[SBXVII]

A comment from the "Sports Law Blog"

Thomas Grove said...
A clause in the NFL Constitution and Bylaws allows the Commissioner to take away draft picks and/or fine a team whenever he deems a competitive aspect of the game has been violated "at any time". Clause in conjunction with that allows Commissioner to refer the matter to the NFL Management Committee to impose any such other recommendations it deems appropriate. A final clause allows the Commissioner to disapprove of contracts within 10 days after such contracts are filed with the Commissioner.

Redskins and Cowboys will argue that by not disapproving the contracts within 10 days means the NFL accepted them, and they cannot now retroactively go back and punish them. NFL will argue that "at any time" language means they can go back and punish. The problem I see with NFL's argument is that the clause that the Commissioner can disapprove of contracts is directly on point in this situation.

Further, why are only the Redskins and Cowboys punished when other teams gained the same competitive advantage by (1) front-loading contracts (Julius Peppers, Kyle Vanden Bosch) and (2) going under the salary floor (8 teams did so in 2010). The teams that went under the floor also had the most cap room in 2012 and were able to sign the best players (Vincent Jackson, Carl Nicks for the Bucs, Mario Williams for the Bills, Laurent Robinson for the Jags). Those teams sacrificed 2010 to save money and rid themselves of bad contracts to gain cap space in future years, like 2012.

The only logical explanation for why the NFL did this is that the Redskins and Cowboys grossly outspent every other team in 2010, and that made certain NFL owners look bad in the CBA negotiations for wanting to lower player salaries.

He makes a arguement.