Quote:
Originally Posted by HoopheadVII
The League's argument is that they are not punishing the Skins for paying players in an uncapped year. They are punishing the Skins for shifting future cap hits into an uncapped year.
In 2010, the Skins gave Haynesworth a $21m bonus and Hall a $15m bonus. Normally, as signing bonuses they would count equally against the cap over the life of the contract: $7m in '10, '11, and '12 for Haynesworth and $3m in '10, '11, '12, '13 and '14 for Hall.
What the Skins did was get creative with the accounting. They gave Haynesworth a void clause that they knew he would never ever exercise because it made it a player-controlled option and shifted the entire cap hit to '10. They gave Hall a Roster Bonus instead of a Signing Bonus in '10 because the whole roster bonus would count against the cap in '10.
The League is saying they could have paid the players as much as they wanted in the uncapped year, but couldn't structure the contracts to totally load the cap hit in the uncapped year. They addressed the principle in the 2006 CBA, they agreed amongst themselves on the principle going into the uncapped year, and two teams went out of their way to violate that principle.
The question is, how do you deal with it?
A) Reject the contracts? Bad idea going into a lockout while being sued for collusion.
B) Address it later? Existing rules and procedure don't allow for salary cap redistribution without creating a mess.
C) Punish them within existing authority? Taking draft picks is overly harsh.
D) Let them skate? 29 Owners say no.
Looks like the League chose B).
Look, I thought the Skins and Cowboys were going to win this until I heard about the 29-0-3 vote. Everything in the NFL comes down to 24 owner votes, the other owners supposedly initiated this, and the other owners agree they should be punished.
Fair or not, I doubt the Skins win this in the end. The bright side is that Skins fans could be the ultimate winners if the fight escalates to the point where the League forces Snyder to sell the team (which ultimately takes 24 votes).
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I get so baffled at how people just avoid the collusion part. Your "A" is the key. The owners were breaking the law. They agreed to break the law. They knew they couldn't do anything about the contracts or the two teams with pointing out they were breaking the law. So they APPROVE the contracts.
I like to think DS and JJ forced them into this situation. Either they not approve them and get caught or they approve them and be forced to eat it while not liking it. My problem is ...
1- the owners were already breaking the law. not a rule. the law. which in most peoples moral compasses is worse.
2- how is the league going to punish them after they already looked at the contracts, and agreed to them. Thats like the police telling you that you can speed then when you do they pull you over and give you a ticket for speeding.