Forced Collusion: Why The Redskins and Cowboys Are Paying For Roger Goodell's Mistakes

Apparently you don't have to break a rule anymore to face Roger Goodell's wrath.

Between the Saints bounty saga (I refuse to call it Bountygate), the Robert Griffin III trade, the courtship of Peyton Manning, and the free agency frenzy, there's a lot of news and excitement surrounding the NFL right now. And yet this morning I find myself captivated by the news that the Redskins and Cowboys are being penalized a whopping $46 million of cap space for front-loading contracts during the 2010 uncapped year. It's not the sexiest story out there, but it might be the biggest.

At first glance, this seems like a classic punishment for Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones, two owners notoriously known for their attempts to buy a championship. But the more I learn about this, the more evidence I see that Washington and Dallas could be the victims of some serious intimidation and manipulation by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

 

To understand this story, we'll have to go back to the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations of the past few years. What irked me about last year's lockout was that it could have been avoided if Goodell stuck to the plan of his predecessor. When then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue extended the CBA in 2006, he inserted a clause for an uncapped year in 2010. Why? To ensure that the future commissioner would have a huge incentive to sign a new CBA with the union before 2010 and avoid a work stoppage. It was a mechanism designed to protect the league from itself.

Instead, Roger Goodell and the owners ignored this fail-safe. They dug their heels into the ground, demanded a better deal, flew past Tagliabue's 2010 deadline, and ushered in a season without a salary cap. Yet instead of rampant spending, teams remained relatively conservative. Many found it puzzling at the time, but it makes sense now that we've learned that Goodell "warned" teams there would be consequences for overspending.

Goodell could not make this an official rule, because that would violate the terms that Tagliabue had mandated. And any attempt by the 32 teams to collectively curtail their spending would be downright collusion, risking lawsuits from the players and questions from Congress. So the commissioner instead used his muscle to create an artificial salary cap. If the rules got rid of the spending limits, then warnings and veiled threats of future punishment could still keep them in place. Simply put, Goodell was having his cake and eating it too.

The Cowboys and Redskins, however, refused to be intimidated. Dallas gave Miles Austin a front-loaded contract and Washington cut Albert Haynesworth, giving them spending room in future years when the salary cap would be back in place. Make no mistake, this was clear salary cap manipulation by Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder. But they weren't breaking any rule because, again, no rule was in place. And because Goodell could not risk evidence of collusion at a time when the league was negotiating a new CBA with the union, he delayed punishing Dallas and Washington's disobedience.

Instead, Goodell bided his time until the moment when the union would be in enough of a bind to inexplicably agree to punish a team for overspending on its players. It's been two years, but that time has finally come. As they calculated the 2012 salary cap, the NFLPA recently learned that each team would be allowed to spend four million dollars less than they did last year. With DeMaurice Smith up for reelection as union president, news that the salary cap actually decreased would be the death knell to his campaign. So instead, Goodell offered to manipulate the salary and benefits numbers to raise the cap...so long as Smith agreed to punish the Cowboys and Redskins. Let me repeat that: the union president agreed to punish two employers for giving their employees too much money.

So to recap: A commissioner inserted a fail-safe clause that would force his successor to maintain labor peace. The new commissioner ignored the clause, and then circumvented it via veiled threats that bullied team owners into collusion. When two owners refused to be intimidated, the commissioner sat on the case for two years. Then, at the opportune time, he leveraged a rival's precarious political position to punish the two owners for violating a rule that could never legally exist in the first place.

Goodell is satisfied because he held his artificial 2010 salary cap in place and proved to the owners that his strong suggestions, as indefensible as they may be, should not be challenged. Smith is happy because he avoided a big campaign speed bump. And the other owners are looking the other way because their franchises each receive a small salary cap bump this season. The only ones hurt in this situation are the Redskins and Cowboys, and who's going to shed tears for two billionaire renegades like Snyder and Jones?

Nevertheless, this sets a bad precedent for the league. The CBA rules are in place for a reason, and no party should be able to skirt them via intimidation and political maneuvering. Is it any wonder that, while all major sports outlets are reporting this story, you can't find a word of it on the league's website? It's not as sexy, but this story should receive just as much attention as Peyton Manning is getting right now. Instead, Goodell hopes that it fades quietly into the background of free agency.

I expect the Cowboys and Redskins to challenge Goodell and I expect to see the punishment rescinded. But by that time, premier free agents like Vincent Jackson and Cortland Finnegan will be long gone. As unfair as it is, the Cowboys and Redskins are going to pay for this one way or the other. And given the manipulation mastery he has shown so far, I'm sure that's exactly how Roger Goodell planned it.

Follow me at @BostonGiant.

Image found here.