Skins fans here in DC are flipping out about this.

After making the trade for RGIII, one thing that helped most skins fans and probably management cope with giving up 3 picks, is that we had 40 million in cap space available to surround Griffin with good talent.

Well that all got ripped away.  The skins got penalized 36 million by the league for front loading contracts in an uncapped year.  This apparently isnt a violation of any kind of the rule the NFL has ever had in place, but it was due to complaints from other execs around the league.

Unless I'm missing something, this is completely ridiculous.  Both the redskins and the cowboys were penalized for this, but there wasnt a rule that was violated.  Sounds like they took advantage of a loop hole and everyone else has sour grapes??  In the NBA when stuff like this happens, they make a rule after the loop hole is found, kinda like when we signed Gary Payton back from the Hawks years ago a day after we traded him.

Maybe I'm just an upset fan, but this seems really shady to me.  I hope the skins and the cowboys try and appeal somehow.....and apparently they did this to try and help unload Albert Haynesworths contract....boy hes the gift that just keeps on giving.

Quote from: greg683x on March 12, 2012, 06:24:33 PM

Skins fans here in DC are flipping out about this.

After making the trade for RGIII, one thing that helped most skins fans and probably management cope with giving up 3 picks, is that we had 40 million in cap space available to surround Griffin with good talent.

Well that all got ripped away.  The skins got penalized 36 million by the league for front loading contracts in an uncapped year.  This apparently isnt a violation of any kind of the rule the NFL has ever had in place, but it was due to complaints from other execs around the league.

Unless I'm missing something, this is completely ridiculous.  Both the redskins and the cowboys were penalized for this, but there wasnt a rule that was violated.  Sounds like they took advantage of a loop hole and everyone else has sour grapes??  In the NBA when stuff like this happens, they make a rule after the loop hole is found, kinda like when we signed Gary Payton back from the Hawks years ago a day after we traded him.

Maybe I'm just an upset fan, but this seems really shady to me.  I hope the skins and the cowboys try and appeal somehow.....and apparently they did this to try and help unload Albert Haynesworths contract....boy hes the gift that just keeps on giving.

I've been a die-hard Skins fan since 83', and I'm completely PO'd over this.  We finally land the franchise QB that we've longed for, and just when we are about ready to add some weapons around him, they strip us of our cap space.  I really hope that both the Cowboys and Skins appeal, because this is complete BS.  And FWIW, Goodell is a complete clown.

That's news to me. So I checked twitter

Quote

Adam Schefter
‏ @AdamSchefter

Cowboys lose $10 million in cap space, Redskins lose $36 million in space. Can split it over 2012 and 2013 any way they want. More at ESPN.

The league didn't fine them $36million. They stripped their cap money. Redskins Owner will actually save $36million from the ruling.

Quote from: Change on March 12, 2012, 06:38:57 PM

That's news to me. So I checked twitter

Quote

Adam Schefter
‏ @AdamSchefter

Cowboys lose $10 million in cap space, Redskins lose $36 million in space. Can split it over 2012 and 2013 any way they want. More at ESPN.

The league didn't fine them $36million. They stripped their cap money. Redskins Owner will actually save $36million from the ruling.

it's a 36 million dollar penalty, I dont think I ever said they were fined. 

and since when has Dan Snyder ever cared to save money?  You know [dang] well that money was gonna be spent.  This was gonna be money fans and management had gotten their hopes to be spent on weapons and protection for RG3

The NFL’s decision to remove salary cap space now from teams that dumped salary into the uncapped year of 2010 technically constitutes a violation of the labor deal with the players, because the CBA allowed teams to spend at will in the uncapped year, subject to specifically negotiated limits (e.g., six years to unrestricted free agency, the “Final Eight Plan”).

But it’s not a violation if the players agree to it.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the dynamics tell PFT that the NFLPA agreed to allow the NFL to take $10 million in cap space from the Cowboys and $36 million from the Redskins and redistribute the money to all other teams, except the Saints and Raiders.  On the surface, the decision of the players to permit money to be robbed from two rich teams that like to spend it and given in equal chunks to 28 other teams (including poor teams that like to hoard it) makes little sense.  With the Bengals already near $50 million in cap space, their $1.6 million share of the Cowboys/Redskins cap room quite possibly will be wasted.

So why did the union agree?  The sources explain that the NFL offered to help pump up the 2012 team-by-team salary cap in exchange for the union’s agreement to remove cap money from the Cowboys and Redskins.  One source said that, without the NFLPA’s agreement regarding the removal of cap room from the Cowboys and Redskins, the 2012 salary cap would have been in the range of $116 million per team.  (One source said that the number at one point was presented to the union as being a paltry $113.5 million.)  With the players agreeing to remove $46 million from the Cowboys and Redskins, the league agreed to a massaging of the salary and benefit numbers in order to get the 2012 salary cap up to $120.6 million.  (The recalculation also kicked in some additional money that otherwise would not have been devoted to salary and benefits for 2012.)

Thus, the union had no real option.  Without consenting to the reduction of the Redskins and Cowboys cap numbers, the unadjusted cap limit would have dropped, for the first time ever.

And with NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith up for re-election this month, he quite possibly would not have been re-elected.

The delay in the release of the cap number directly arose from the Cowboys/Redskins conundrum.  Absent this issue, the cap number would have been disclosed well in advance of the start of the 2012 league year, instead of only two days before it.

Finally, as to the notion that the NFL approved the various contracts that took excessive advantage of the uncapped year in 2010, it’s critical to consider the broader context.  The union already was prepared to pounce on any possible evidence of collusion.  If the NFL had decided to reject contracts because teams were taking advantage of rules that the teams had every right to take advantage of, the NFLPA would have sued — and the case would have been bolstered by the fact that, on at least six occasions, the NFL had told the teams not to treat the uncapped year as a salary dump.  So the NFL approved the contracts and delayed punishment until a point where the league had leverage to persuade the union to agree to an effort to take action after the fact against teams that refused to collude.