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I don't know. Maybe this is for the best.

The effort by the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins to recover a combined $46 million in salary-cap penalties won't even get off the ground. Stephen Burbank, the NFL's independent arbitrator, granted the league's request to dismiss the complaint. And the teams released a joint statement saying they would respect the decision, so that's that. The Redskins lost a total of $36 million and the Cowboys $10 million in cap room over the next two seasons, and they're just going to have to deal with it because it's what the other NFL owners think is fair and the arbitrator found their argument that the complaint not be heard to be a persuasive one.

There's no way that any sensible, thinking person who's not an NFL owner can honestly feel that the league acted justly in penalizing the Cowboys and the Redskins for spending their money and structuring their contracts the way they did during the uncapped 2010 season. But it doesn't matter, because the NFL plays by its own rules and no one else's, and that's the lesson for today.

But in the end, maybe it's for the best. Maybe Burbank is doing everyone a favor. There's no one on any side of this dispute who can feel good about the way they've conducted themselves. It's a badge of shame for the league and the union, and it's not even really a badge of honor for the two aggrieved parties. So maybe, even though it's not fair, Burbank is being nice by telling everyone to just stop.

This all started because NFL owners agreed, in secret, to limit spending in 2010 even though there was no cap -- to continue to structure contracts as though there were a cap, because the lockout they were about to impose was basically a thinly veiled attempt at union-busting. They knew all along they'd ultimately have a new agreement with a new cap and they didn't want anyone to have gamed the system to their advantage in the meantime. In the real world, we call this collusion -- all of the business owners in a given industry agreeing among themselves to impose restrictions on wages. But in the NFL, it's OK, because the collective bargaining agreement the owners have with the players spells out which types of collusion are allowed and which aren't.

The Redskins and Cowboys got in trouble because they didn't go along with this game, instead using the lack of a salary cap in 2010 to structure contracts in such a way as to spare themselves from salary-cap trouble in future years. The sense is that many, if not all, teams did this, and that the Redskins and Cowboys just did it to such an egregious extent that some of the other owners insisted they be punished. They'd been warned, after all, that anyone who failed to honor the secret agreement discussed in the last paragraph would be punished. Giants owner John Mara, the chairman of the management council, said at the owners meetings in March that the Cowboys and Redskins got off easy -- that they were lucky they didn't lose draft picks.

Which is baloney, of course, because you can't break rules when there aren't any. But let's not go too far in letting our hearts break for Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder, who weren't exactly acting on charitable impulses here. They didn't break with the rest of the owners because they felt the policy was unfair to players. They did it because they thought it would give them an advantage, and that they could get away with it.

And then there's the NFLPA, for which this is anything but a shining moment. The players' union, which should be fighting such collusive behavior, instead capitulated and agreed to the sanctions against the Redskins and Cowboys because the owners threatened to reduce this year's salary cap if they did not. The union believes that was the right decision for its membership, and in the end it may well have been. But it is not a decision of which the union can be proud, and the fact the NFLPA allowed itself to be outmaneuvered by the league on this matter likely contributed to Burbank's decision to dismiss the complaint. The league's argument was based, largely, on the fact the sanctions were agreed upon by the league and the union. And jeez, if those two agree on something, how can it not be OK? Right?

It's all just plain ridiculous, the whole thing, and it's probably for the best that it all goes away. Everybody associated with it should be ashamed of themselves (though, sadly, no one seems to be). And while it's unfair that only the Cowboys and Redskins suffer for the arrogance of a group of people who continue to play its paying customers for willing patsies, the truly sad part is that anyone in this situation gets to walk away feeling as though he was in the right.

New York Giants owner John Mara was talking again Wednesday night about the looming contract extension for Giants coach Tom Coughlin, saying it would be done sooner rather than later. And there's no reason to doubt Mara. Coughlin's contract has never been a problem before, and as he's coming off his second Super Bowl title in five years, there's no dispute over whether he deserves a new one. My guess all along has been that it'll be a three-year deal, and as for salary, I think this Forbes list of the highest-paid coaches in sports offers some clues.

You see the Washington Redskins' Mike Shanahan tied for second on that list at $7 million per year. Shanahan also has two Super Bowl titles, though the most recent one came 13 years ago. The Philadelphia Eagles' Andy Reid ranks 10th on this list at $5.5 million per year, and as you may have learned by reading some of the comments on this blog, Reid has yet to win a Super Bowl. The Patriots' Bill Belichick ranks first at $7.5 million, though Forbes admits that's a pure guess and no one knows what Belichick, who's won three Super Bowls, actually makes.

