Will Washington and Dallas get their cap money back?

[Haloti92]

That's your opinion of how things went down. I'd love to see this record to which you're referring. This also means you consider the owners meetings every year to be secretive. You're also assuming none of this was relayed to the NFLPA (such a "requirement" is debatable at best).



What misinterpretation? If you have a problem with how the law is written or applied, your quarrel is with the laws authors and the courts.

And what's going on with the NFL is nothing close to the collusion that MLB was engaged. I respectfully suggest you read up on the MLB's history because they were most certainly colluding and go caught.

Again, just because the owner met and decided something does not rise to the legal standard of collusion. The legal standard is that meeting was done to defraud or otherwise injure the other party (i.e. the players).

I already addressed all this. Nothing new here. Suffice it to say that using your definition, what occurred can easily be argued as collusion. If the owners were dumb enough to tell the NFLPA they were agreeing amongst themselves to a hard cap in the agreed-upon uncapped year, then I think we would have heard about this a long time ago, and this suit would have already been settled (with the NFLPA winning). Therefore, and also considering Smith is claiming he just found out about it (is he lying? what advantage did he see in waiting 2 years to sue?), I think the odds the NFLPA had any inkling about the alleged agreement are slim to none.

[NCRAVEN]

From what I am reading, the NFLPA is suddenly accusing them of agreeing to a hard cap (of apparently $123m). But this seems dubious considering several teams went over this number.

There is some obscure and complicated maneuvering going on between Smith and Goodell, and it started over a year ago. Smith apparently signed off on something (what seems to be in contention) regarding the way the league wanted to police its ownership regarding the 2010 year.

Maybe Smith thought: what the heck, if the cap penalties for the Skins and Cowboys are added and spread to the other teams then my players do not lose compensation (from the penalty) and there is a good chance the arbiter will overturn those penalties which gives my players even more compensation.

So he signed off. Then when the arbiter ruled against the Skins and Cowboys (which likely occurred because there was no agrieved party once the NFLPA signed off on the punishments, and this was a case of an internal fight among the ownership/league), Smith decided he would renege on his agreement. Or, more accurately, he would claim he didn't agree to as much as Goodell thinks he did (to forgive any and all past transgressions).

It is a fiasco, imo. Whether there was a plan (by Smith) to do this all along, I'm not sure.

You are following this more closely than I, as I just don't care.

From my standpoint the owners didn't collude on anything as far as I can tell.

I do have one question (for anyone who can answer). When the owners were told not to dump money in to the uncapped year was this done when there was a CBA?

[Haloti92]

You are following this more closely than I, as I just don't care.

From my standpoint the owners didn't collude on anything as far as I can tell.

I do have one question (for anyone who can answer). When the owners were told not to dump money in to the uncapped year was this done when there was a CBA?

In 2010, the league was operating under the "Final League Year" of the 2006 CBA agreement. There were a few special rules during this year, but there was no salary cap according to the rules/agreement. As to the special (and apparently vague) rules about how to proceed with no salary cap, B-More Ravor would be the one to ask. I have yet to find any specifics, when it comes to dumping, etc.

As for when, what and how they were told (separate from the rules in the 2006 CBA), I also don't know specifically, but my perception is it was in 2010 (multiple times), not to dump money into 2010, and in owners meetings (not sure if there were written warnings).

[B-more Ravor]

EDIT: It also looks like the league will defend itself here by claiming that the NFLPA, when it signed the recent CBA, waived its rights to sue for past violations (i.e. instances of collusion):

Greg Aiello, NFL spokesman: "On multiple occasions, the players and their representatives specifically dismissed all claims, known or unknown, whether pending or not, alleged violations of the 2006 CBA and the related settlement agreement. We continue to look forward to focusing on the future of the game rather than grievances of a prior era that have already been resolved."

Yeah, I thought the new CBA came with a full settlement of all claims (I recall it being termed as a "universal settlement).

[wickedsolo]

Yeah, I thought the new CBA came with a full settlement of all claims (I recall it being termed as a "universal settlement).

According to the article I read this morning on it when the players agreed to and signed the new CBA that basically said that the NFLPA couldn't file any lawsuits like this against the owners.

Going back to that year (2010), I remember seeing some stuff on NFL Network about how at owner's meetings they all voted/put out/decided upon not to take advantage of the uncapped year by doing salary dumps. There were signs that some teams were starting to do just that and it was put out multiple times that there could (would) be consequences to any team that did dump their salaries. I even think that once the Redskins accelerated Haynesworth's contract one of the NFL analysts said that could come back to bite them down the road.

