tshile Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 The NFL's anti-trust exemption is much different than baseballs. The NFL's only addresses the ability to bargain as a group for TV rights. The NFL has NO exemption in regards to labor matters. So they are completely open to collusion charges. Sorry, that wasn't my point. (I'm just trying to make sure I don't get wrapped up in defending something I'm not trying to defend.) What i was talking about was his analogy to employers colluding in an industry to prevent you from getting a raise by switching jobs, and why that analogy doesn't apply (at least I don't think it does.) I have no problem with the collusion arguments. As I've said, repeatedly, I agree with those arguments; the NFL was definitely colluding. Their own quotes are clear evidence of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Am I the only one who finds it amusing that "Inigo Montoya" would be holding a grudge?My name is Inigo Montoya. You cheated my team. Prepare to die. I'm with you. F John Mara. I'll never get over it. i hope we grind them intp pulp. ~Bang Bang with 5 start material Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rufus T Firefly Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Sorry, that wasn't my point. (I'm just trying to make sure I don't get wrapped up in defending something I'm not trying to defend.) What i was talking about was his analogy to employers colluding in an industry to prevent you from getting a raise by switching jobs, and why that analogy doesn't apply (at least I don't think it does.) I have no problem with the collusion arguments. As I've said, repeatedly, I agree with those arguments; the NFL was definitely colluding. Their own quotes are clear evidence of it. And yet you're arguing that the Redskins did something wrong by not going along with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOF44 Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Sorry, that wasn't my point. (I'm just trying to make sure I don't get wrapped up in defending something I'm not trying to defend.) What i was talking about was his analogy to employers colluding in an industry to prevent you from getting a raise by switching jobs, and why that analogy doesn't apply (at least I don't think it does.) I have no problem with the collusion arguments. As I've said, repeatedly, I agree with those arguments; the NFL was definitely colluding. Their own quotes are clear evidence of it. I'm not sure how you can agree the league colluded, but were in the right penalizing us as they did. By the way that analogy about pay is dead on and as I said before if this ever see's a judge on merit and to procedure the NFL is screwed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slaga Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 And yet you're arguing that the Redskins did something wrong by not going along with it.More specifically tshile felt the Redskins were underhanded... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kindred Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 To address your post in reverse:We're dealing with the NFL which has anti-trust exception and works with a union, so it doesn't really apply to your analogy. I understand what you're saying, and I agree that would suck. But you'd have to compare it to labor unions, and when you do you find that's kind of how it works... If you're going to argue that the non-capped year is a punishment for not negotiating better that's absolutely fine, and I can completely agree with that; I'm open to alternatives, but I see nothing wrong with that logic. I was never really arguing that though, or at least I didn't mean too... All I was saying is that when you have a group of people who play by one set of rules, and another group that doesn't, the group that doesn't gets an advantage. I don't think the way the NFL pursued the Redskins, Cowboys, and (I think?) Saints was fair; but that doesn't mean that I don't understand what they were trying to do (or what excuse they were using to do what they did.) I don't think the Redskins were some innocent organization that was the result of a witch hunt and conspiracy to go after Snyder... Outside of a labor union agreement, are you so sure anti trust doesnt apply? The whole point of when the labor union agreement expires is that there ARE NO rules. If you want a better analogy, take my example from before, add a worker union into the mix, the agreement with the worker union expired and companies persist with a tacit agreement not to increase employee salaries. A few companies decide not to adhere to this tacit agreement, and the other companies gang up on those 2 companies and penalize them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slaga Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Outside of a labor union agreement, are you so sure anti trust doesnt apply? The whole point of when the labor union agreement expires is that there ARE NO rules. If you want a better analogy, take my example from before, add a worker union into the mix, the agreement with the worker union expired and companies persist with a tacit agreement not to increase employee salaries. A few companies decide not to adhere to this tacit agreement, and the other companies gang up on those 2 companies and penalize them.Except in this case the agreement never expired. The agreement allowed those to companies to pay whatever they wanted in the last year. 2, actually more, companies did exactly what all of the other companies agreed to to allow 10 years prior, but that did not stop the other companies from ganging up anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbs Hog Heaven Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 tshile man, you'd make one heck of a Politician. What's the phrase ..... 