Anyway, on Coughlin: Yeah, I think he should get something between Reid and Shanahan -- say, in the $6 million-$6.5 million per year range. You could make the argument, given the market in which he coaches and the relative proximity in time of the titles he's won, that he should get more than Shanahan gets, but Shanahan (as well as Belichick in New England and Reid in Philly) has control over his team's personnel decisions and likely gets paid in accordance with that additional responsibility. Coughlin does not have final say on personnel in New York, because GM Jerry Reese does, and the Giants are not inclined to change that organizational structure. I doubt Coughlin would really even want them to. He likes the way it works in New York, and everyone seems satisfied with their roles. But if you look at Mike Tomlin of the Steelers there at $5.8 million a year, you can make the case for Coughlin ahead of him.

It may be difficult for some who have perceived Coughlin as perpetually on the "hot seat" during his time in New York to imagine him among the highest-paid coaches in sports. But the numbers and the titles and the circumstances say he's earned it. And when the announcement does come, I believe it'll come with an eye-popping number attached to it.

Oh, man, do we have links. They're mid-May links, so they may not be the tastiest or juiciest links we have all year. But they are links nonetheless, and they're piping hot and ready for you on what looks to be a glorious Thursday morning. Enjoy.

Dallas Cowboys

Calvin says the Mackenzy Bernadeau hip injury, while obviously not a good thing for the player or the Cowboys, opens the door to opportunity for several of the young guard/center types the Cowboys will bring to training camp. Yeah, Bernadeau has a contract, but that doesn't guarantee him a starting spot, and if Bill Nagy or David Arkin looks stronger this year and takes some big steps, either could force his way into the starting picture.

Jonathan Bales ran the numbers to determine how important it was for the Cowboys to address the interior of their offensive line this offseason and the likelihood that a healthy Bernadeau and fellow free agent Nate Livings will help shore things up in there. Jonathan has cool graphs in his post as well, with cylindrical illustrations in team colors. If that's your kind of thing.

New York Giants

It was apparently important to the players that this Giants Super Bowl ring have some blue in it, and it does, and it's quite stunning. The Giants received their rings Wednesday night in a ceremony at Tiffany & Co. Justin Tuck said the goal now is to "make it a dynasty," which is bold talk from a team that went 9-7 and lost to the Redskins twice. But hey, it was their night, you know?

John Mara says the contract extension for Giants coach Tom Coughlin will be done "sooner rather than later." As I've said before, I'm guessing it's a three-year extension whose announcement, which will come sometime between now and the start of the regular season, will rank among the least surprising announcements in NFL history. Coughlin's going to decide when he's not the Giants' coach anymore, and he's earned that right.

Philadelphia Eagles

Sheil Kapadia looks at the bounty of talent through which defensive line coach Jim Washburn gets to sort this year. The Eagles tied for the league lead in sacks last year with a defense that relies on pressure from its front four, much the way the Super Bowl Champion Giants do, and they will try to do even better this season than the 50 sacks they racked up last season in an effort to catch those Giants and beat them at their own defensive game.

A big part of the Eagles' problem on defense last year was that they ignored the linebacker position and handed the starting middle linebacker job to unprepared Casey Matthews. They have addressed that issue this offseason by acquiring middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans from Houston. And rather than lament his chance to atone and get the job back, Matthews describes Ryan as "the leader we didn't have" on defense in 2011.

Washington Redskins

Kirk Cousins didn't want the Redskins to be the team that drafted him -- not after they drafted Robert Griffin III with the No. 2 pick in the draft. But they were, and now that the shock has waned a bit, Cousins says he's come to an understanding about the terms of his opportunity and what he needs to do to make good on it.

Griffin's opportunity, at least in the near term, includes a rush of endorsement opportunities, and he's grabbing them. He's also hawking "Go Catch Your Dream" socks like the ones he wore at the draft. If Griffin turns out to be as good as the Redskins are betting he will, he's going to be a Madison Ave. monster before it's all said and done.

Good and interesting insight in this story from Albert Breer on NFL.com about what, exactly, upset the other teams in the NFL about the way the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins spent their money in the uncapped 2010 season. The NFL stripped the Redskins of $36 million and the Cowboys of $10 million in salary cap space over the next two years, and those two teams have filed a grievance against the league and the NFLPA to dispute the punishment. But to this point, it has remained unclear what, exactly, the other teams felt they did wrong.

