Good/Bad News for a Change - 2013 18MM cap penalty probably (not) going away

[Skinzman]

Its just as detrimental to Snyder as it is to the other owners that the books and messages from that year stay hidden. If you decide to "stick it to the man", are you going to do that by putting dynamite in your own house and blowing it up?

I dont fault him for bluffing, but I dont expect the NFL to do anything other than call that bluff. And I expect Danny to get the bomb squad in there to clear the dynamite before it goes off.

As much as people keep saying that hes not afraid to sue, hes also not afraid of making money. I think the making money wins out in the end.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

Its just as detrimental to Snyder as it is to the other owners that the books and messages from that year stay hidden. If you decide to "stick it to the man", are you going to do that by putting dynamite in your own house and blowing it up?

I dont fault him for bluffing, but I dont expect the NFL to do anything other than call that bluff. And I expect Danny to get the bomb squad in there to clear the dynamite before it goes off.

As much as people keep saying that hes not afraid to sue, hes also not afraid of making money. I think the making money wins out in the end.

It's interesting that this comes out after the combine. Can you imagine how much lobbying and politicking the Redskins were doing. I would guess that they were planting seeds of how a legal strategy would play out as well. Even the threat of a lawsuit is a pretty big stick in a fraternity of 32 powerful men and women. I wonder if they got a sense at the combine that this strategy would work, or if it's pure throw everything at the wall and see what sticks time.

[SkinzWin]

Originally Posted by CultBrennan59

Goodell Talking Redskins Fine - YouTube

This is starting to snow ball around the Internet.

You beat me to it. @HTTR24-7 has been blowing his twitter up with this link and convo. My feeling is its too little too late with Judge Doty turning down our appeal twice. But if Goodell is saying that the league and teams agreed to "punish teams" that took advantage of the uncapped year through certain contract avenues that created an advantage for them, that seems like a problem to me. If you are going to say that they it can't be an uncapped year. And regardless if the teams were made aware of this ahead of time, if they league signed off on the contract/renegotiation, how can they go back and penalize the team?

[NC_Skins]

ES member (huly) asking Goodell about capgate. Listen to his explanation. He said the owners AND the NFLPA were told about this "competitive balance". Riiiiiight. SO you are going to tell the NFLPA prior to the lockout that you are indeed going to collude even though there is no salary cap.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

ES member (huly) asking Goodell about capgate. Listen to his explanation. He said the owners AND the NFLPA were told about this "competitive balance". Riiiiiight. SO you are going to tell the NFLPA prior to the lockout that you are indeed going to collude even though there is no salary cap.

Right...there is about zero chance this is true...I mean I cannot conceive of this current NFLPA agreeing to any such thing. Why the hell would they? Makes less than zero sense.

[RedskinsInNYC]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Right...there is about zero chance this is true...I mean I cannot conceive of this current NFLPA agreeing to any such thing. Why the hell would they? Makes less than zero sense.

The hope is that this video, coupled with the threat of litigation, can continue to create buzz/noise on this issue for another day or two. I think Graziano RT'd someone who sent him this link last night. Will be interesting to see if other outlets pick this up - my hope is that they do.

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Right...there is about zero chance this is true...I mean I cannot conceive of this current NFLPA agreeing to any such thing. Why the hell would they? Makes less than zero sense.

So ... the NFLPA knew of the collusive agreement to keep "competitive balance". Yet, during the bitter lockout in which the NFLPA argued collusion about several specific factors this was never mentioned. Further, once (and only once) it became public, the NFLPA filed a lawsuit alleging that this agreement about "competitive balance" was unknown to them and represented a breach of the prior CBA. Finally, the NFL's response was not "We told them, they knew about it so they shouldn't be upset"; it was "Hey too bad so sad, you waived all your claims - even the one you didn't know you had."

Wow. Revisionist history is one thing. This is "1984" un-person stuff.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

Its just as detrimental to Snyder as it is to the other owners that the books and messages from that year stay hidden. If you decide to "stick it to the man", are you going to do that by putting dynamite in your own house and blowing it up?

I dont fault him for bluffing, but I dont expect the NFL to do anything other than call that bluff. And I expect Danny to get the bomb squad in there to clear the dynamite before it goes off.

As much as people keep saying that hes not afraid to sue, hes also not afraid of making money. I think the making money wins out in the end.

