Quote:
Originally Posted by HoopheadVII
Why do you keep stating over and over that the owners had an agreement to keep costs down as though it's fact? Nothing in this case shows evidence of that (other than cynical speculation).
According to the league, the Skins could have given Haynesworth and Hall the exact same amount of money, paid to the players at exactly the same time if they hadn't tried to shift all of the cap hit into 2010.
Actual cash paid is relevant to accusations of collusion. Salary cap hit is an accounting construct for the purposes of keeping competitive balance. They could have given the players the same cash at the same time.
|
I don't think it is as clear cut as you believe it is. In this case the owners were certainly trying to impede teams from freeing future cap space as you have stated. Opening up cap space for future years allows a team to spend more money. By trying to create a virtual cap at the time to inhibit future cap gains they are necessarily depressing future salaries.
Did they have other reasons to desire such limits? Sure, keeping the franchise tag prices down and so forth...all of the reasons involve depressing future monies spent though. They just do.
I strongly believe that what the league attempted to do was collusive. At the very least it is something that would have been a very major issue during labor negotiations. The fact that the league both allowed the contracts at the time and never publicly discussed limiting such actions is a great indication that the league was quite concerned that the tactic the were employing was questionable. If you have a better explanation as to why they contracts were approved even though they were deemed undesirable for the league then I'd love to hear it.