By my understanding there was no collusion involved because it didn't negatively injure/defame/impact a specific target. There were no conspiratorial acts by the owners. Just a gentleman's agreement on how to operate the uncapped year.

Players still got paid.

A new CBA was agreed upon.

[B-more Ravor]

Well, the good news about all of this is that it's coming after the new CBA, so we'll still have football no matter what.

Had this come up at this time last year, who knows how much it would have impacted the CBA negotiations? My guess, it wouldn't have been in a good way.

[Ravenous1]

Well, the good news about all of this is that it's coming after the new CBA, so we'll still have football no matter what.

Had this come up at this time last year, who knows how much it would have impacted the CBA negotiations? My guess, it wouldn't have been in a good way.

Totally agree. Think the owners realized that and decided to follow the old adage of "revenge is a dish best served cold" lol

[Haloti92]

According to the article I read this morning on it when the players agreed to and signed the new CBA that basically said that the NFLPA couldn't file any lawsuits like this against the owners.

Going back to that year (2010), I remember seeing some stuff on NFL Network about how at owner's meetings they all voted/put out/decided upon not to take advantage of the uncapped year by doing salary dumps. There were signs that some teams were starting to do just that and it was put out multiple times that there could (would) be consequences to any team that did dump their salaries. I even think that once the Redskins accelerated Haynesworth's contract one of the NFL analysts said that could come back to bite them down the road.

By my understanding there was no collusion involved because it didn't negatively injure/defame/impact a specific target. There were no conspiratorial acts by the owners. Just a gentleman's agreement on how to operate the uncapped year.

Players still got paid.

A new CBA was agreed upon.

The problem is, violating a gentleman's agreement should only result in losing the label of "gentleman." When you agree to penalties for violating a gentlemen's agreement it no longer can be considered a gentlemen's agreement. Clearly Jones and Snyder are no gentlemen, lol.

And as for the 'players were still paid,' if the new allegation about the hard cap agreement is true (and again, it seems dubious to me), that would mean the players were still paid, but paid less than they would have been otherwise. The same argument can be made about the agreement not to dump cap, but less solidly (and not solidly at all if the old CBA contained language that already prohibited such moves).

[wickedsolo]

The problem is, violating a gentleman's agreement should only result in losing the label of "gentleman." When you agree to penalties for violating a gentlemen's agreement it no longer can be considered a gentlemen's agreement. Clearly Jones and Snyder are no gentlemen, lol.

And as for the 'players were still paid,' if the new allegation about the hard cap agreement is true (and again, it seems dubious to me), that would mean the players were still paid, but paid less than they would have been otherwise. The same argument can be made about the agreement not to dump cap, but less solidly (and not solidly at all if the old CBA contained language that already prohibited such moves).

Well, that would depend on their contractual agreements with the franchise.

Free Agents could have potentially cashed in a lot more, but that is unlikely as well given that most of the NFL owners wouldn't pay a guy $10 million dollars for a season when his value is only $3 million per year.

This is also something that is between the owners...not the players. It's the majority of the owners who moved to have consequences levied on Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones. According to everything we know (without having been present during those owners meetings) there was a consensus on how to operate the "salary cap" in an uncapped year and that any team caught taking advantage of that could be subject to consequences later on.

I don't really see how the NFLPA has anything at all regarding collusion.

Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones are jack asses for owners and have been culprits of messing up the "market" for a lot of other teams. As Ravor already noted in another thread, because of the Skins dumping that $21 mill onto Haynesworth that year it bumped up Ngata's franchise tag by something like $5.5 million, which severely limited what the Ravens were able to do until they got Ngata signed to his new deal. That's just one small case.

It's not surprising that Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones aren't well liked by a lot of the other owners.

[Haloti92]

Well, that would depend on their contractual agreements with the franchise.

Free Agents could have potentially cashed in a lot more, but that is unlikely as well given that most of the NFL owners wouldn't pay a guy $10 million dollars for a season when his value is only $3 million per year.

This is also something that is between the owners...not the players. It's the majority of the owners who moved to have consequences levied on Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones. According to everything we know (without having been present during those owners meetings) there was a consensus on how to operate the "salary cap" in an uncapped year and that any team caught taking advantage of that could be subject to consequences later on.

I don't really see how the NFLPA has anything at all regarding collusion.

Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones are jack asses for owners and have been culprits of messing up the "market" for a lot of other teams. As Ravor already noted in another thread, because of the Skins dumping that $21 mill onto Haynesworth that year it bumped up Ngata's franchise tag by something like $5.5 million, which severely limited what the Ravens were able to do until they got Ngata signed to his new deal. That's just one small case.

It's not surprising that Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones aren't well liked by a lot of the other owners.

