mario. There was interest on both sides

lol

Nice

 

[Midswat]

Glad we're not taking this without a fight.

We got nothing to lose, really.

 

[cmd34]

but I've been told by every moron Cardinal fan at work that we cheated..how can this be?

 

[Sheik]

lol

Watch the spin now.

The homers were talking about how this was no big deal, $10mil is nothing, now deddy is gunna fight, so now it's a huge deal and we were screwed!!!!

Dangit, with that $5mil, we coulda picked up a special teamer and maybe even bright back Bradie James. Shucks.

 

[superpunk]

pretty sure the homers were freaking out about this sheik. day 1 CZ was threatening a class action lawsuit or something.

 

[UVAwahoos]

I believe Sheik is referring to one "Dbair" who will now suddenly be irate.

 

[Sheik]

I believe Sheik is referring to one "Dbair" who will now suddenly be irate.

lol

 

[Hoofbite]

Do you have the numbers, or are you just blindly stating this?

These are all the teams above 126M. I think that was the previous years cap number.

Redskins: $178.2 million.

Cowboys: $166.5 million.

Saints: $145.0 million.

Vikings: $143.4 million.

Seahawks: $138.8 million.

Jets: $135.7 million.

Packers: $135.3 million.

Raiders: $135.2 million.

Colts: $133.1 million.

Bears: $131.9 million.

Eagles: $131.0 million.

Patriots: $128.8 million.

Giants: $128.6 million.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...alary-cap-numbers-if-there-were-a-salary-cap/

 

[dbair1967]

lol

Watch the spin now.

The homers were talking about how this was no big deal, $10mil is nothing, now deddy is gunna fight, so now it's a huge deal and we were screwed!!!!

Dangit, with that $5mil, we coulda picked up a special teamer and maybe even bright back Bradie James. Shucks.

As I've said all along, the 10 million over two years isnt a big deal. Its less than 4% of the cap each season.

The issue is how and why this decision was made, it reaked of bias. I'm glad the Cowboys and Redskins say they will fight it, and the league should have to do the right thing and rescind this.

 

[dbair1967]

These are all the teams above 126M. I think that was the previous years cap number.

Redskins: $178.2 million.

Cowboys: $166.5 million.

Saints: $145.0 million.

Vikings: $143.4 million.

Seahawks: $138.8 million.

Jets: $135.7 million.

Packers: $135.3 million.

Raiders: $135.2 million.

Colts: $133.1 million.

Bears: $131.9 million.

Eagles: $131.0 million.

Patriots: $128.8 million.

Giants: $128.6 million.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...alary-cap-numbers-if-there-were-a-salary-cap/

Doesnt change my opinion at all. None of those teams did anything wrong. But if the Cowboys and Redskins did something wrong and needed to be punished, as noted in another article all but about 6 teams did the exact same thing. Yet Goodell rewarded the leagues other 30 teams at the expense of two.

 

[Sheik]

As I've said all along, the 10 million over two years isnt a big deal. Its less than 4% of the cap each season.

You're right, 4% is not a lot. Unless your team consistently spends 95% of their cap allotment, yet they still have several glaring holes in the roster.

That 4% could be a key player.

 

[Hoofbite]

Doesnt change my opinion at all. None of those teams did anything wrong. But if the Cowboys and Redskins did something wrong and needed to be punished, as noted in another article all but about 6 teams did the exact same thing. Yet Goodell rewarded the leagues other 30 teams at the expense of two.

This is just my guess but I think the decision process factored in a couple of things. Just my guess.

1. Salary Cap Status: Obviously, Dallas and Washington were way the fuck up there. I think the league was willing to forgive teams who's cap statuses weren't all that ugly. Yes, there was no cap but everyone knew there would be and I think it provides context and a basis for determining the magnitude of the act.

KC dumped like 17M of a rookie contract on to 2010 but their cap number would have been less than 85M. They could have done it in a capped year.

We just witnessed Dallas free up a shit ton of space for free agency. If we modestly assume any given team can free up 10M, that leaves 9 teams who couldn't get under the previous cap number of 123M. I thought it was 126M but it was actually 123M, I believe.

And these numbers are from September 19th which means they are AFTER all the moves.

So while the majority of teams may have dumped some money, they could have still operated while complying with the cap.

I think another aspect that may be getting lost is, look at how fucking big that number is for Dallas. Seriously, 40M above the previous years cap? You be nuts to think that Dallas didn't have other contracts with large hits that year because there's really no way they could get to that point while complying with the cap the previous season and complying with the cap the following season.

They punished Dallas for the Austin contract which means that Dallas was still at 149M without that contract. It appears as though each team was given some leeway but Dallas and Washington took a foot when they were given an inch. Dallas would have been cool at 149M and they still would have been the #2 highest team. They were without a doubt granted passes on some of the contracts just as other teams were granted their passes but that wasn't enough. They got greedy and went for more.

2. Contract Structure: I've gone over how the contract for Austin was by all means an "abnormal" Jerry Jones contract. Without question this contract was written to help the team out down the road and it was written almost 10 days before these cap numbers, well after Dallas used up it's freebies with the league.