Albert writes that, by structuring the contracts of Miles Austin, Albert Haynesworth and DeAngelo Hall in such a way as to inflate 2010 base salaries and save money in future years, the Cowboys and Redskins inflated the franchise-player numbers for wide receivers, defensive tackles and cornerbacks. As a result, the Chargers had a hard time keeping Vincent Jackson, the Ravens were handcuffed by the contract they wanted to give Haloti Ngata and the Bengals were unable to keep Johnathan Joseph. For example:

Austin's contract was instrumental in pushing the receiver number from $9.5 million in 2010 to $11.3 million in 2011. San Diego franchised Vincent Jackson at the latter number in 2011. The leverage Jackson gained from having an $11.4 million tender made him difficult to sign to a long-term deal, and the resulting 2012 franchise figure -- by rule, 120 percent of the previous number, which came out to $13.7 million -- made it even harder to tag him again for the club.

So San Diego, which likely would've tagged Jackson again if the number had been more affordable, let Jackson walk. He signed a five-year, $55.6 million contract with the Buccaneers this offseason.

Many thanks to Albert for shining some light on what, exactly, the other owners found wrong with the way the Cowboys and the Redskins behaved in a year that was supposed to have no spending restrictions. The Cowboys and Redskins are arguing that there was no rule against what they did, and while that may be true, Giants owner and NFL management committee chairman John Mara said last month that all teams were warned that they could be punished if they did what these two teams did.

But for a couple of reasons, I continue to believe the teams that are complaining about this are full of it. First of all, commissioner Roger Goodell said at the owners' meetings last month that the reason for the penalties was that the teams in question had attempted to gain a competitive advantage in future years through their 2010 actions. But what Albert writes (on the league's own web site) is something quite different. Albert's reporting indicates that the reason the other teams got upset at the Cowboys and the Redskins was because their actions required them to spend more money than they wanted to spend to pay their own players. And if that's the case, then the artificial, unwritten guidelines the owners tried to put in place to control spending during the uncapped year were not an effort to maintain future competitive balance (as they have claimed publicly), but rather clearly an attempt to control player salaries.

Furthermore, it's important to remember that there never would have been an uncapped 2010 season -- or any reason to cut backroom deals to regulate spending therein -- if the owners hadn't decided to lock out the players in 2011 in an effort to restructure the CBA in a manner more favorable to themselves. Had they negotiated in good faith prior to 2010, they could have put a new CBA in place that would have imposed a salary cap and clear spending rules for that season. But because they had decided long before to impose a lockout strategy and not negotiate until they had the players backed up against the wall, the 2010 season arrived without a salary cap, as the prior CBA said it must if it were to be the final league year.

The entire concept of the uncapped 2010 season was an avoidable mess of the owners' own making. The lockout was an unnecessary act of pure greed, as evidenced by a new CBA that solved almost none of the competitive-balance issues raised by small-market owners. And the idea that the teams could whisper together behind closed doors about acting as though there was a cap when there wasn't and expect every owner to go along with the plan is (and always was) utterly foolish. The salary cap penalties against the Cowboys and Redskins are part of the fallout from the clumsy way in which the NFL's owners executed their negotiating strategy, and I continue to see no common-sense reason why those teams shouldn't expect to get some sort of restitution from the arbitrator.

Hey, so I sort of have an answer for those of you who keep asking when the arbitration hearing will be on the issue of the Dallas Cowboys, the Washington Redskins and the salary-cap sanctions leveled against them by the NFL management council. The hearing, according to a source close to the situation, is going to be sometime in May, though there's no firm date set and it's only a first hearing -- not the one for which you're all so eager.

My source tells me this first hearing, in front of arbitrator Stephen Burbank, will be solely for the purpose of determining whether the NFL and the NFLPA had the authority to impose the sanctions against the Cowboys and the Redskins. There will be no determination made at the first hearing on how much, if any, money the teams get back. If Burbank finds that the league and the union did not have the authority to strip the Redskins of $36 million and the Cowboys of $10 million in cap room over the next two years, then a second hearing will be scheduled to determine how to make those teams whole. If he finds that the league and the union did have such authority, then it's possible a second hearing would be scheduled to rule on whether the punishments were appropriate or should be adjusted.

Remember, the Redskins and Cowboys filed the grievance last month against the league, the management council and the NFLPA, which signed off on the sanctions as part of an arrangement in which the league agreed not to reduce this year's salary cap. The Redskins lost $18 million in cap space this year and next year, and the Cowboys lost $5 million in cap space this year and next year because the other owners didn't like the way they structured certain contracts during the uncapped 2010 season. Giants owner John Mara, the chairman of the NFL management council, said last month at the owners meetings that the punishments were justified and in fact that he believed the Redskins and Cowboys were "lucky they didn't lose draft picks" as a result of their violating a secret verbal agreement among teams to watch spending during that uncapped year.

