NFLPA's Lawsuit Against NFL, Alleging Secret $123 Million Salary Cap In Uncapped Year

Young_Chitlin

I've never been happier to admit I was wrong. Yesterday, the Redskins and Cowboys dropped their appeals of the NFL's salary cap penalties after being ruled against by rubber-stamp arbitrator Stephen Burbank, and I thought that was the end of it. The bad guys won. But the NFLPA had been saving its secret weapon for just this day. This morning, the players' union filed a lawsuit against the NFL, claiming the league owners had conspired to set a secret $123 million salary cap in 2010, a final "uncapped" year before the CBA expired.

No more NFL panels and NFL owners ruling on the NFL on alleged NFL wrongdoings. This one's going to federal court, and a court where Judge David Doty has repeatedly shown himself sympathetic to the players. The lawsuit is embedded below.

First off, if the NFLPA's claims are true, it would be unreal that the NFL thought it could get away with this. (Notwithstanding the fact that they have, so far.) A secret agreement forged in smoky back rooms with the express intent of keeping salaries down? That's the damned definition of collusion, and pretty much exactly what lost MLB three lawsuits in the 1980s.

What's even more mind-blowing is how nonchalantly public the NFL has been about its little "agreement." Today's lawsuit doesn't cite any independently discovered evidence, but rather the owners' and commissioner's own words.

From ESPN.com:

While there was no salary cap in 2010 and no rule prohibited teams from spending whatever they wanted to spend that year, Mara said the issue "came up several times in our meetings," and that there was an agreement not to engage in the kind of behavior in which the Redskins and Cowboys behaved by dumping big cap hits into the uncapped year in order to save against the cap in future seasons.

Again, ESPN.com:

"The question was, 'Did any teams gain a competitive advantage?'" Goodell said. "And that was the focus that we and the NFLPA had in reaching our agreement — making sure that no team had a long-term competitive advantage."

Other than the fact that it's his job and he's paid handsomely to do it, I don't know how spokesman Greg Aiello can say with a straight face today that "there was no agreement." There ? was! Your own commissioner said so!

Aiello goes on to give a preview of how the NFL is going to fight this suit: by claiming the players' can't legally file it, because they already signed off on the Redskins' and Cowboys' salary cap penalties. We're forced to remind you of the circumstances surrounding that: The league came to the players and said we're going to lower the salary cap, unless you let us punish these teams and redistribute that money. And now I'm wondering, ? , did De Smith sign off on the punishment just so he could turn around and file this lawsuit? If so, brilliant.

I don't know how the NFL defends itself. The sheer fact that they enforced monetary penalties on the Redskins and Cowboys is proof that they violated some kind of rule. And since there was no cap in place, that rule must have been secret. Hence, collusion.

The NFLPA is seeking monetary compensation for the wages lost by teams self-imposing a cap, as well as punitive damages. The numbers they're throwing around would be in the billions. The uncapped year may end up costing the league after all.

Profootballtalk.com confirms the story:

Union sues NFL, claims collusion during uncapped year
Posted by Michael David Smith

During the 2010 season, there was no salary cap. But most NFL teams operated as if there were a salary cap, and two teams that didn’t — the Redskins and Cowboys — have since been penalized by the league.

That smells like collusion among the owners, and now the NFL Players Association is filing a lawsuit alleging just that.

The NFLPA’s suit says the owners conspired to have a secret salary cap of $123 million for the 2010 season, which was supposed to be the uncapped year.

“When the rules are broken in a way that hurts the game, we have an obligation to act. We cannot standby when we now know that the owners conspired to collude,” NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said.

The NFL says the lawsuit, which is being filed in the court of Judge David Doty, is prohibited by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement — the owners’ argument is that when the union accepted the current deal last year, the players were waiving their right to file this kind of lawsuit.

“The filing of these claims is prohibited by the Collective Bargaining Agreement and separately, by an agreement signed by the players’ attorneys last August,” the NFL said in a statement. “The claims have absolutely no merit and we fully expect them to be dismissed. On multiple occasions, the players and their representatives specifically dismissed all claims, known or unknown, whether pending or not.”

News of the lawsuit comes one day after the Redskins and Cowboys failed in their appeal of their combined $46 million in salary cap penalties for their actions during the uncapped year. What’s surprising is that when the NFL announced that punishment for the Redskins and Cowboys — which also included raising the salary caps of 28 of the other 30 teams — the union signed off on it. Now the union says what the owners did during the uncapped year was illegal.

Matt-

good luck finding any hard evidence to prove conspiracy and collusion.


but this should be interesting.