The NFL hit the Dallas Cowboys with a salary cap penalty that seems unfair from the start. The NFL penalized both the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins for frontloading contracts in a year where there was no salary cap. The NFL deemed this gave Dallas and Washington an unfair advantage.
Jerry Jones
Wikimedia Commons
This makes no sense from the angle that all the teams in the NFL, from the low budget to the rich, had the same opportunity in 2010, the uncapped year. Anyone could save themselves down the line if they took advantage of the fact there was no salary cap that season. The NFL warned teams at the time not to take advantage of this but Dallas and Washington did anyway. And it was legal within the rules.
Now, the NFL is fining the teams for not breaking a rule, but ignoring the NFL's warning. The fact that year was an uncapped season means that Dallas did not break a single rule but will lose $10 million in cap money anyway. All this tells me is that the NFL can fine and hold down any team they want, even if that team plays within the rules.
The infraction for Dallas was frontloading Miles Austin's contract with $17 million that season. The infraction for Washington was more damaging. The Redskins gave Albert Haynesworth $21 million and he did nothing for the team. Regardless, the NFL slapped the Redskins with a $36 million cap penalty.
The NFL claims "a small number of clubs during the 2010 league year created an unacceptable risk to future competitive balance." However, since no rules were actually broken, this is just the NFL and Roger Goodell being petty. Anyone who calls the Cowboys and Redskins cheaters for this penalty have no idea what they are talking about.
What Dallas and Washington did was use the rules, at the time, to their advantage. There was no salary cap in 2010, so neither team had to abide by one. That is the facts. The people who claim they cheated are just trying to find another reason to hate the teams.
The fact that this penalty was given the day before free agency began was, from the look of it, to ensure that neither Dallas nor the Redskins could be competitive in free agency this year. There is no other reason to have the decision come that close to the deadline.
Say what you want about the teams' actions in 2010, but it seems to me like the only competitive balance being threatened here is the NFL trying to damage Jerry Jones' and Dan Snyder's ability to compete in 2012. How else can you explain a penalty handed down for not breaking the rules?
Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys' fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys' related news, good or bad
Source: NFL.COM
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