The Redskins and Cowboys contend they did nothing wrong, that the contracts were all approved by the league and should be allowed to stand. They also believe the league acted unfairly in imposing the penalties on the day before the start of free agency without prior warning. All of this will surely be raised in front of Burbank at the hearing in May, though that won't be the end of this matter regardless of how it comes out.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said there was still no date set for the arbitration hearing on the salary-cap penalties against the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. Goodell did take a couple of questions on the matter at his news conference wrapping up the owners meetings here Wednesday morning, but he didn't shine too much light on the reasons the Redskins were penalized $36 million against the cap and the Cowboys $10 million against the cap over the next two years.

"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."

The NFL's management council, which imposed the penalties, determined that the Redskins and Cowboys did work to gain a competitive advantage in future seasons by the way they structured contracts during the uncapped 2010 season. As Goodell points out, the penalties were agreed to by the players' union, though as we first reported on March 12, the union only agreed to them after the league threatened to reduce this year's salary cap.

As for the issue of how a team could be penalized for the way it spent its money during an uncapped year, Goodell said: "I think the rules were articulated. I'd have to go back and look at it again, but the rules were quite clear -- the rules that were followed and the rules that weren't."

It's hard to understand what Goodell could "go back and look at," since I think we've all been under the impression that these rules were not spelled out in any document. Giants owner John Mara, the chair of the management council, said Sunday that the rules intended to govern spending and contract structures in the uncapped year "came up several times in our meetings." There's nothing so far that's indicated the Redskins and Cowboys were in violation of any written rule.

Regardless, the owners did vote Tuesday to ratify the management council's decision. The vote passed 29-2-1, according to Goodell, with the Cowboys and Redskins obviously voting no and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers abstaining. Goodell said it was not necessary to have a full-membership vote to ratify a management council decision, but that it was not unprecedented. It was likely done as a show of support for the punishments in advance of the arbitration hearing.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- One more day here by the beach. As you read this, I am at the NFC coaches' breakfast listening to what Andy Reid, Jason Garrett, Tom Coughlin and Mike Shanahan have to say. I shall spend the remainder of the morning and the afternoon working feverishly to communicate back to you the items of NFC East interest from this session before my flight leaves for home this evening. They had links at the AFC coaches' breakfast Tuesday, along with bacon and some kind of cool steak eggs benedict deal. Not sure if today's spread will be the same, but you know you can always count on having links right here, every morning at 8 a.m.

Dallas Cowboys

The only thing you know for sure about the draft this time of year is that everybody's lying. Everything's a smokescreen and no one's telling you what they really think or plan. So take this with a grain of salt, even though I agree with Jerry Jones that it wouldn't be a great idea for him to take an offensive lineman in the first round after drafting three of them last year and signing two more earlier this month.

Yeah, I wish Jones would tell us what he really feels about the salary-cap penalties, too, but he's smart to keep his mouth shut until the arbitrator rules on it, and so this little crack about wanting to settle his dispute with John Mara on the field will have to do for now.

New York Giants

Coughlin's getting a contract extension, obviously. Mara told the New York Post that he expects the deal to be done within four to six weeks, and there's every reason to think the Giants coach, who's won two Super Bowl titles in the past five years, will get paid a salary similar to those of the best coaches in the league -- upward of $7 million per year. I'm thinking it ends up being a three-year deal.

Defensive end Dave Tollefson continues to draw interest on the free-agent market, now scheduled to visit the suddenly free-agent-happy Green Bay Packers. As they are with Jonathan Goff and, to some extent, Brandon Jacobs, the Giants are letting Tollefson test the market while also letting him know they'd like to have him back. If he can't find a better offer than what the Giants are willing to give him, he comes back. If not, they move on and find a replacement. It's how they roll.

Philadelphia Eagles

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman sure made it sound as though the team believes it can find a trade market for cornerback Asante Samuel between now and the draft. Roseman discussed that issue and several others Tuesday with Jeff McLane. One point further down in the notes: Roseman declined to say where he expected Jamar Chaney to play because the Eagles are "still in the talent acquisition phase" of the offseason. Says to me they're still looking for linebackers, even with DeMeco Ryans in the fold.

Former Andy Reid assistants Pat Shurmur and John Harbaugh, now the head coaches of the Browns and Ravens, respectively, came to the defense of their former boss -- and of defensive coordinator Juan Castillo -- in conversations with Paul Domowitch at the aforementioned AFC coaches' breakfast.

Washington Redskins

Yes, the Redskins were seriously interested in Peyton Manning when he was on the market. No, it's not clear how good their chances were of getting him. But Mike Shanahan and Kyle Shanahan met with Manning even after trading for the No. 2 pick in the draft, and it's clear that he was a serious option in their minds if they hadn't been able to move up to the spot from which they now plan to draft their next franchise quarterback.