As to the accusation of the hard cap agreement, I don't think the argument that 'the owners would not have paid the players much more even without the agreement' is very compelling, precisely because if it were true, then there becomes no need for the agreement in the first place.

This new lawsuit is somewhat separate from the Jones/Snyder deal, the charges are regarding a hard cap versus the salary dumping. But I can't help but think that it was filed (in terms of timing) after the league provided some evidence of collusive behavior by penalizing two teams that didn't abide by the unwritten agreement. In other words, Smith might have decided "what better way to show that the owners had private agreements that resulted in my players being paid less overall than to wait until the league officially penalizes two teams for violating the private agreement." Without any penalties, it is harder to prove any agreement actually existed.

As for the owners policing themselves and/or deciding to penalize two of their kind, I agree with you, but there are limits as to what they can legally do in this regard as well. Both in terms of how their penalties/policing affect the players (the other side in the negotiations of their business) and in terms of anti-trust laws, how they penalize each other aside from things that affect the players.

31 owners cannot arbitrarily decide to impose a large penalty on a single owner because they feel like it or because they don't like him. Between that scenario and an owner that clearly violates a written league rule there is a lot of room, and in this room is where Jones and Snyder fall, imo. But in terms of the likelihood that their defense of "we abided by the established rules, we just didn't go along with the optional agreement/collusion" would succeed, they needed someone to claim they were colluded against. The arbiter apparently felt there was no aggrieved party in terms of the way the NFL penalized Jones/Snyder (because the NFLPA signed off and the penalty cap space was redistributed), this severely undermined Jones/Snyder's chance of winning the appeal. Obviously, if, as B-More says, the old CBA covered salary-dumping, then they were left with no legs to stand on.

[festivus]

No NFL owner with a brain in his head would want to test the anti-trust limits on the league's authority. Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? I think not.

[Haloti92]

No NFL owner with a brain in his head would want to test the anti-trust limits on the league's authority. Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? I think not.

I agree which is why Jones and Snyder quickly said they would not appeal the arbiter's decision.

However there are hypothetical extremes (which would never occur in the first place) where an owner might be forced to fight, like if the vast majority of owners decided to very severely punish an owner for dubious reasons. Or an owner felt the league was unfairly costing him a lot of money (see Al Davis, oh wait, you said brain in his head, nvm). That obviously doesn't apply here though.

[srobert96]

I think the new lawsuit has more to do with the owners coming out and saying that the cap is not going up all that much than it does with the Redskins and Cowboys penalties. Recently it has been discussed that the players signed a bad deal. With the talk that there is no windfall in sight with the new tv contracts the people who were responsible for the players side have come out and defended the deal. I think this is only an attempt to save face by De and others in light of what looks like a bad deal for the players.

[HoustonRaven]

Andrew Brandt just Tweeted the nuance here.

This isn't about spending cash. It's about cap spending. The Skins and Cowboys were not sanctioned because of anything they did or did not spend on any one player or the players as a whole.

They were caught and sanctioned for avoiding cap spending in 2011 through 2013.

No real or extra money was spent or not spent, thus no collusion via a salary fixing issue.

[Haloti92]

I see no evidence Brandt understands the nuance.

The new lawsuit is only tangentially related to the specific Cowboys/Skins penalties. In fact, if it were only about that, the NFLPA wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as the amount those teams were penalized (which would hurt player compensation) was credited to the other teams (no net loss of compensation), and more importantly, it seems clear that the NFLPA agreed to waive its right to complain about that specific matter.

The new lawsuit is a new claim that alleges the owners did more than warn teams not to dump money, but also agreed to limit spending, to apparently $123M. I have no idea what evidence the NFLPA has, but I don't like their chances because I doubt the owners would be dumb enough to leave any compelling evidence of such a specific agreement. I don't see how vague generalize public comments by owners to the media will suffice. I also think the NFLPA might have signed away its right to file on this separate matter (and all past matters) in the 2011 CBA. We already know the NFL thinks it did and is going to argue that.

As for the Skins/Cowboys sanction as it relates to collusion, it matters not what the league sanctioned the teams for, assuming there was no rule in the 2006 CBA that prevents money dumping, in general, or specifically in 2010 (B-More says there is, Jones/Snyder says no). The only things that would matter are: 1) was there a private agreement among the owners and 2) did this agreement result in less overall compensation for players, in 2010, or any year, or period. The answers to both of those questions are clearly "yes," though again, if there was a clause in the 2006 CBA that addresses this, the agreement wouldn't be considered private (as the NFLPA had signed off on the clause). Regardless, the NFLPA settled this issue when it signed off on the penalties for the Cowboys and the Skins.

