NFL Penalizing Salary Cap for Cowboys and Redskins

[Snauty]

My question is, why did teams not agree to do this. Seems like every team would benefit from this in an uncapped year. My only guess is that teams like the Bucs and Jax are content with not spending and have enourmous cap room and thought it was unfair for teams like dallas to take adavantage of an uncapped year. what whinney little arses.

[Nation]

Originally Posted by Sam I Am

Doesn't the NFL have to approve the contracts? I find it odd for the NFL to fine a team for a contract they approved.

Strikes me as being along the lines of cheating a tax return. You can get it through the government but that doesn't mean you're not in trouble when they audit you.

[SkinsFan82]

Originally Posted by Nation

Strikes me as being along the lines of cheating a tax return. You can get it through the government but that doesn't mean you're not in trouble when they audit you.

hah...I get what you're saying but the NFL is supposed to do the audit prior to approval. If they had issue with it, they should not have approved it.

[JonJon]

Originally Posted by SDogo

One positive way to look at it though is Jerry knew this before all this agressive FA talk so obviously he has a plan.

I'm glad you ave some insight into whats going on and that Jerry wasn't completely blindsided about this, because I was about to go ballistic. This still doesn't seem fair though, especially since the league approved the deals. You can't approve something and then go back and punish other teams for what you approved.

[Pabst]

Originally Posted by reddyuta

the guys we cut were going to be cut anyway,this doesnt make any sense.I hope JJ goes ballistic over this.

The guys we cut took place after this whole mess. It's why we've had a ton of dead cap space last year, and this year.

The Cowboys are getting punished because of the Miles Austin contract extension. Instead of giving him a large signing bonus, we gave him a large first season salary in the uncapped year. Basically, this prevented the "traditional" signing bonus from being pro-rated over the life of the contract. It would have saved cap space long term, but with the penalty, it more or less evens out.

The more I think about it, the loss of cap space isn't really a big deal at all. They can still sign whoever they want, especially since a lot of dead cap space comes off the books next year, and the big TV deal kicks in the year after that, which will dramatically increase the salary cap.

They shouldn't have been punished, though. They really did nothing wrong. The league approved the contract, after all.

[SkinsFan82]

It's pretty simple, you have a bunch of small market and tight fisted owners who saw the big market/big money guys throwing around a bunch of cash on the front end in an uncapped year and got angry.

[Nation]

Originally Posted by SkinsFan82

hah...I get what you're saying but the NFL is supposed to do the audit prior to approval. If they had issue with it, they should not have approved it.

I'm not saying I don't agree with that, just that it must be what the process was, because nothing else makes sense.

[cowboy_ron]

Originally Posted by Nation

Strikes me as being along the lines of cheating a tax return. You can get it through the government but that doesn't mean you're not in trouble when they audit you.

SO be glad your team didn't get hit

[patrickstillhere]

Can we split the money in the next 2 seasons or this and the following season?

[bkight13]

It looks like they are just converting the difference between Austin's Year1 salary of $17m and Year2 salary of $1.5m into a signing bonus and spreading it out over the rest of the contract. Not really a punishment, but more of a correction.

[cowboy_ron]

So I guess Jerry and Danny are the only ones that didn't pay the Goodell tax

[BraveHeartFan]

Well this sucks.

I don't see how only 2 teams are going to be punished for things other teams did but it looks like this was agreed to and there isn't going to be anything done about it.

This sort of takes the fun out of Free Agency tomorrow.

[Staxxxx]

Originally Posted by Fla Cowpoke

This has to be the hottest thread ever!!!!

Well I know I'm as hot as I've been in a long time. Heck I'm probably a six pack after work away from grabbing the yellow pages and dialing lawyers. Of course when I start using phrases like class action, fans, nfl, and pro bono they'll assume it's a prank call and laugh me off the phone.

[AdamJT13]

The ONLY contract that we frontloaded in 2010 was Miles Austin's, and his contract still complied with the 50% down rule (his 2010 "cap" number was $17,078,000, and his 2011 cap number was $8,540,000). A few other cap numbers were barely higher in 2010 than in 2011.

Meanwhile, several other teams frontloaded contracts and will not be penalized at all.

The Packers, for instance, renegotiated Tramon Williams' contract late in the uncapped season to make his base salary more than $37 million. He got 1/17th of that each week for the last five weeks of the season, giving him a "cap" number of $15,043,000 that season. In 2011, when the cap returned, his cap number was $5.6 million -- barely more than one-third of the 2010 figure. The Packers also gave Nick Collins a roster bonus of $8.3 million in the uncapped year to give him a "cap" number of $10.95 million. The next year, when the cap returned, his cap number was only $5.18 million -- less than half. The same with Ryan Picket, but with a smaller bonus ($6,437,500) and smaller cap numbers ($8.44 million in 2010, only $4.21 million in 2011). The same with BJ Raji -- $5,222,500 roster bonus, $7.89 million in 2010, only $3.06 million in 2011. Apparently, it was perfectly OK for them to dump money into the uncapped year.

[The Quest for Six]

ah well, welcome back Alan Ball....lol