Former Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien is at the front of the latest lawsuit by former players against the league over head injuries. These suits continue to be filed, and will continue to be filed, and if you don't think they worry the league, then think again about why the punishments against the Saints for the bounty stuff was so severe.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- All right, I can't actually see the beach or the ocean from inside the media workroom here at the NFL owners meetings. But I know they're only a few feet away, on the other side of the walls of The Breakers. So you'll have to take my word for it as I sit and answer questions for you in our weekly NFC East chat. It starts at noon ET, as it does every Tuesday, and will last about an hour unless I get word that Jerry Jones is in the lobby publicly ripping John Mara and Roger Goodell over the salary-cap penalties. If that's going on, I'm going to go listen. And maybe egg him on.

Other than that, though, I'm all yours. Just click on these blue letters right here at noon and we'll have ourselves a time.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Those Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys fans hoping to get some explanation from the NFL about the salary cap penalties levied against their teams are going to be waiting for a while. Asked about the matter in his news conference Monday night at the NFL owners meetings, commissioner Roger Goodell declined to comment.

"We put out a release on this, and we're not going to have any comment beyond that," Goodell said.

The NFL released a statement Monday afternoon, and the statement ended by saying the league and clubs would have no further comment on the matter. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did discuss the matter with the league's other owners in a morning meeting, according to a source with knowledge of what happened in the meeting, and those two owners were then asked to leave the room so the remaining 30 owners could discuss the issue among themselves. It's unclear what was discussed, other than the apparent decision not to talk about the matter publicly so long as it remains a pending case for arbitrator Stephen Burbank.

This is, in the opinion of this reporter, pretty weak. Goodell spent a good portion of his news conference talking about the importance of increased transparency to fans. There were 19 fans invited to sit in on the afternoon session of the meetings and discuss issues with the owners in an open forum. Four of those fans were invited to speak to the media at the end of Goodell's Monday news conference (though, to their credit, nearly all of the media exited the room rather than function as props for the league's propaganda effort).

Fans of the Redskins and Cowboys are looking for further explanation about what their teams did to deserve to lose $36 million and $10 million worth of salary cap space, respectively, over the next two years. For the league to talk about transparency one minute and to hide that explanation behind a mutually agreed-upon gag order the next feels like a failure to practice what they preach. Giants owner John Mara, who chairs the NFL Management Council that imposed the penalties, discussed the issue Sunday before the gag order went into effect, but more detail is needed for fans to truly understand what went on, and the NFL does not, apparently, believe it needs to offer it.

The Cowboys and Redskins also were declining comment Monday, though Goodell did say Snyder and Jones were welcome to speak to the media about what they said in their address to their fellow owners if they so chose. As I wrote earlier in the day, the way the Cowboys and Redskins are acting about this makes me think they believe they have a strong case and can win in front of Burbank. The way Goodell and the league are acting about it reinforces my belief that they just wish it would go away.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A couple of us tried to stop Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder a few minutes ago during a break in the NFL owners meetings to ask him about the salary cap penalties against his team and the Dallas Cowboys, and the comments New York Giants owner John Mara made about the issue Sunday. Snyder declined to comment, saying he might do so at some point this week, but not right now.

This follows similar no-comments Sunday from Redskins GM Bruce Allen and coach Mike Shanahan, as well as a subdued and minimal response to Mara by Cowboys player personnel director Stephen Jones. While Mara came out with an impassioned, defiant defense of the penalties, those being penalized are staying very quiet.

That tells me they think they can win.

If the Cowboys and the Redskins filed their grievance against the league and the NFLPA just for show -- just to make it look to their fans and the rest of the general public as if they're fighting back -- then they'd be out in front of this, barking about it as loudly as they wanted to bark. Instead, they're keeping quiet, in spite of ample opportunity to respond, as they prepare to make their case in front of an arbitrator.

That's the way you act if you have confidence that you're right and can win, as the Cowboys and Redskins do and should. The penalties came from the NFL Management Council -- a group headed by Mara and determined to act in what it believes is the best interest of the league. The NFL's owners decided, among themselves and in the absence of consultation with the players, to attempt to restrict spending during a 2010 season that did not have a salary cap. They are angry at the Redskins and Cowboys for not going along with that.

But arbitrator Stephen Burbank isn't going to be beholden to what Mara and the majority of the NFL's owners believe is in their best interest. He's most likely to rule in favor of common sense. And common sense is on the side of the Cowboys and Redskins here.

If this penalty was rooted in common sense, the NFL's owners would be mad at teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who spent well below the level where the salary floor would have been. If this were really an issue of future competitive balance, as the ruling establishing the punishments claims it is, then teams that didn't spend enough in 2010 would be punished as well. But the fact that they're only going after the two teams that overspent in 2010 -- or restructured contracts to take short-term hits in an effort to allow them to spend more down the road -- indicates that this is not a competitive balance issue. It's a salary restriction issue.