'economical with the actualité.' Hail. Having looked back on this, and having the literal translation pointed out to me as something which apparently caused offence; I feel the need to apologise to tshile for not clarifying the above phrase. The fact I did in subsequent posts still doesn't make any misunderstanding here any better. Although the literal translation from the French of the above would be 'economical with the truth', ergo calling someone a liar; that was not my intention. The phrase has entered the UK vernacular in terms of Politicians over recent years in either that context or when they manipulate facts to suit another argument. Which is the context I was aiming for in this instance. I apologise to tshile and anyone else that read that as me calling him an out right liar. Hail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiscoBob Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 This argument is laughable - there are simple facts here....The PA and the Owners agreed to a CBA that left the last year as uncapped. This was done to incentivise the owners to negotiate a new deal because of the rampant spending that would occur. When the uncapped year came, some of the owners got together (illegally) and determined to violate the intent of the uncapped year. Those that didn't go along with this plan were within the rules of the agreement that they all had signed. After the fact, the upset owners (who represented the voting majority) blackmailed the PA into agreeing to fine the teams that didn't listen to them. The person who lead the charge happened to single out only two of the offenders (of about six), who happened to be rivals of his team. Those are the simple facts...ANYONE with a rational mind would see this as unfair and vindictive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tulane Skins Fan Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Outside of a labor union agreement, are you so sure anti trust doesnt apply? The whole point of when the labor union agreement expires is that there ARE NO rules. If you want a better analogy, take my example from before, add a worker union into the mix, the agreement with the worker union expired and companies persist with a tacit agreement not to increase employee salaries. A few companies decide not to adhere to this tacit agreement, and the other companies gang up on those 2 companies and penalize them. Remember, the uncapped year was not a year without a labor agreement. The year was covered by the CBA, as an uncapped year. This is why the NFLPA brought a claim against the NFL... it sounds like a good unfair labor practice claim to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 And yet you're arguing that the Redskins did something wrong by not going along with it. Yes, in terms of the spirit of the cap. They took advantage of something the rest of the teams did not (well, most of the rest of the teams); and they were asked not to. In terms of having a competitive advantage - I agree that the redskins got one. I see what the league says when they criticize us for what we did. We did gain an advantage in doing what we did; that's WHY we did it. I'm not sure how you can agree the league colluded, but were in the right penalizing us as they did. By the way that analogy about pay is dead on and as I said before if this ever see's a judge on merit and to procedure the NFL is screwed. Well... I don't agree they were 'in the right for penalizing us as they did' because (as I've said multiple times) they didn't penalize other teams that did the same thing... If they evenly penalized everyone (even those that went under the floor) then I'd be in agreement with it; but they didn't. That doesn't make what the redskins did right - in my opinion. But - that analogy doesn't work as I don't work for a labor union, there is no other industry like 'professional sports', and I never said there wasn't collusion. The analogy is worthless because of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Having looked back on this, and having the literal translation pointed out to me as something which apparently caused offence; I feel the need to apologise to tshile for not clarifying the above phrase. The fact I did in subsequent posts still doesn't make any misunderstanding here any better. Although the literal translation from the French of the above would be 'economical with the truth', ergo calling someone a liar; that was not my intention. The phrase has entered the UK vernacular in terms of Politicians over recent years in either that context or when they manipulate facts to suit another argument. Which is the context I was aiming for in this instance. I apologise to tshile and anyone else that read that as me calling him an out right liar. Hail. You had no reason to apologize but I accept it anyways My PM's were just to let you know what it looks like when the phrase is googled (because I had no idea what it meant.). No harm no foul. At the end of the day I'm just a person on the internet so what I think about this situation matters none. I just think the Redskins did gain a competitive advantage in what they did. I think the league is right in not liking it since not every team felt they were allowed to make such moves. I don't think the league penalized fairly because they only penalized a few. And with that I've spent entirely too much time on the topic. If this thread isn't 3x as long in the morning i'll come back and further argue with you people. otherwise have a good evening Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rufus T Firefly Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Yes, in terms of the spirit of the cap. They took advantage of something the rest of the teams did not (well, most of the rest of the teams); and they were asked not to. In terms of having a competitive advantage - I agree that the redskins got one.I see what the league says when they criticize us for what we did. We did gain an advantage in doing what we did; that's WHY we did it. In asking teams not to "violate the spirit of the cap" the NFL was committing collusion. And you're saying the Redskins were