Update: Cowboys released this statement below, read here.
“The Dallas Cowboys were in compliance with all league salary cap rules during the uncapped year. We look forward to the start of the free agency period where our commitment to improving our team remains unchanged.”
Maybe they can appeal and if anything push the penalties until 2013 and 2014. We’ll see where this goes from here. If Jerry doesn’t think he did anything wrong and the league approved the contracts then I really don’t see how they can punish the Cowboys almost two seasons later. Weird.
What did you do Stephen Jones? Read here.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I knew that Jerry Jones would eventually do something else to make me finally give up on him not just as the GM but also as the owner.
ESPN broke the story today (March 12th) that the Cowboys and Redskins would lose salary cap space due to the way that they front loaded players’ contracts during the uncapped 2012 season. The Cowboys will lose $10 million which they can split up however they choose over the next two seasons. That’s a large amount that could have been spent towards free agency as the Cowboys look to rebuild, or should I say “overhaul” the secondary and offensive line.
Well that sucks big time. I wonder how much they will defer until next season. Playing with those cap numbers finally caught up to the Cowboys.
Here’s Todd Archer with GAC on the issue…
So they knew some kind of penalty was on the way. I can’t see them deferring anything less than half to next season. Forget about going crazy now and worrying about hiding the hits later. This probably removes the from the Carl Nicks discussion.
But like Archer said they will sign some guys maybe just not as many. The Redskins lost $36mil which is the bright part of this story.
Mike Lombardi and the guys at Total Access talk about defensive Free Agents…
Even if the Cowboys only lose $5mil this season it definitely hurts if they wanted to land Nicks, Robinson and Carr in the next week.
DCFanatic's Blog 
Come on DC. You’re starting to dissapoint me with the FO bashing. Plenty of things to be disgruntled about, but this isn’t one of them. Jerry took about 10mil out of his profit back in 2010, in an attempt to give us that much more cap space over the life of Miles’ contract.
You should give him credit for the effort.
I don’t see how anyone could react with anything other than disappointment over this news.
And where exactly did I really ‘bash’ anyone in this blog entry?
I didn’t at all. You seem ready to over defend your boy Jerry here for some reason.
If the NFL approved all the contracts, how come they are rescinding that decision? Don’t you find that funny?
Personally, I thought the contracts were approved last summer. This surprised me and definitely hurts our play in free agency, no matter how they take the split. The Redskins are really hurt by this IMO. I thought that they made the trade the other day figuring they could use free agency instead of the draft for the lost 1st round picks. That was serious coin they lost.
if the league is stating that they sent out memo’s to the teams in 2010 to not do what the cowboys did in an uncappped year, isn’t that collusion???
and if the league agreed with those contracts and signed off on them, how can they now argue the cowboys and skins broke the spirit of those rules..when it was an uncapped year
and if the NFLPA agreed to these sanctions against the cowboys and Skins to keep the cap from reducing by 1.6 million, how is that not be collusion by the NFLPA and the league..
If I were Jerry and Snyder, I’d be filing a lawsuit against the NFLPA and the league
Well said and written my friend! I don’t understand it passing during the summer and now being an issue?
Yeah, I read about this nonsense yesterday, and I still don’t understand it. But if the league did circulate a memo or made some phone calls warning teams not to front load contracts into the uncapped year, and the Cowboys and Redskins ignored that warning, the league is going to make examples of them. Although why the Saints and Raiders aren’t being punished for doing the exact same thing is a mystery.
The thing is this. Neither Landry nor Johnson ever had to work under a salary cap. While agreed to as part of the CBA in 93, the salary cap didn’t take effect until 94, Jerry’s first year as general manager. He has not handled the cap well. The late 90s and early 00s are proof of that.
Jerry tried to be too cute by half in the uncapped year, and now it’s coming back to bite him.
I agree with Archer. This hurts the Cowboys, but it doesn’t kill them. It does put a hamper on free agent signings for a few years, but maybe that’s a good thing. You don’t rebuild a team through free agency; you rebuild a team through the draft. So maybe this will force Dallas to concentrate more heavily on the draft.
Its seems to me like they should be checking in to a few other team’s salary numbers. Ohh thats right — they [NFL] said they did, but because those other teams didnt spend a bunch more money than most other NFL teams in AN UNCAPPED YEAR, they get a pass for front loading contracts to take the hit in THE UNCAPPED YEAR! Why did the Bears get a pass with Julius Peppers’ deal — he received 35 Mil in 2010 — thats about 40% of his 6 year-$84 Mil deal — Matt Shaub got about 33% of his contract loaded up in 2010 — Kyle Vanden Bosch’s salary was 38% paid in 2010 — but we get slapped for paying Austin $17 Mil in 2010 — slightly less than 30% of his 7 year-$57 Mil deal. Riiiiight! I got it now — the league is pissed because we spent more money as a team than they wanted us to in the UNCAPPED YEAR — because based on the numbers, it dont have a damn thing to do with front loading contracts. Oh well — I guess Christmas comes early for 28 other teams when they get to split the $46 Mil taken from the Cowboys & the Skins — According to my calculations, that comes to about $1.6 Mil per team.