The NFL's owners don't care as much about competitive balance as they do about keeping player salaries at as reasonable a level as possible. Every team in the league could have behaved exactly as the Cowboys and Redskins did in 2010, but they'd all agreed not to. There was no rule prohibiting them from doing so -- they just all agreed. It was a sketchy arrangement that I'm frankly surprised Mara is so aggressively willing to defend. And the fact that he's the one talking freely about this while the Cowboys and Redskins are keeping mum indicates to me that they know they're right, and he knows he's wrong, and that everybody knows the ultimate decision might end up reflecting just that.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- As the sun rises over the Atlantic Ocean, the NFL's owners, coaches, GMs and almost anyone else with any connection to the league rise to begin their annual meetings at The Breakers. Most everyone checked in Sunday, and much of the lobby chatter was about the salary-cap penalties against the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. There will be more of that talk today, along with a great deal of other NFL business, and we'll keep you posted on all of it the best we can. Time to get you started, though, with some links.

Dallas Cowboys

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he'd speak with reporters here Monday about the salary-cap penalties against his team and the Redskins. In light of what Giants owner John Mara said Sunday about the situation, I think we're all eager to hear Jerry's thoughts on this.

I enjoyed Calvin Watkins' short appreciation of former Cowboys running back Marion Barber in the wake of Barber's retirement announcement late last week.

New York Giants

Mara was in a bitter mood over several things as he took questions upon his arrival at the meetings Sunday. After he got through excoriating the Cowboys and the Redskins for breaking something that doesn't appear to have been a rule, he was asked what he thought about Tim Tebow signing with the Jets. "I don't know," he said, "but the David Carr press conference is tomorrow, too." The Giants sometimes get a little too fixated on the Jets, you see.

Giants 101 did a mock draft for the Giants and has them taking a pass-rusher, of all things, with the final pick of the first round. It's certainly not a need pick, but it wouldn't be a surprise. The Giants believe in what they believe in, and one of those things is that the draft is for building a deep roster, not for plugging short-term holes.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles tend to come to these meetings with a purpose, and as Jeff McLane wrote Sunday, this year's may be to see what kind of deal they can get for cornerback Asante Samuel. Now, you can argue the merits of trading Samuel versus trading Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie or even Nnamdi Asomugha. But for contract reasons and other reasons, it seems Samuel is the guy for whom they'd like to get something, and they should have some idea over the next couple of days what they might be able to get in return. If they can do better than a fourth-round pick, I imagine they'll jump on it.

In the wake of last week's Los Angeles Times report about front-office infighting in Philadelphia, Phil Sheridan ponders where the fault lines might lie.

Washington Redskins

Len Pasquarelli says the Albert Haynesworth deal was largely to blame for the penalties incurred by the Redskins in the salary-cap mess. What I've been given to understand is that this wasn't about just one or two deals, but rather about the Redskins repeatedly restructuring many of their existing deals in such a way as to dump money into the uncapped year. It's apparently something many teams did, but that the Redskins did to an extent that the other owners found odious.

The idea of a Redskins training facility in Washington, D.C., is a complicated one, and this here doesn't make it sound as though it's very far along or close to fruition.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to New York Giants owner John Mara for stopping Sunday afternoon in the Breakers lobby to talk to a few of us about the salary cap penalties against the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys. He didn't hold back, and as you can see if you scroll through this blog's timeline, we got plenty of good material out of it.

But in the grand scheme of things, when we sit down to talk about the right and the wrong of this whole situation, there's very little right and a whole big pile of wrong, and the defiant stance Mara took Sunday afternoon made that pile much bigger.

The aggrieved parties in this instance are the Redskins and the Cowboys, and they're keeping quiet on the whole thing. Sure, they filed a grievance against the NFL and the NFLPA on Sunday, seeking to get some relief from the combined $46 million in salary cap room they've been docked over the next two offseasons. But they declined several opportunities Sunday to add to the rhetoric.

Stephen Jones, the Cowboys' director of player personnel: "Within the confines of our collective bargaining agreement, we are trying to have a voice and a hearing in terms of our cap situation."

Bruce Allen, the Redskins' general manager: "I have nothing to say on that. We'll let the league speak to it."

Mike Shanahan, the Redskins' head coach: "I'll let the commissioner speak about that."

We tried egging these guys on. I read Jones the quote from Mara in which he said the Redskins and Cowboys were lucky they didn't lose draft picks for this, and all Jones said was, "That's John's opinion. Not my opinion."