3. Player Cap Charge Expectations: This is the big one, IMO. Only because this is where the unfair advantage comes in. I've hit on this issue before as well. What the market says Austin should charge the cap was NOWHERE NEAR what the team is being charged to the cap. You could add on the 5M for this season and last season and his cap charge is still below the average of the top 10 players at his position. Over the course of 2011 and 2012, Dallas came out like 15M under the market charge. Add the 10M penalty and they are still 5M under what anyone would reasonable expect them to have to account for regarding the cap.

This is an area where I think Peppers' contract is deemed "okay". His cap charge is where you would expect a player of his position and quality to be. He's definitely top 10 at his position a likely top 5. The Bears wrote a ugly looking contract on the surface but they are not reaping multiple seasons of cheap cap charges from it.





When you add it all up, Jerry got what he deserved. It fucking sucks because that 5M could be Chris Myers or Scott Wells but when you look at the situation it's hard to say that Jerry didn't attempt to game the system.

Dallas was way the fuck over the previous cap, using up any sort of leeway the league had granted to the teams along the way. The team then went a step further and tacked on another 10%+ in cap charges to 2010 by writing an intentionally advantageous contract that resulted in minimal cap charges for 2 seasons (and more realistically the entire deal) for a player that was Top 10, possibly Top 5 at the time the deal was signed and they did this against the collective decision of the league.

The only prayer he has is to force it to the courts which is a bullshit move for a guy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

And I'll tell you why it's a bullshit move. Regardless of whether or not he can get a ruling in his favor, Jerry Jones and the other 32 guys had agreed to a number of rules for that season.

"Final 8" ring a bell? 8 Divisional Playoff teams were restricted in free agency.

How about the little rule they laid down where players had to have had accrued and extra year or two before hitting the market, thereby slashing the 2010 free agent pool significantly?

They also added 2 transitions tags, decreasing the available number of free agents by up to 2 per team.

Those were the rules. The league put those rules in place and you'd probably have a slam dunk in court on any of them because they are legitimate restrictions on player movement, not just dictations of salary cap accounting.

So where was Jerry bitching about the limited free agent possibilities for Dallas in 2010? Dallas was a Final 8 team in 2009, why the fuck didn't he care that he was hampered in signing free agents the following year?

Why does he care now when he agreed to, followed and was more severely limited by the other rules? He must have agreed to them. They vote on everything and if he's pissed enough now, you don't think he would have been pissed back then to be hamstrung by something he didn't agree to?

Here's why he doesn't care. This isn't about the teams ability to acquire talent with limited cap space. He proved that by freeing up dollar after dollar and handing it out to the top CB on the market and a bunch of other guys. It's not about whether or not he thinks he can manage the 5M because he knows damn well he can.

This is about Jerry getting called out on the national stage and getting bitch slapped for having his fingers crossed on the directive to keep salary cap charges in perspective. He got caught and ended up with a little egg on his face and now he's pissed. Now it's personal because Jerry's the biggest cash cow in the NFL and you don't fuck with the goose that lays the golden egg. He and Napoleon Bonaparte thought they could take a little more because they give so much and now they have some ego to protect.

 

[Midswat]

I'm glad we're fighting it.

I never believed losing 10 mil was "no big deal."

I don't think we win any appeal/grievance, but like I said, we have nothing to lose.

 

[Midswat]

John Mara: Cowboys and Redskins are lucky they didn't lose picks


John Mara, New York Giants' owner and chair of the NFL Management Council, which imposed the salary cap penalties said the Redskins and Cowboys shouldn't be surprised by the penalties that were imposed according to Calvin Watkins of ESPNDallas.com.

"I thought the penalties imposed were proper," Mara said. "What they did was in violation of the spirit of the salary cap. They attempted to take advantage of a one-year loophole, and quite frankly, I think they're lucky they didn't lose draft picks."

"They attempted to take advantage of it knowing full well there would be consequences."

Said Jerry Jones Sunday: "That's John's opinion. That's not my opinion."

When reached for comment on the filing of a grievance, the Redskins said they were referring all calls to the league office.

 

[dbair1967]

What do "uncapped" mean?

Mara is a piece of shit. I hope by being a petty prick and bullying Goodell into a stupid decision, that the NFLPA sues the shit out of the league for collusion.

 

[Hoofbite]

What do "uncapped" mean?

Mara is a piece of shit. I hope by being a petty prick and bullying Goodell into a stupid decision, that the NFLPA sues the shit out of the league for collusion.

The NFLPA signed off on it.

 

[UVAwahoos]

I feel like the NFLPA also colluded in order to get the salary cap higher for all the players. This might have to go to independent arbitration, but pep probably can explain better.

 

[dbair1967]

I'm not sure John Mara should be talking
March, 25, 2012

By Dan Graziano

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to New York Giants owner John Mara for stopping Sunday afternoon in the Breakers lobby to talk to a few of us about the salary cap penalties against the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys. He didn't hold back, and as you can see if you scroll through this blog's timeline, we got plenty of good material out of it.

