Random Commanders Thoughts

[Lanky Livingston]

If it's not collusion, what do you call it when the league signed off and approved the contracts, only to have a rival team owner head a committee and find two teams, who also happen to be is the same division, have ensured they will be more successful than his team for the next few years, then have the league turn around and say the previously approved contracts are not allowed?

Oh yeah, I always forget the league approved the contracts first. As if they needed more ammo!!

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[SkinnedAussie]

I can only go by how it was reported, and what I read.

Maybe you can tell us all what really happened!

 

[Miles Monroe]

Good they have Riley back in the fold. Continuity cant hurt....

 

[tshile]

So, you acknowledge the league blatantly broke the rules AND the law, but it's on the skins? Okay.

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I'm responding with the following preface:

We've (general we - as in the board) had this conversation before, at least once. I get that majority of redskins fans do not agree with me. I'm not expecting to sway anyone's opinion. I'm not saying the vast majority of redskins fans are wrong - in fact, they're technically right.

Now with that out of the way

The Redskins aren't some small mom and pop shop that took advantage of a temporarily discombobulated local government and managed to 'get one over' on the man. They're one of 32 teams that together make up one of the more powerful corporations/organizations in the world.

Did the Redskins follow the rules? Or more accurately, follow the rule about the lack of rules? Yes. It was an uncapped year.
Were they told not to dump contracts? According to everyone except for the public word of redskins officials, yes.
Were they told there would be consequences for dumping those contracts? Yes, same answer as immediately above.
Did they dump the contracts anyways? Yes, they did. To tune of 36 million dollars in cap space.
Did the league punish them? Yes, by removing that 36 million dollars from their cap space.

Dan Snyder, in typical Dan Snyder fashion, thought he had a winning hand and decided to be an obnoxious ass hat at the poker table. Gloating and gloating about his hand. And in some ways he was right - he had the killer hand. The problem is that playing that hand meant potentially sabotaging his license to print money - or as we call it, NFL Franchise.

Ah yes - The Nuclear Option! The problem with The Nuclear Option is the MAD part - Mutually Assured Destruction. The league colluded to make sure that teams wouldn't dump contracts into an uncapped year, or stack up their roster well above what would be the cap for a run, and Dan Snyder decided to buck the league. The problem is that the league called his bluff - "You're not going to take us to court because that would potentially ruin your license to print money as well, so take your punishment and cry about it but realize you got outplayed even when you had the winning hand. Because you're sniveling little shit that isn't smart enough to play the games you enter yourself into." That was the message from the league. Bluff called.

And The Redskins? What recourse do we have? None. We went through arbitration but no one expected anything. So we called a few press conferences, said a few things, and went about business as usual - with the exception that we now had this built in excuse for not meeting expectation, we're missing all this cap space!

Except there's a problem with that excuse... the cap space we were 'missing' was equal to the contracts we dumped. What we saved by dumping contracts was essentially converted into dead cap money by the league (dead cap money may be the wrong term, I'm not a cap guru, if someone wants to correct me it's appreciated.) 36 million wasn't thought of out of thin air - it's the money we attempted to save. So, if we hadn't subverted the league's mandate we would have still owed that money to shit contracts we made with Hall and Haynesworth.

We weren't paying the price of the league having an agenda to 'get' us - we're paying the price for being an organization that was run by complete ass clowns for 10 years in Snyder and Cerrato. Ass clowns that gave one of the most despicable characters in league history one of the biggest contracts in league history. Snyder successfully shifted the entire blame and fallout from the Haynesworth contract to the league - most fans now blame the league when in reality they should be blaming Snyder because he's a ****ing awful NFL owner. And continues to be one as far as I'm concerned, lack of dysfunction because he had the keys taken away from him doesn't change the fact that he's fundamentally an awful owner.

Back to the point - And can anyone really blame the league? I mean think about what the ramifications of all of this is...