But Mara came out guns-a-blazin'. And if there are people out there who believe (as I do) that the NFL has acted with irresponsible, petty arrogance in this case and imposed unjustified penalties against teams that broke no actual rules, Mara's stance isn't likely to change their minds.

There was no salary cap in 2010. This is a fact. Mara repeatedly brushed that aside during questioning Sunday, irritated at the fact's mere existence. "We've had a cap for 29 of the last 30 years," he said more than once, and he explained rather clearly that teams were told, more than once, to watch the way they spent money and structured contracts during the uncapped 2010 season. He basically admitted to what, in any other business, would be collusion and grounds for an antitrust lawsuit. But he bristled at the mention of that word, too, saying, "This has nothing to do with collusion. It has to do with teams attempting to gain a competitive advantage through a loophole in the system. They attempted to take advantage of it knowing full well there would be consequences."

What we know about this case is that the NFL basically engaged in a sanctioned form of collusion in 2010, telling its teams that yeah, there was no cap, but that they needed to act as though there were one because they were sure the cap would come back and it was wrong to use this "loophole" as a means of gaining an advantage against the cap in future years. Mara admitted all of that Sunday, and he did so in a way that strongly indicates he believes himself to be on the correct side of the argument.

But he is not, of course. And in more ways than one, he is very much in the wrong.

Mara is wrong because the only thing of which the Redskins and Cowboys are guilty is failing to honor a shady gentleman's agreement between 32 billionaires who don't want to pay their employees any more than they have to. What the NFL, Mara and the other owners did, effectively imposing a salary cap when none had been agreed to by the other party (i.e., the players) in their collective bargaining agreement, was patently wrong. To punish the teams that didn't go along with the wrong, and to so strenuously defend the punishment as though it were right, is the height of arrogance.

Mara is wrong because, by effectively admitting collusion, he's giving the NFLPA ammunition for a new fight the league does not want. The union had to drop all pending litigation against the league as part of the Brady settlement last year when the lockout ended. That included the collusion charges they filed against the league for the suspicions they had about this kind of 2010 activity. Mara's admission could well qualify as new evidence that could allow the union to file new charges. And because the NFLPA is named in the Redskins' and Cowboys' complaint, it has the option of obtaining discovery on collusion should it wish to pursue action against the league. The union is upset that the league backed it into a corner here, effectively forcing it to agree to the penalties against the Cowboys and Redskins under the threat of a reduction in this year's salary cap, and would love an opening from which to attack on this.

Mara is wrong because he's the chairman of the NFL Management Council, which is the group that imposed these penalties, and he's the owner of a team that plays the Cowboys and Redskins twice each year and competes with them for the same division title. That's not to say Mara did this on purpose to get one over on two division rivals. But one of the first things we're taught in any journalism class is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety -- to steer clear of any activity that could ever allow anyone to accuse us of engaging in a conflict of interest. That is clearly not a concern Mara has in this case, but he should. There's a chance he should have recused himself from this whole thing, and even if he hadn't, he's not doing himself or his excellent reputation any favors by being the aggressive face of the penalties.

What's interesting here is that, when these penalties came down, a lot of people assumed it was the teams at the other end of the spending spectrum who were upset with what the Cowboys and Redskins had done -- traditionally low-spending teams like the Buccaneers and the Jaguars and the Chiefs and the Bills. But what seems clear now is that Mara, the owner of the Giants, was one of the driving forces behind holding the Redskins' and Cowboys' feet to the fire over an issue the league office likely wouldn't have pursued if not for pressure from owners. It makes Mara look petty and small and vindictive, and those aren't words usually associated with him. It makes no sense to me that he's gone to such great lengths to allow people to apply them to him now.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- John Mara, the owner of the New York Giants and the chairman of the NFL Management Committee, which imposed $46 million worth of salary-cap penalties on the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys for the way those teams structured contracts during the uncapped 2010 season, just walked through the lobby of The Breakers here on the day before the start of the NFL's annual meetings. Let's just say he's not having second thoughts.

"I thought the penalties imposed were proper," Mara said. "What they did was in violation of the spirit of the salary cap. They attempted to take advantage of a one-year loophole, and quite frankly, I think they're lucky they didn't lose draft picks."

The Redskins and Cowboys have filed a grievance against the NFL and the NFLPA over the matter, and Mara said he was aware of that. But he does not appear to be worried that the Redskins and Cowboys will prevail. 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.

"We all knew the cap would come back," Mara said. "We were not going to enter into any agreement with the NFLPA if there was not a salary cap in it."