But in the grand scheme of things, when we sit down to talk about the right and the wrong of this whole situation, there's very little right and a whole big pile of wrong, and the defiant stance Mara took Sunday afternoon made that pile much bigger.

The aggrieved parties in this instance are the Redskins and the Cowboys, and they're keeping quiet on the whole thing. Sure, they filed a grievance against the NFL and the NFLPA on Sunday, seeking to get some relief from the combined $46 million in salary cap room they've been docked over the next two offseasons. But they declined several opportunities Sunday to add to the rhetoric



[+] Enlarge
Ed Mulholland/US PresswireGiants owner John Mara has openly criticized the Redskins and the Cowboys for their spending during the 2010 uncapped season.
Stephen Jones, the Cowboys' director of player personnel: "Within the confines of our collective bargaining agreement, we are trying to have a voice and a hearing in terms of our cap situation."

Bruce Allen, the Redskins' general manager: "I have nothing to say on that. We'll let the league speak to it."

Mike Shanahan, the Redskins' head coach: "I'll let the commissioner speak about that."

We tried egging these guys on. I read Jones the quote from Mara in which he said the Redskins and Cowboys were lucky they didn't lose draft picks for this, and all Jones said was, "That's John's opinion. Not my opinion."

But Mara came out guns-a-blazin'. And if there are people out there who believe (as I do) that the NFL has acted with irresponsible, petty arrogance in this case and imposed unjustified penalties against teams that broke no actual rules, Mara's stance isn't likely to change their minds.

There was no salary cap in 2010. This is a fact. Mara repeatedly brushed that aside during questioning Sunday, irritated at the fact's mere existence. "We've had a cap for 29 of the last 30 years," he said more than once, and he explained rather clearly that teams were told, more than once, to watch the way they spent money and structured contracts during the uncapped 2010 season. He basically admitted to what, in any other business, would be collusion and grounds for an antitrust lawsuit. But he bristled at the mention of that word, too, saying, "This has nothing to do with collusion. It has to do with teams attempting to gain a competitive advantage through a loophole in the system. They attempted to take advantage of it knowing full well there would be consequences."

What we know about this case is that the NFL basically engaged in a sanctioned form of collusion in 2010, telling its teams that yeah, there was no cap, but that they needed to act as though there were one because they were sure the cap would come back and it was wrong to use this "loophole" as a means of gaining an advantage against the cap in future years. Mara admitted all of that Sunday, and he did so in a way that strongly indicates he believes himself to be on the correct side of the argument.

But he is not, of course. And in more ways than one, he is very much in the wrong.

Mara is wrong because the only thing of which the Redskins and Cowboys are guilty is failing to honor a shady gentleman's agreement between 32 billionaires who don't want to pay their employees any more than they have to. What the NFL, Mara and the other owners did, effectively imposing a salary cap when none had been agreed to by the other party (i.e., the players) in their collective bargaining agreement, was patently wrong. To punish the teams that didn't go along with the wrong, and to so strenuously defend the punishment as though it were right, is the height of arrogance.

Mara is wrong because, by effectively admitting collusion, he's giving the NFLPA ammunition for a new fight the league does not want. The union had to drop all pending litigation against the league as part of the Brady settlement last year when the lockout ended. That included the collusion charges they filed against the league for the suspicions they had about this kind of 2010 activity. Mara's admission could well qualify as new evidence that could allow the union to file new charges. And because the NFLPA is named in the Redskins' and Cowboys' complaint, it has the option of obtaining discovery on collusion should it wish to pursue action against the league. The union is upset that the league backed it into a corner here, effectively forcing it to agree to the penalties against the Cowboys and Redskins under the threat of a reduction in this year's salary cap, and would love an opening from which to attack on this.

Mara is wrong because he's the chairman of the NFL Management Council, which is the group that imposed these penalties, and he's the owner of a team that plays the Cowboys and Redskins twice each year and competes with them for the same division title. That's not to say Mara did this on purpose to get one over on two division rivals. But one of the first things we're taught in any journalism class is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety -- to steer clear of any activity that could ever allow anyone to accuse us of engaging in a conflict of interest. That is clearly not a concern Mara has in this case, but he should. There's a chance he should have recused himself from this whole thing, and even if he hadn't, he's not doing himself or his excellent reputation any favors by being the aggressive face of the penalties.

What's interesting here is that, when these penalties came down, a lot of people assumed it was the teams at the other end of the spending spectrum who were upset with what the Cowboys and Redskins had done -- traditionally low-spending teams like the Buccaneers and the Jaguars and the Chiefs and the Bills. But what seems clear now is that Mara, the owner of the Giants, was one of the driving forces behind holding the Redskins' and Cowboys' feet to the fire over an issue the league office likely wouldn't have pursued if not for pressure from owners. It makes Mara look petty and small and vindictive, and those aren't words usually associated with him. It makes no sense to me that he's gone to such great lengths to allow people to apply them to him now.

 

[dbair1967]

The NFLPA signed off on it.

sure they did, to get the new deal approved...it doesnt mean they dont believe the league owners werent guilty of collusion