First off - the league at the time was in negotiations with its labor pool to come up with a long term deal. Is it really fair if some of the 32 owners are sitting down to the table to discuss accepting or refusing a deal with an agenda to cause the CBA to lapse? That agenda being - if the CBA lapses we can dump all these awful contracts we were stupid to make and get out from under said burden of bad contracts. That would mean Snyder had a significant interest in voting against any attempt at a long term agreement because his franchise would sustain a HUGE advantage by freeing up the haynesworth contract.

Second off - how is that fair to anyone else in the league? The reason the haynesworth deal was such a huge screw up was because you can't afford to dedicate that much space from your cap to a guy and not get elite level production from him. Not only will you not get what you paid for him, but you'll have sacrificed other positions because you now can't afford to pay for a premium guy there. It's high risk - high reward. By allowing the Redskins to just wipe the slate clean you're taking all the risk out of it - now it's an All Reward move for the Redskins. How many other owners would have thrown around that kind of money on that kind of guy at that time if they knew that in a few years they would be able to just dump the money if it wasn't working out? We don't know - because majority of them don't make stupid moves like that. There's a reason for that. To allow the Redskins to walk away with clean hands after making what is widely considered one of the biggest FA mess ups in league history? Why should we be so lucky?

I get that other teams moved money around and some went well below the floor - but none of that screws up the long term competitive balance of the league the way the Redskins were trying to. In addition, I'm willing to bet if we had stuck to restructuring Hall none of this would have happened - it was the dumping of the Haynesworth contract that set that ball in motion.

Snyder made a bet his ass couldn't back up. He acted like the sniveling little shit he's always been, and someone with more money, more power, and frankly bigger balls put their finger in his chest and showed him how little of a person he actually is. Which is typical for Snyder at this point - He loves to act like a badass until he realizes the other guy's a little bigger, then he tucks his tail and runs.

The League doesn't have it out for us, the fans. We flood their pockets with money, we're a leading revenue sharing contributor. They want us to stick around. Believe it or not, there's sympathy for us among the NFL ranks because they realize we're stuck with a shit-head owner. None of this was about getting at us, the fans. It was all about Snyder trying to pull one over the league and the league putting him in place.

It's in The League's best interest that we be a thriving organization. Do you realize how much money they would get if we were super bowl contenders ever year? They do. That's what they fundamentally want for us. But they cannot stand our shithead owner.

So majority of Redskins fans can blame the League for coming after us, say Mara is on a hunt to hurt us, and you know what? There's ample evidence in the public's view of things to support that.

But I contend that the root cause of this was an awful owner and his ass clown GM making terrible contracts that cost us. That our awful owner waged a bet with cards he didn't have the balls to play. So he lost his chips to the guy that actually had the balls to take him on.

Which makes me hate everything about snyder even that much more. What a little weasel he is. He talks big but he carries a small f'ing stick and those are the type of people I hate the most.

This is on him, this is on his 10+ years of mismanagement, this is on him thinking he's smarter and better than everyone else in the room, this is on him and shows just how truly awful of a person he is from top to bottom. What we learned is not only is he slimy, he's also too chicken shit to back up his own threats. He got pushed around like the punk that he is, and we as fans have to suffer through it.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

You won't get disagreement from me on Snyder, he's an asshat. Yes, they flaunted the illegal limitations set on them by the NFL, the same NFL that approved the restructure and release of Haynesworthless. If this wasn't a gotcha/vengeance type thing, why didn't they disapprove them at the time?

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[tshile]

You won't get disagreement from me on Snyder, he's an asshat. Yes, they flaunted the illegal limitations set on them by the NFL, the same NFL that approved the restructure and release of Haynesworthless. If this wasn't a gotcha/vengeance type thing, why didn't they disapprove them at the time?

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This has been asked and answered by the league.

Because at the time the league had to approve the contracts. Their hands were tied. Approval of contracts was a formality/procedural thing at the time ecause of the CBA issues. It was not a rubber stamp for the actual contract. This was known to all organizations at the time, and for the Redskins to pretend otherwise after the fact is an insult to our intelligence.