Lets look at worst case scenarios....

1- All the owners end up hating Snyder. Not voting for his ideas later.
2- Department of Labor or Justice get involved.
3- The NFL not being exempt from labor laws.

I honestly can't fathom anything else, but I'm sure the owners are happy to be exempt from some of the labor laws and being able to do business as they please. I figure the worst that can happen is the NFL would lose that freedom and would have to do business like all other businesses and unions. That alone would go a long way in keeping both sides more honest.

So for me to weight if its worth it to go nuclear and possibly get our CAP space back.... I'd have to say yes it's worth it. Personally I think there needs to be someone keeping an eye on both sides that has no interest, someone who is not swayed to lean towards the owners in judgement (Dotty), and someone to make sure a fair punishment is delt as well as punishing everyone involved. In this case, yeah maybe the Skins do deserve a punishment although I don't agree with it, but certainly the other owners deserve to be punished for unfair practices against the NFLPA.

[FRPLG]

Well getting an injunction is quite different than running this thing all the way to a trial.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

So ... the NFLPA knew of the collusive agreement to keep "competitive balance". Yet, during the bitter lockout in which the NFLPA argued collusion about several specific factors this was never mentioned. Further, once (and only once) it became public, the NFLPA filed a lawsuit alleging that this agreement about "competitive balance" was unknown to them and represented a breach of the prior CBA. Finally, the NFL's response was not "We told them, they knew about it so they shouldn't be upset"; it was "Hey too bad so sad, you waived all your claims - even the one you didn't know you had."

Wow. Revisionist history is one thing. This is "1984" un-person stuff.

Basically the NFL/Owners are back peddling and making stuff up. Lets look at it another way.... If there was an agreement between the NFL/NFLPA and the Skins reworked two players contracts then wouldn't it have been prudent for the NFL to simply deny the contracts and tell the Skins to rework them again because it goes against the "Spirit" of the uncapped year? Then no one would be docked CAP and those contracts could have been worked out another way.

No, in this case, the owners made an agreement amongst them selves to not spend in order to keep costs down, keep spending down when they were trying to tell the players that there was no money to work with, and to deny the contracts the Skins submitted would give the NFLPA proof that the owners had an agreement (collusion) with their knowledge. So the contracts were approved, CBA agreed to and signed, and because the owners were pissed that the Skins didn't go with the program they decided to punish two of their members for not playing along, but to do that they needed to black mail the NFLPA into thinking that if they didn't allow the punishment or sign the adendum to the CBA then they would lose money. and.... the only way for the NFLPA to get proof that there was collusion was for them to sign the agreement anyway. Then some judge (Dotty) denies all claims because ..... the NFLPA signed their rights away.

I think someone (big government) needs to keep the owners and Dotty in check.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Lets look at worst case scenarios....

1- All the owners end up hating Snyder. Not voting for his ideas later.
2- Department of Labor or Justice get involved.
3- The NFL not being exempt from labor laws.

I honestly can't fathom anything else, but I'm sure the owners are happy to be exempt from some of the labor laws and being able to do business as they please. I figure the worst that can happen is the NFL would lose that freedom and would have to do business like all other businesses and unions. That alone would go a long way in keeping both sides more honest.

So for me to weight if its worth it to go nuclear and possibly get our CAP space back.... I'd have to say yes it's worth it. Personally I think there needs to be someone keeping an eye on both sides that has no interest, someone who is not swayed to lean towards the owners in judgement (Dotty), and someone to make sure a fair punishment is delt as well as punishing everyone involved. In this case, yeah maybe the Skins do deserve a punishment although I don't agree with it, but certainly the other owners deserve to be punished for unfair practices against the NFLPA.

You forget about Scenario 2A... The Justice department getting involved, and getting a collusion charge to be done through the Govt. The NFL loses said collusion case and has to pay 2-3 bil to the players, that is instantly tripled. The owners also want nothing to happen to the EXTREMELY owner friendly CBA.

Doubt it would ever happen, but being found guilty of collusion is no easy sentence that the other owners are laughing over. If those are truly the worst case scenarios, then Snyder would have already sued, and the NFL would have already counter sued. Court options are a last resort scenario here for a reason.

P.S. there is a reason the players choose to go to Doty and the owners choose other courts. And it has nothing to do with Doty being pro-owners.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Well getting an injunction is quite different than running this thing all the way to a trial.

