Quote:
Originally Posted by HoopheadVII
I believe you're missing the point.
Keeping people from paying as much as they want for players in an uncapped year = illegal collusion.
Keeping people from shifting too much salary cap hit into an uncapped year <> illegal collusion.
The 2006 CBA had several clauses agreed between the League and the NFLPA to prevent the latter. It's clear they agreed on the principle.
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Hopefully, my last entry on this, because until it's ruled on we just keep banging heads.
The fact that the 2006 CBA had several clauses defining illegal actions that were agreed upon by the NFL and NFLPA may or may not prove it was a shared concern. BUT what it DOES prove is that our actions
met the letter of the law as it was written in 2006. To extrapolate out and say that somehow the CBA as written proves a spirit or intent on the NFLPA's part is ludicrous. We did not use a heretofore unused scheme. Option bonuses and voidable options were expressly allowed in the salary cap era, and NOT expressly disallowed in the uncapped year.
IF the NFLPA agreed on the principle, then in the 2006 CBA, or at some later date prior to the beginning of the uncapped league year, the NFL should have gotten an amendment to the CBA stating that the uncapped year should not be used to play tricks with the salary cap going forward. BUT, the NFLPA's express position was that if the salary cap died, it was not coming back. And if it hadn't come back, which was a valid possibility at the time the contracts in question were written, then there would have been no issue as to the salary cap techniques used.
Bottomline, there is no elastic clause in the 2006 CBA that says " and other salary cap manipulations that a team may use". It clearly defines which were illegal, and any other techniques used before, and again after the uncapped year, should be presumed legal and valid, and not subject to league sanction.
Awaiting Mara's[hoophead] response