The league colluded. It happened. Is it illegal? Yes. But no one is getting in trouble for it, and we're the ones being punished. There's bigger forces/issues at work here. It was collusion that was in view of the public, one owner (I think Mara?) even admitted so on camera and had to retract his comments or whatever the following day.

But nothing happened. Sometimes it's not about playing by the written rules, sometimes it's about understanding your role, position, and what the unwritten rules are. Snyder is an awful owner and got his hand slapped for not playing by the mafia-style rules that govern the NFL. And he knows that's how The League works, he did it anyway and couldn't back up his moves.

 

[tshile]

Also, another reason The League hates Snyder - he's successfully driven up the price for contracts not just in free agency, but also in terms of the franchise tag and general contract negotiations, for everyone else in the league.

 

[Goaldeje]

That's a really nice write up T. You're challenging me to look at things from a different perspective, which I simultaneously loathe and love.

It's hard for me to argue any of that. I will add a couple of thoughts. First, the NFL should never have approved the contracts, which if memory serves, they did. Approving the contracts then coming back later with a penalty on said contracts has a dirty feel to it.

My last two points go hand in hand. If the NFL was smart, they would have avoided ANY appearance of impropriety at all. Any punishment handed down by a division rival was just a dumb-ass idea. An entity as big and powerful as the NFL should have seen how this looks. Furthermore, the fans had to bear a lot of the punishment that was ostensibly designed for Snyder. The entire affair was ham-handed and clumsy, and no one came out looking at all positive. At all. I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the NFL, but I have a hard time believing that another message couldn't have been sent more subtly that would have communicated the league's anger. Some sort of quiet, behind the scenes message that financially hurt Snyder that wouldn't garner a whole lot of attention.

I give Snyder credit for one thing. He played the martyr really well. Most fans (myself included) pin the bulk of the blame on Mara and Goodell. Like I said, your post is challenging that. And the NFL may consider itself too big to be harmed by even an entire fanbase being mad at the league, and the may mostly be correct. But as we saw at the end of Zorn's tenure, sometimes fans can move the meter enough to get attention. I'm not sure I would have risked that in such a public declaration of collusion.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I just can't blame Snyder for this, nice write up or not. What you say makes sense, but it doesn't make it right. If a made guy steals money from the mafia, he's gonna get whacked. He knows the rules, flaunts them, and ends up getting killed. Is that murder okay, simply because he understood the "unwritten rules" of organized crime?

No, this was nothing like murder, but our free agency plans were effectively whacked, for two years.

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[tshile]

That's a really nice write up T. You're challenging me to look at things from a different perspective, which I simultaneously loathe and love.

It's hard for me to argue any of that. I will add a couple of thoughts. First, the NFL should never have approved the contracts, which if memory serves, they did. Approving the contracts then coming back later with a penalty on said contracts has a dirty feel to it.

My last two points go hand in hand. If the NFL was smart, they would have avoided ANY appearance of impropriety at all. Any punishment handed down by a division rival was just a dumb-ass idea. An entity as big and powerful as the NFL should have seen how this looks. Furthermore, the fans had to bear a lot of the punishment that was ostensibly designed for Snyder. The entire affair was ham-handed and clumsy, and no one came out looking at all positive. At all. I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the NFL, but I have a hard time believing that another message couldn't have been sent more subtly that would have communicated the league's anger. Some sort of quiet, behind the scenes message that financially hurt Snyder that wouldn't garner a whole lot of attention.

I give Snyder credit for one thing. He played the martyr really well. Most fans (myself included) pin the bulk of the blame on Mara and Goodell. Like I said, your post is challenging that. And the NFL may consider itself too big to be harmed by even an entire fanbase being mad at the league, and the may mostly be correct. But as we saw at the end of Zorn's tenure, sometimes fans can move the meter enough to get attention. I'm not sure I would have risked that in such a public declaration of collusion.

Yup. You're right. No disagreement with any of that.

I just can't blame Snyder for this, nice write up or not. What you say makes sense, but it doesn't make it right. If a made guy steals money from the mafia, he's gonna get whacked. He knows the rules, flaunts them, and ends up getting killed. Is that murder okay, simply because he understood the "unwritten rules" of organized crime?