Correct. The injuction is just to stop FA. Maybe even to have it put on hold until after a trial if the Redskins are actually filing. But the Skins can file and threaten to go through with a long trial with out an injuction or holding up FA.

The NFL does not want to hold up anything, FA, draft, etc. etc. Although the other owners probably are not scared.... I bet they also dont' want to have the FA period held up either. I'd file the injuction and file the law suit. As it gets closer to FA time I'd play chicken and see if the NFL caves. If they do good for the Skins, if they don't then you still have all the way up until court date of your law suit.... which could be set for June or August, or Sept. and even then you can always post pone the court case a couple of times which would further delay FA.

I'm hoping Snyder has his minions all over these boards listening to his fan base basically wanting him to get some balls against the other owners and pull the pin on the hand grenade and go nuclear.

If he does not think he has enough later to win he can always drop the issue and move on, but the thought of all the other owners pissed that he held up FA makes me happy.

[Evilgrin]

I dunno, Snyder's ego gets in the way of smart decision making.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

You forget about Scenario 2A... The Justice department getting involved, and getting a collusion charge to be done through the Govt. The NFL loses said collusion case and has to pay 2-3 bil to the players, that is instantly tripled. The owners also want nothing to happen to the EXTREMELY owner friendly CBA.

Doubt it would ever happen, but being found guilty of collusion is no easy sentence that the other owners are laughing over. If those are truly the worst case scenarios, then Snyder would have already sued, and the NFL would have already counter sued. Court options are a last resort scenario here for a reason.

P.S. there is a reason the players choose to go to Doty and the owners choose other courts. And it has nothing to do with Doty being pro-owners.

You right and basically what I said about the Justice Department. or atleast what I was trying to say. All the other owners are happy with how the system is now and don't want big government involved with their system. Maybe there would be some new rules governing players and their contracts or owners having to have insurance on each player or retirement I don't know. But that alone should be enough to scare the other owners. Worst case scenario the Skins win and the Justice department decides to step in and the NFL loses it's exemptions. Best case scenario the other owners give the CAP back and Snyder calls off the law suit and injuction and allows the NFL to operate as normal.

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Lets look at worst case scenarios....

1- All the owners end up hating Snyder. Not voting for his ideas later.
2- Department of Labor or Justice get involved.
3- The NFL not being exempt from labor laws.

I honestly can't fathom anything else, but I'm sure the owners are happy to be exempt from some of the labor laws and being able to do business as they please. I figure the worst that can happen is the NFL would lose that freedom and would have to do business like all other businesses and unions. That alone would go a long way in keeping both sides more honest.

So for me to weight if its worth it to go nuclear and possibly get our CAP space back.... I'd have to say yes it's worth it. Personally I think there needs to be someone keeping an eye on both sides that has no interest, someone who is not swayed to lean towards the owners in judgement (Dotty), and someone to make sure a fair punishment is delt as well as punishing everyone involved. In this case, yeah maybe the Skins do deserve a punishment although I don't agree with it, but certainly the other owners deserve to be punished for unfair practices against the NFLPA.

First, you realize that Doty has been a big friend of the NFLPA for years and that, in the latest CBA, the NFL insisted that cases under the new CBA would not be heard by him. He gave the friendliest rulings he could in not dismissing the NFLPA's collusion case outright in light of the waiver clause. Most judges would likely have dismissed the NFLPA's claim without argument.

Second, and as others have mentioned, this case would have nothing to do with the NFLPA and labor laws. That case has been adjudicated and dismissed. Period. Done. Finito. As part of the settlement of all outstanding claims, in reaching the new CBA, the NFLPA gave up all rights to claim they had been treated unfairly during the negotiations.

Finally, to see what legal theories Snyder is relying on, I would want to go back to there original appeal in front of the arbiter. As I recall, they advanced certain theories that the arbiter said "this is the wrong forum for that argument". If I am remembering it correctly, it is those theories that Snyder would be bringing now. I have to believe it comes down to a breach of contract or a tortuous interference with business by his partners. Those are each claims which would be independent of the arbiter and NFLPA claims. It's been a while since I looked at them, and really have no evaluation of their merit, but, clearly, people being paid a lot more than me have found a credible basis to bring a civil suit on this issue.