Redskins, Cowboys could go “nuclear” over cap mess

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Kinda get what your saying kinda don't.

however someone posted here earlier that the two teams Arbitration was not based on the complaint the punishment was not fair but rather the proceedure of the punishment. Basically the Arbiture will be looking at probably several things I would imagine; should Mara have overseen it, should it have been held over to the next owners meeting and voted on, should the two teams been given enough notice to file an appeal vs. waiting until 2hrs before FA. Things like this.

The other issue being the punishment itself would have to go through a law suit against all the other 30owners.

In short - arbitration is a procedure to complain about someone breaking the rules of the CBA. If the NFL just changes the rules, the two teams can't complain the League is breaking the rules anymore.

And if 24 owners approve the change in rules, the two teams who don't like the changes are SOL.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

In short - arbitration is a procedure to complain about someone breaking the rules of the CBA. If the NFL just changes the rules, the two teams can't complain the League is breaking the rules anymore.

And if 24 owners approve the change in rules, the two teams who don't like the changes are SOL.

Eh....I don't know about this. Not saying your wrong, but logically speaking, if the NFL can just up and change terms of the CBA as it goes along, anytime it wants to and anyway it wants to, what is the purpose of having a CBA? It then becomes about as worthless as the napkin it was written on. Besides, even if they could, AND they decided to change the terms of this present CBA, 2010 was under the old CBA. I would think it would be a legal conflict to change terms of a present CBA to punish/reward teams during a time period of a former governing contract. I'm no legal expert at all, just trying to look at this through a logical perspective...but I suppose if the NFL looked at this through a logical perspective, then we wouldn't be discussing this situation as it would have never happened.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

Eh....I don't know about this. Not saying your wrong, but logically speaking, if the NFL can just up and change terms of the CBA as it goes along, anytime it wants to and anyway it wants to, what is the purpose of having a CBA? It then becomes about as worthless as the napkin it was written on. Besides, even if they could, AND they decided to change the terms of this present CBA, 2010 was under the old CBA. I would think it would be a legal conflict to change terms of a present CBA to punish/reward teams during a time period of a former governing contract. I'm no legal expert at all, just trying to look at this through a logical perspective...but I suppose if the NFL looked at this through a logical perspective, then we wouldn't be discussing this situation as it would have never happened.

I think your sorta right. I think they can meet with the NFLPA and come to an agreement but I think it would still have to be presented to the next owners meeting for a final vote. Maybe even sent to the next players meeting for a final vote. But I don't think the league can arbitrarily just change the rules.

Besides there was no CBA. No CAP. the agreement was a "hey guys lets not spend too much this offseason ok, and if you do break this suggestion then we might punish you." I doubt DS and JJ felt it was binding since they went about doing what they did. I also have a major issue with the fact the league APPROVED these contracts. They had an opportunity to deny them, decline them, or simply send them back to the teams and tell them because of the way they are written they can't be approved. That didn't happen. Why wasn't it if this is such a big deal? oh I get it the league didn't want to get into trouble with the labor laws (collusion). If it was wrong now it was wrong then and they never should have approved the contracts. If it was not wrong at the time (which it apparently was not because they approved them) then it's not wrong now. There should be no punishment.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

I think your sorta right. I think they can meet with the NFLPA and come to an agreement but I think it would still have to be presented to the next owners meeting for a final vote. Maybe even sent to the next players meeting for a final vote. But I don't think the league can arbitrarily just change the rules.

Besides there was no CBA. No CAP. the agreement was a "hey guys lets not spend too much this offseason ok, and if you do break this suggestion then we might punish you." I doubt DS and JJ felt it was binding since they went about doing what they did. I also have a major issue with the fact the league APPROVED these contracts. They had an opportunity to deny them, decline them, or simply send them back to the teams and tell them because of the way they are written they can't be approved. That didn't happen. Why wasn't it if this is such a big deal? oh I get it the league didn't want to get into trouble with the labor laws (collusion). If it was wrong now it was wrong then and they never should have approved the contracts. If it was not wrong at the time (which it apparently was not because they approved them) then it's not wrong now. There should be no punishment.

I could be mistaken, but the way I understand it is that there was a CBA at the time, and the provision for no cap was part of it. If true, that essentially means the NFL was in violation of the CBA, by imposing "cap rules".

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by GhettoDogAllStars

I could be mistaken, but the way I understand it is that there was a CBA at the time, and the provision for no cap was part of it. If true, that essentially means the NFL was in violation of the CBA, by imposing "cap rules".

If thats the case I love how Goodell has been dancing around the topic. lol.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

I think your sorta right. I think they can meet with the NFLPA and come to an agreement but I think it would still have to be presented to the next owners meeting for a final vote. Maybe even sent to the next players meeting for a final vote. But I don't think the league can arbitrarily just change the rules.

Besides there was no CBA. No CAP. the agreement was a "hey guys lets not spend too much this offseason ok, and if you do break this suggestion then we might punish you." I doubt DS and JJ felt it was binding since they went about doing what they did. I also have a major issue with the fact the league APPROVED these contracts. They had an opportunity to deny them, decline them, or simply send them back to the teams and tell them because of the way they are written they can't be approved. That didn't happen. Why wasn't it if this is such a big deal? oh I get it the league didn't want to get into trouble with the labor laws (collusion). If it was wrong now it was wrong then and they never should have approved the contracts. If it was not wrong at the time (which it apparently was not because they approved them) then it's not wrong now. There should be no punishment.

