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

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Sorry, this is just wrong. Doty has historically been very player friendly and it has long been one of the owners' goals to get him removed from hearing appeals on CBA issues. It is why he was written out of the new CBA.



No. He ruled against them because that was what the law required. As a matter of law, The NFLPA the players had waived their claims - known and unknown - of collusion for anything that occurred prior to the new CBA being signed.



Everything you say is true. The owners colluded and negotiated in bad faith - but then the NFLPA affirmatively waived their claims against the owners for all claims when they signed the new CBA. If they believed that more claims were out there, they shouldn't have waived them. They did so as part of a settlement. Once you say, "Okay, I am done suing you." You can't go back and say "Well, except for this."

As for "blackmailing" the NFLPA, I would suggest it was more of a quid pro quo. The NFLPA came to them first and said "Hey, can we make an arrgangement to get more cap space this year??" to which the NFL said "Sure .... just sign here and let us punish these two teams who refused to join in this, heretofore, unknown collusion against you and you may have some extra cap space this year."

As for the acts before the new CBA, they were fully and legally waived. As for the bad acts afterwords, the penalties were imposed in a procedurally correct fashion (per the arbiter) and were arrived at through a quid pro quo bargain with the union.

The key was the waiver. Without it, the NFL had no leg to stand on. With it the union and Snyder, as far as any appeals concerning violations of the CBA, are legally without remedy.

Although I'll agree your probably right with the Dotty issue, I'm not sure any of us really know the full facts regarding the meeting over the punishment. I could very easily see the NFL going to the NFLPA and suggesting that there is a problem and they need to meet. Then suggesting that it looked like the CAP would have to be lowered for whatever reason. Remember this came relatively soon after (6 months) the CBA had been signed. Why would the NFL not already know prior to the number crunching and during the CBA talks that there was a problem regarding the CAP? Instead they come up with some story and present it. Then while trying to figure something out the NFL suggests they will keep the CAP at where it is if the NFLPA will give up their rights to sue and allow the NFL to punish two of their own.

But thats my opinion since I don't know the facts either. But I doubt the owners would want for the NFLPA to stand in court and tell how they felt black mailed in order to get proof of collusion, lied to, and not have agreed on the punishment in advance ie; prior to the old CBA ending, and they wouldn't want for two teams to stand up and say "yes, the owners had an agreement to keep costs down against the players, and we felt that was not fair."

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Although I'll agree your probably right with the Dotty issue, I'm not sure any of us really know the full facts regarding the meeting over the punishment. I could very easily see the NFL going to the NFLPA and suggesting that there is a problem and they need to meet. Then suggesting that it looked like the CAP would have to be lowered for whatever reason. Remember this came relatively soon after (6 months) the CBA had been signed. Why would the NFL not already know prior to the number crunching and during the CBA talks that there was a problem regarding the CAP? Instead they come up with some story and present it. Then while trying to figure something out the NFL suggests they will keep the CAP at where it is if the NFLPA will give up their rights to sue and allow the NFL to punish two of their own.

But thats my opinion since I don't know the facts either. But I doubt the owners would want for the NFLPA to stand in court and tell how they felt black mailed in order to get proof of collusion, lied to, and not have agreed on the punishment in advance ie; prior to the old CBA ending, and they wouldn't want for two teams to stand up and say "yes, the owners had an agreement to keep costs down against the players, and we felt that was not fair."

There is no dispute of the facts as it pertains to the cap going down. It was going down for one reason, the players percentage of the overall revenues went down in the new CBA. The owners knew the cap was dropping, and the NFLPA knew the cap was dropping. It was going down, completely legally, that is not in question.

The NFLPA went to the NFL and asked for money to be moved forward from future years to keep the cap stable. The new TV agreements are already negotiated and they come with a fair amount more money than the current ones, but the dont go into effect for a couple more years. The NFLPA asked to have some of that TV money moved from the future into current years to keep the cap stable until those new TV contracts go into effect.

The NFL offered the union a choice. Take the lowered salary cap that everyone knows will happen (due to reasons already explained) or allow us to sanction the teams we want. We (The NFL) will allow future money to be pulled from those TV contracts and put into the years until those TV contracts go into effect to keep the cap stable. The union chose to sign off on the punishment and have the money moved forward and keep the cap stable.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Skinzman

The union chose to sign off on the punishment and have the money moved forward and keep the cap stable.

Right...because they knew they had no choice. Likely their lawyers were smart enough to know that they had no legal remedy so in the grand scheme they we're giving up nothing and getting what they wanted. More subtle arguments were probably discussed concerning shifting cap space from cap-spending teams to non-cap spending teams but those discussions were rally only theoretical. The NFLPAs mistake was the waiver in the first place. Major boo-boo. To me, if I was a player, that is a termination type offense. I want D. Smith and every other jabroni who let them affirmatively waive all future claims of collusion associated with the CBA proverbially shot.

[Skinzman]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Right...because they knew they had no choice. Likely their lawyers were smart enough to know that they had no legal remedy so in the grand scheme they we're giving up nothing and getting what they wanted. More subtle arguments were probably discussed concerning shifting cap space from cap-spending teams to non-cap spending teams but those discussions were rally only theoretical. The NFLPAs mistake was the waiver in the first place. Major boo-boo. To me, if I was a player, that is a termination type offense. I want D. Smith and every other jabroni who let them affirmatively waive all future claims of collusion associated with the CBA proverbially shot.

They did have a choice. They could have taken the lower cap.

Or better yet, they could have actually saved up some money so they didnt have to take a horrible deal just to get a paycheck to keep their houses from being foreclosed on because 100k gaudy looking diamond encrusted necklaces are the norm instead of a savings account.

Everyone associated with the NFLPA, from the lawyers to the negotiators to the players themselves knew the cap was going to go down if they accepted a deal that had the players taking a lower percentage of the revenues than they received in the previous CBA. Not only did they take a decrease, they took a huge decrease.

If the union was any good, they would make the players start a fund for these exact things. Maybe 5% of their salaries go in there and it gets saved for paychecks when there are negotiations on a new CBA. If you cannot threaten the owners with lost games (meaning lost revenue), you cant get the owners to offer a fair contract.