No, this was nothing like murder, but our free agency plans were effectively whacked, for two years.

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'OK' is a very interesting word to try to use in the conversation.

Is it OK that the league did something illegal and got away with it? Well, I think you'd have a hard time finding a reasonable person that would say yes to that question.

But when you start trying to assign blame, I think there's a solid argument that it's a little more complicated than that. I think there's a real, real solid argument that Snyder had much more to do with the ultimate decision to fine the Redskins the cap space than he portrays. Additionally, I think there's a very serious argument that he's in no way, shape, or form the victim he's been made out to be in this mess.

As usual the only victims are us, the fans. This owner is awful and I'm becoming convinced that we're never going to be a successful team with him at the helm. He's just not nearly as smart as he needs to be. He's certainly not as smart as he thinks he is.

He's burned almost every bridge in the NFL, and from my understanding that is **not** a good thing. These guys are interested in protecting their license to print money much more than they're interested in winning a super bowl any given year, and Snyder has made himself an outcast to the entire ownership.

His only real friend is Jerry Jones. Any thoughts on how that's viewed by the other 30 owners?

We're a laughingstock as far as their concerned. The question is whether they're right or not. Are we doomed to perpetual failure as long as Snyder is here? There's a lot of people with quite a compelling argument that say yes... yes we are.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I suppose the only real counter-argument is that Snyder didn't know they'd be penalized like that, in which case he's just stupid AND a shitty owner. Lol. So depressing.

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[HOF44]

I suppose the only real counter-argument is that Snyder didn't know they'd be penalized like that, in which case he's just stupid AND a shitty owner. Lol. So depressing.

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Plus we are leaving out the part where the Union leader decides to sell the Union down the river so he looks good right before his re-election. If Smith never agrees to the penalties then the Union has grounds to sue for anti-trust and Mara never brings this up.

Also the uncapped year was supposed to be bad for the owners, that's why the union negotiated for it. For the NFL then to just keep an unwritten cap makes a mockery of the labor agreement the union negotiated.

 

[tshile]

Also the uncapped year was supposed to be bad for the owners, that's why the union negotiated for it. For the NFL then to just keep an unwritten cap makes a mockery of the labor agreement the union negotiated.

That's the whole point. The owners are interested in keeping the players down as much as they can and you can see that in every thing they negotiate.

They wanted lower guaranteed money for drafted players out of the top of the first round. It was done under the guise that vet players were missing out on money they earned and it was going to new comers that had 'proven nothing.' The players union bought that hook, line and sinker. The real issue? The average football player is out of the league within 5 years and never makes it past their initial rookie contract - putting limits on that initial rookie contract now allows the owners to employ majority of its workforce for cheap. Yes, they'll take it on the chin from the small percentage of players that make it past their rookie contract and make a career out of football - but for the majority of players they come out saving money.

The players union has lost on every single point of negotiation with the owners. Even the ones where it looks like the NFL PA got something, they didn't; it just looks that way on the surface.

They didn't want the players to be paid untold amounts of money. That only helps the players. In addition to that everyone knew a cap would be coming back, so you could only do 1 year deals otherwise you'll find yourself in extreme cap hell once a new CBA came about.

The owners are about protecting their license to print money. Nothing more. Every move they make shows that. They're smart, conniving mf'ers and the NFL ownership is equivalent to the mafia in more ways than one.

 

[tshile]

skins supposedly just came to terms with Andre Roberts.

That's awesome.

Not because I know anything about him, but because someone on our site scooped that before the beat reporters

 

[Ax]

t, I like you. I really do. Warts and all.

But your analysis of the situation has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese what just got box of bird shot blown through it. As you acknowledged that changing anyone's mind about the whole thing, i acknowledge that I can't get you to look past your personal feelings.