Well technically, the league was still under the old CBA in 2010, it was just written up to state that if a new CBA had not been reached by that point, then 2010 would be an uncapped year - at least that's what I seem to remember the language was. But yeah, I think the most important aspect to remember is that the league office approved the contracts.

It just all seems to come down to a case of we're going to follow these certain rules down to the letter, while ignoring other rules of the CBA. Can't pick and choose. I just have my doubts that the league and all of its many committees can simply change the CBA at any given point to suit a few teams' fancy. It's not logical.

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

In short - arbitration is a procedure to complain about someone breaking the rules of the CBA. If the NFL just changes the rules, the two teams can't complain the League is breaking the rules anymore.

And if 24 owners approve the change in rules, the two teams who don't like the changes are SOL.

Yes. No. Sorta. As to the arbitration, there are two questions: (1) Did the NFL follow the rules on how penalties are levied? and (2) Did the NFL have a legal substantive basis for levying the sanction?

As to (1), I would say the owners vote likely vitiates any procedural violations. Note that this is a prospective action - i.e. going forward the sanction is deemed to have been issued in an appropriate manner. So, even though procedurally incorrect and possibly unenforceable for that reason up to now, the cap penalty is, from this point forward procedurally correct. (oops, I served the notice on the wrong entity. Even though it was unenforceable while improperly served, I have corrected that and can now enforce it after the notice has been served on the correct entity).

As to (2), it goes back to the retroactivity. The conduct being now sanctioned was not improper/illegal/violative at the time it was taken. I don't believe that the owner's can change history with a vote. [As an example, I don't think the owner's could say - by vote of 24 - that teams didn't follow the Rooney Rule before it was created are subject to lost draft choices.]

I don't know if this second issue is really before the arbiter or if that has been saved for another legal rainy day.

[HoopheadVII]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Yes. No. Sorta. As to the arbitration, there are two questions: (1) Did the NFL follow the rules on how penalties are levied? and (2) Did the NFL have a legal substantive basis for levying the sanction?

As to (1), I would say the owners vote likely vitiates any procedural violations. Note that this is a prospective action - i.e. going forward the sanction is deemed to have been issued in an appropriate manner. So, even though procedurally incorrect and possibly unenforceable for that reason up to now, the cap penalty is, from this point forward procedurally correct. (oops, I served the notice on the wrong entity. Even though it was unenforceable while improperly served, I have corrected that and can now enforce it after the notice has been served on the correct entity).

As to (2), it goes back to the retroactivity. The conduct being now sanctioned was not improper/illegal/violative at the time it was taken. I don't believe that the owner's can change history with a vote. [As an example, I don't think the owner's could say - by vote of 24 - that teams didn't follow the Rooney Rule before it was created are subject to lost draft choices.]

I don't know if this second issue is really before the arbiter or if that has been saved for another legal rainy day.

If it's a form of discipline - the league bylaws state what authority the Commissioner has to impose sanctions, and what requires an Executive Committee vote. The Commissioner does not have the authority to modify the salary cap without Executive Committee approval.

If it involves a modification of the CBA, it requires agreement between the NFL (via the MCEC) and the NFLPA. Depending on how substantial the change is, it may require approval from the owners. Both the NFLPA and 29 owners have signed off on this apparent modification of the CBA.

In the administration of this, it seems to have gone like this:
- The 'Skins and 'Cowboys shifted salary cap burden into the uncapped year
- Several owners complained
- The Commissioner decided to punish them, and salary cap hit made the most sense, even though he didn't have the authority to impose it
- Because it affected the CBA, Commissioner sent MCEC Chairman Mara to bribe NFLPA to sign off
- Commissioner thinks, "even though I don't have the authority to do this, the two teams will back off because I do have the authority to take away draft picks - and besides the other owners have my back."
- 'Skins and Cowboys fight anyway
- ???
- Profit

Anything could happen from here.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by HoopheadVII

In short - arbitration is a procedure to complain about someone breaking the rules of the CBA. If the NFL just changes the rules, the two teams can't complain the League is breaking the rules anymore.

And if 24 owners approve the change in rules, the two teams who don't like the changes are SOL.

Then it DS would have to file a law suit based on the fact the "rule" that was changed and was agreed to by the league technically was illegal and only at that time would most likely everything change because if the "rule" made up, changed, or whatever that was agreed to is illegal then technically the Skins did nothing wrong and then the CAP can be given back.

So were in it for the long haul. Unless DS decides all this is not worth it. Cause right now although it's proceedure it's also to see what resolve each side has in this by not giving in. Hopefully the good news is DS is prepared to file the law suit if need be and I hope the league backs off first and gives the CAP back before it has to go to some form of trial. This way the team can drop the issue prior to the league looking like fools when and if ever any labor organization decides to start investigating because more then likely they won't back off and will see it to the end.