wrong for not going along with that. So you're literaaly saying that the Redskins were wrong for not going along with an illegal activity. I don't see how that's anything but an indefensible position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 In asking teams not to "violate the spirit of the cap" the NFL was committing collusion. And you're saying the Redskins were wrong for not going along with that. So you're literaaly saying that the Redskins were wrong for not going along with an illegal activity. I don't see how that's anything but an indefensible position. Yes, you are correct. I'm not saying the Redskins are in the wrong for not going along with the collusion. I'm saying that the Redskins gained a competitive advantage by playing by rules other teams weren't, and that I understand why the NFL would have a problem with that. I understand why the Redskins were punished. What I don't understand is why everyone else wasn't. My argument is not about picking a winner between the two sides, at least it was never intended that way. My argument was only to point out that I do think they gained an advantage over other teams. The Redskins were a poorly run team both on the field and financially. I can see why other teams hated the idea that they were able to wipe out their bad decisions so easily. I can also see why they didn't want teams being reckless with no cap for a year. You're always free to call my opinion stupid. I just don't think the Redskins are the innocent party they're touted as when this conversation comes up amongst Redskins fans... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RansomthePasserby Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 You're always free to call my opinion stupid. I just don't think the Redskins are the innocent party they're touted as when this conversation comes up amongst Redskins fans... But if the Redskins didn't break any rules, how can they be guilty? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momma There Goes That Man Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 "That's not fair?"When you go back and you look at all the so-called "class" organization that dumped money in the 2010 uncapped year, you can't say it's unfair. Matt Schaub's contract was directly written to pay him a huge bonus in the uncapped year. Julius Pepper's contract gave him a huge upfront sum in the uncapped year. Everyone tried to game the system. Actually, there was no gaming of the system, because it was clearly within the rules. As has been pointed out before, the NFL has to approve all contracts. If this was about fairness, why did the league office approve the contracts in the first place? If this is all about fairness, then the NFL could've informed us at the end of the 2011 season, or a month before, or two months before. Instead they waited literally waited until the last friggin' minute to not only inform us this cap penalty was going to happen, but they waited even later than that to inform us whether or not we could shift the brunt of the penalty into 2013? Where's the fairness? Or is it a case of "well the Redskins and Cowboys didn't play fairly so we shouldn't have to either!" Here's what really happened; the Redskins restructured DeAngelo Hall and Albert Haynesworth's contracts to dump money into the uncapped year, which was completely legal and was something every other team had done. But what happened when they dumped money into the uncapped year was that they inflated the cost of the franchise tag, which meant small market teams couldn't force guys to play for them another year. For example, because the Redskins bumped up the overall cost of the franchise tag on corners, the Bengals couldn't be cheapskates and tag Johnathan Joseph instead of paying him. That's also part of the reason that the Chargers couldn't get Vincent Jackson on the tag (again) because of the way Miles Austin's contract was structured. So you have a bunch of small market teams steaming because the Redskins and Cowboys inflated the tag on D-tackles, corners and wide receivers...never mind that it could've just as easily happened just by the nature of signing someone in free agency, or that pretty much all these teams (the Jaguars, the Bengals, the Bucs) have skinflint owners who hate spending money as is and the franchise tag is essentially their only means of keeping their A-listers around. And you have John Mara, who was staring down the best free agency class in recent history, and the Washington Redskins with an even bigger wallet than usual and likely one of the two best quarterback prospects to ever come out, who just so happens to be on the committee with a lot of the same pissed off, skinflint owners. Hell of an opportunity to do some damaage. Nothing about the cap hit was done in the interest of fairness. It was all long standing grudges with Snyder and Jones for the way they spend in free agency, and one man with a helluva lot of power and the commisioner's ear seeking to directly harm two in division opponents. If something like this happened to the Patroits, or hell, the Giants, it'd be cause for outrage. But because it's Dan and Jerry people shrug their shoulders and say 'well they must have deserved it'. But they didn't. Their were plenty of times to enforce fairness. They didn't enforce fairness because these two teams did nothing that was unfair. You post a lot on here but I think this is the best one I have read in my time on the board. Excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOF44 Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 So the Redskins gained a competitive advantage by not participating in a illegal activity, yet they are not an innocent party in this travesty?