1. Your personal hatred of Snyder influences everything you wrote. Comes off as arrogant as you profess Snyder to be. Kinda white noise.
2. Your ignoring the roles of Shamahan and Allen is a huge cluster of holes.
3. As is the outright dismissal of the league singling out two teams for breaking unwritten rules, when many did so, in differing ways. We were intentionally targeted. No other reason to not enforce the unwritten rules on everyone involved. You might have had something, otherwise.

About the only thing you got right is the going to the mattresses would have hurt more than it helped.

Though personally, I wish we would have.

 

[HOF44]

The owners are about protecting their license to print money. Nothing more. Every move they make shows that. They're smart, conniving mf'ers and the NFL ownership is equivalent to the mafia in more ways than one.

This I agree with, the feds need to RICO their asses.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

That's awesome.

Not because I know anything about him, but because someone on our site scooped that before the beat reporters

DieselPwr44 posted this at 5am in BB's thread.

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[Lanky Livingston]

3. As is the outright dismissal of the league singling out two teams for breaking unwritten rules, when many did so, in differing ways. We were intentionally targeted. No other reason to not enforce the unwritten rules on everyone involved. You might have had something, otherwise.

In particular, the Bears' contract for Peppers was massively front-loaded, conveniently in an uncapped year. But they're in the NFC North, so Mara wasn't concerned with them.


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[Ax]

thanks, man. I guess I dont get the "credit" for it though. Not that I was looking for any...I was just trying to make known what I found out.

Who did you have to waterboard to get the info?

Unless you'll have to kill me, after you tell me.

 

[tshile]

t, I like you. I really do. Warts and all.

But your analysis of the situation has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese what just got box of bird shot blown through it. As you acknowledged that changing anyone's mind about the whole thing, i acknowledge that I can't get you to look past your personal feelings.

1. Your personal hatred of Snyder influences everything you wrote. Comes off as arrogant as you profess Snyder to be. Kinda white noise.
2. Your ignoring the roles of Shamahan and Allen is a huge cluster of holes.
3. As is the outright dismissal of the league singling out two teams for breaking unwritten rules, when many did so, in differing ways. We were intentionally targeted. No other reason to not enforce the unwritten rules on everyone involved. You might have had something, otherwise.

About the only thing you got right is the going to the mattresses would have hurt more than it helped.

Though personally, I wish we would have.

That's why I prefaced my post the way I did. I'm aware that for majority of redskins fans what I said is some combination of: Missing something, glossing over important details, focusing on irrelevant once, etc. I have accepted that, and that almost influenced me to not make my post. But I figured if I can stay away from trying to argue just to prove my point, then it can be easily left as it is.

I do want to address your points though.

1 - I actually think I'm less of a Snyder hater than most. For instance - I've defended his decision to sue ticket holders that didn't hold up their contracts when everyone else berated him for it. I realize what I wrote reads that way, but my thoughts on the cap issue have been brewing for two years now (two years ago today is when the penalties hit us...) and it has made me so incredibly infuriated with him. The part that pisses me off the most? The victim card that get placed on him that, to me, is an insult to my intelligence.
2 - I've been round and round on this one before. Cerrato and Snyder made the contracts that caused the organization to try to dump them. Shanahan and Allen's roles are not completely irrelevant, but they're not the root cause. The root cause, in my opinion, was ass clownery by Snyder and Cerrato when they made the Haynesworth contract. Without that contract we don't have to dump anything. Without that contract, leading into the next point...
3 - As I said, I feel that if we had just restructured Hall none of this would have happened. Most of the other teams did things like that, and they didn't get hammered like we did. The Haynesworth dumping of ridiculous money that should have hurt our team for making that decisions for years to come is what sparked the whole thing; and the league's sole interest was in making sure that we suffered the consequences of paying a lazy, insufferable, worthless piece of shit DT 100 million dollars.

All that aside, I agree with you. I wish Snyder would have played the cards he had. I wish he had the balls. He had a case and I despise almost everything about the NFL at this point. The only reason I'm still here is the redskins. I would have loved to watch Snyder burn it all to the ground.

But at the end of the day, he doesn't have the balls to back up his mouth. Plain and simple. He's a shit talker that tucks his tail and runs when challenged.