Pat Kirwin's take:
Agenda items: 'Skins-Cowboys mess, FA flood coming, Flynn's call
By Pat Kirwan | CBSSports.com NFL Insider
1. NFL Punishment of the Cowboys, Redskins: The NFL has a checks and balance system when NFL contracts are sent to the league office for approval. Many times deals are rejected or have to be modified. Clubs and agents have to rework the language for league approval. In the end every NFL contract has the commissioner's name on it when approved.
No one could argue over the past 10 years the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins have been willing to spend cash over the cap to get players signed.
Agents look forward to working with either team and hope they are chasing one of their clients. The Cowboys will close deals with signing bonuses and the Redskins have a long history of chasing veteran talent with cash. For the Competition Committee to cite "competitive balance" as a reason to punish these two teams and restrict their use of salary cap space seems counterproductive.
As one prominent agent said, "the Redskins and Cowboys are market setting teams that drive salaries up. It will cost players money."
A club executive said "to give any of the Redskins' or Cowboys' cap space to teams like Cincinnati doesn't make sense."
For the record, on the 2012 salary cap report the Cowboys have $35,085,440 in prorated signing bonus money while a team like Cincinnati has $18,658,318 so who really suffers? Ultimately the players suffer of course. So, I ask this: How is "dumping" a contract like Albert Haynesworth's by a Redskins front office that inherited his deal bad for competitive balance in the NFL?
Bottom line: the Executive Committee of the NFL Management Council stuck its nose in team business where it didn't belong. It's a dangerous and slippery slope when league officials start managing the business of teams in order to create competitive balance.
What about the teams that never spent to the floor of the old salary cap in the uncapped year because they didn't have to?