[Haloti92]

A little detail on the issue of whether the NFLPA agreed to waive their right to sue for past issues:

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters...TAINS+'ANV'

It sounds like they did sign on the dotted line and agree to this, but one week later, U.S. Senior District Judge David Doty rejected the universal dismissal of all claims "known and unknown, whether pending or not" and amended it (unilaterally?) to "all claims pending" before approving of the deal.

Sounds fishy to me, but from what I hear this guy has an anti-league bent (not sure if true).

[HoustonRaven]

I see no evidence Brandt understands the nuance

He's a graduate of Georgetown Law and is a practicing attorney. He's the former VP of Finance and General Counsel for the Packers for many years. He was also a player agent.

I'd say he's forgotten more about anti-trust and L&E laws than you or I have ever known.

The only things that would matter are: 1) was there a private agreement among the owners

Except that privacy, secrecy or anything of the kind isn't a standard in of itself in proving collusion. You must also prove there was an intent to deceive or defraud. An agreement behind closed doors does not rise to that standard.

and 2) did this agreement result in less overall compensation for players, in 2010, or any year, or period. The answers to both of those questions are clearly "yes,"

Umm. No.

Not one player (or players, since you like to lump them together) got any less money than their contracts (or individual contract) provided them. Nada. Zero. Zip.

Since not one player got less than their contractual amount, the pool of money available to the players remained unchanged, but that does not matter anyway because the players agreed to the year being uncapped anyway.

[Haloti92]

He's a graduate of Georgetown Law and is a practicing attorney. He's the former VP of Finance and General Counsel for the Packers for many years. He was also a player agent.

I'd say he's forgotten more about anti-trust and L&E laws than you or I have ever known.

Textbook fallacy. A clear sign of the inability to form an actual argument.

Except that privacy, secrecy or anything of the kind isn't a standard in of itself in proving collusion. You must also prove there was an intent to deceive or defraud. An agreement behind closed doors does not rise to that standard.

Except that no one here is claiming that a private meeting means anything on its own. If the owners meet in private to decide to give $5k each to UNICEF, no one would care. Why do you keep saying that privacy isn't proof of collusion when I have never claimed it was? Reducing player compensation checks the defraud box, that you refuse to understand this obvious fact, is not my problem. To you, an owner's meeting where they decided to limit player compensation in an agreed-upon uncapped year by self-imposing a salary cap of $100M would be okay. Of course this is nonsense. As is any self-imposed private agreement that limits player compensation above and beyond the agreed-upon rules of the CBA at the time. But I repeat myself.

Umm. No.

Not one player (or players, since you like to lump them together) got any less money than their contracts (or individual contract) provided them. Nada. Zero. Zip.

Since not one player got less than their contractual amount, the pool of money available to the players remained unchanged, but that does not matter anyway because the players agreed to the year being uncapped anyway.

Umm, yes.

Of course no one got less than their contract, why are you pretending anyone around here claimed that happened? Do you even know what a contract means? How would the league get out of paying money that was already agreed to? The people who lost money were the players that were (2011) and are (now and going forward) not able to be signed (or signed for more) because the teams colluded to disallow an at-the-time legal move which loaded future cap space into the current cap year thereby freeing up cap space in the future so that it can spent on real live players. And if the new allegation is true, then the FA's of 2010 were also affected by the agreement to limit compensation in general in that year, rather than just dumping. But I repeat myself.

Why does anyone think the Skins gained any advantage at all with their move? They dumped future cap space. Why does dumping future cap space give them an advantage? They get to use it to sign players for more than they would have otherwise. What does signing players for more mean? Players get paid more.

And imagine if the league hadn't colluded and threatened teams that didn't agree to the collusion. Even more money to the players.

But I repeat myself.

[HoustonRaven]

The only fallacy committed would be the one of fallacy ad hominem (and a healthy dose of argumentum verbosum), based on that first sentence of your response, Haloti.

It was a good debate until you decided to make it personal. Too bad.

[Haloti92]

The only fallacy committed would be the one of fallacy ad hominem, based on that first sentence of your response, Haloti.

It was a good debate until you decided to make it personal. Too bad.

Yours was a classic Ad Verecundiam. And using that fallacy in place of an actual argument does indeed indicate the inability, or unwillingness (I should have included that additional qualification, my apologies), to make an actual argument.

I am sorry, but that was not a personal attack, in my opinion, as much as an attack of your argument/statement regarding Brandt (the clear fallacy part), and only that portion of the post. It certainly wasn't intended to be personal, as I would have responded to anyone and everyone the same way had they tried to say "this guy is an authority, this guy says X, therefore X is true" like you essentially did with that opening.

It was good debate for a while. No hard feelings, HR.