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momma There Goes That Man Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 The Redskins were a poorly run team both on the field and financially. I can see why other teams hated the idea that they were able to wipe out their bad decisions so easily. I can also see why they didn't want teams being reckless with no cap for a year. ... That is not really the Redskins or Cowboys' problem. If the other owners didn't like the fact that teams would be able to wipe their slates clean they should have worked harder to reach an agreement before 2010. That is why the uncapped year was written in as a bargaining tool to motivate them to reach a deal because if you don't, hey, teams can essentially clean their slate or front load contracts for FA out the ass if they want. Don't like it, make a deal. The irresponsibility of all the owners to reach a deal is being completely ignored as they act like they were wronged by the Dan and Jerry for going ahead with the uncapped year. They all knew this could happen, they shouldn't be able to go back and punish teams when they were the ones that brought this on themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rufus T Firefly Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Yes, you are correct. I'm not saying the Redskins are in the wrong for not going along with the collusion. I'm saying that the Redskins gained a competitive advantage by playing by rules other teams weren't, and that I understand why the NFL would have a problem with that. I understand why the Redskins were punished. What I don't understand is why everyone else wasn't. My argument is not about picking a winner between the two sides, at least it was never intended that way. My argument was only to point out that I do think they gained an advantage over other teams. The Redskins were a poorly run team both on the field and financially. I can see why other teams hated the idea that they were able to wipe out their bad decisions so easily. I can also see why they didn't want teams being reckless with no cap for a year. You're always free to call my opinion stupid. I just don't think the Redskins are the innocent party they're touted as when this conversation comes up amongst Redskins fans... First off, I never called you or your opinion stupid. Let's not try to play the martyr. The "rules the Redskins didn't play by" were collusive, period. You can't say the Redskins deserve to be punished for not going along with collusion and then say you aren't saying that. Doesn't work that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inigo Montoya Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Am I the only one who finds it amusing that "Inigo Montoya" would be holding a grudge?My name is Inigo Montoya. You cheated my team. Prepare to die. I'm with you. F John Mara. I'll never get over it. i hope we grind them intp pulp. ~Bang HAHA, still looking for the 6 fingered man... Mara? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSO Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Seriously, it's over and done with. Get over it. We aren't getting any of the cap money back. We all agree Mara is a douche. We'll get over it when our team isn't deficient in any way at any position due to the bs penalty. Until then, every time the secondary has a bad game or our Oline struggles even a little bit, we have every right to be angry at that owner and his organization, PERIOD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 You post a lot on here but I think this is the best one I have read in my time on the board. Excellent. We often think alike because I felt the same way and was going to post how epic that was. Loved the ST:FC reference too, as that is a great scene, so great I actually got Moby Dick on audiobook and loved it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinsfan1311 Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 We'll get over it when our team isn't deficient in any way at any position due to the bs penalty. Until then, every time the secondary has a bad game or our Oline struggles even a little bit, we have every right to be angry at that owner and his organization, PERIOD. Goddamn right. I don't "get over it" when my team is screwed over and slighted. **** Mara! **** the Giants! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ouvan59 Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 I'm not making excuses for anyone. I'm providing the excuse the NFL used. They couldn't reject the contracts; they were limited from doing that at the time. I can't remember the specifics of why, because I haven't really gone over this situation in a few months. But it was laid out very clearly by someone on ESPN 980 one day...They approved the contracts and they worked within the framework they had at the time that was actually established in the rules. If you're going to stop there and not consider any other context of the situation, or put any thought into the entirety of the situation, then that excuse works fine. It's a naive position to take though. It doesn't fit with your personality (as it's portrayed here to me at least.) They couldn't do it because it violated anti-trust laws. I love the people suggesting that the Skins, Cowboys and the handful of other teams that went against the owners agreement, are the underhanded ones. What the owners agreed to is illegal. They have admitted to collusion. Unfortunately the NFLPA signed away their ability to do anything about and meanwhile the Cowboys and Skins are left holding the bag. The NFL owners are the bad guys here. Everyone chastising the Skins and Cowboys are acting like the NFL's agreement was reasonable. It wasn't and isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s0crates Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Love the thread. It would be nice to see some Giants fans drop in and see what all the fuss is over. I am disappointed in the few fans among us who are so eager to excuse the league and brush this under the rug. Thanks to GHH and NLC for fighting the good fight and saying exactly what I would like to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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