Outside of the NFL, which has its own agreed upon and collectively bargained rules regarding collusion, what the league did in 2010 would be regarded as collusive behavior -- all of the business owners in an industry conspiring and agreeing to limit the earnings of the workers in that industry. But Mara laughed off the word "collusion" when it was brought up this afternoon.

"This has nothing to do with collusion," he said. "It has to do with teams attempting to gain a competitive advantage through a loophole in the system. They attempted to take advantage of it knowing full well there would be consequences. There was nothing wrong with the individual contracts, but when you look at the overall scope of what they did, they were trying to take advantage and they were told not to."

This is clearly not the end of this argument. In fact, Jerry Jones checked into the hotel while Mara was talking to us, so I'm headed back to the lobby now to see if he's around and has anything to say about this. My guess is he'll disagree with what Mara thinks. Just a hunch.

Upset about the NFL's decision to penalize them a combined $46 million against the salary cap over the next two years for the way they conducted business during the 2010 season, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins have filed a grievance against the NFL and the NFLPA. The grievance was first reported by ProFootballTalk.com.

The grievance will be heard by system arbitrator Stephen Burbank, and it's unclear what possible outcomes exist. It's conceivable that Burbank could alter the amount of the penalties imposed, even if he doesn't eliminate them entirely. Or he could find that the league was justified in imposing the penalties, in which case the only remaining option for the Cowboys and Redskins would be an antitrust lawsuit, which is an extremely unlikely course of action for either Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder to pursue against their fellow owners.

Nearly two weeks ago, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that the league had stripped the Redskins of $36 million and the Cowboys of $10 million in cap space (half of each penalty to be taken this year and half next year) for the manner in which they structured contracts in 2010, which was the year in which there was no salary cap. That year, sources have told me, the league instructed teams not to front-load contracts or restructure contracts in such a way as to take significant 2010 hits in order to provide themselves with salary-cap relief down the road. There was no actual rule in place that prohibited this, but the people to whom I've spoken say the league issued multiple warnings and that the Redskins and Cowboys were the most egregious violators of those warnings.

Some of the other owners were upset at the way the Redskins and Cowboys ignored the warnings, and they pushed the league to impose punishments against them. The NFL Management Council, which is chaired by New York Giants owner John Mara, was the entity that officially imposed the penalties. The reason the NFLPA is named in the grievance is that the NFLPA had to sign off on the penalties before the league would establish the 2012 salary cap. As we reported on this blog on March 12, the league was threatening to reduce the salary cap by several million dollars this year if the union did not agree to the penalties against the Redskins and Cowboys. The union agreed in exchange for the league keeping the salary cap roughly the same as it was last year and redistributing the penalty money among the other teams. Every NFL team besides the Redskins, Cowboys, Saints and Raiders gets an additional $1.6 million added to its salary cap over the next two years.

Again, it's unclear what the Cowboys and Redskins can hope to gain from this grievance, but the arbitrator's ruling will be binding according to league rules. The fact that they filed the grievance with the arbitrator indicates that they don't plan to pursue what would be a costly and potentially very ugly antitrust suit.

It was real nice, thanks. Took my kids to see Star Wars on Friday night, went out with my wife Saturday night, watched golf and the Grammys Sunday. Didn't think about football very much at all. Good little refresher. Hope to do it again soon. Thanks for asking.

But free agency starts a month from today, and I know that's on your mind along with that little "draft" thing they have planned for late April, so let's kick off a real solid week of offseason coverage with some fresh, hot links.

New York Giants

So, Mario Manningham and Victor Cruz showed up in L.A. on Sunday night to present a Grammy. But Jason Pierre-Paul will not be appearing Monday night for TNA wrestling. This was apparently a possibility from which Pierre-Paul (or someone very wise who's close to him) changed his mind.

Mike Garafolo has a look at the superstitions that the Giants carried with them to and through Super Bowl XLVI. It was impossible not to notice the Christmas decorations still up in their offices in the final week of January, but I was not aware that John Mara was wearing the same tie to every game or that David Diehl had to talk to a four-year-old before games.

Philadelphia Eagles

Jeff McLane explains why it's a sure thing that the Eagles will designate DeSean Jackson as their franchise player, and why that won't end their decision-making process on Jackson, who still could be traded to a different team after the franchise tag is applied. The most important thing to remember here is that every single decision the Eagles make between now and September will be for the purpose of helping the 2012 team reach the Super Bowl. For the people running the franchise, there's nothing beyond next season right now.

Asante Samuel is another Eagle whose future is in question, and Samuel has no idea where he'll be playing next season. He says he wants to be back in Philadelphia, but it feels unlikely at this point.

Dallas Cowboys

Because I know how much you guys love your Tony Romo golf updates: Romo and Tiger Woods finished tied for 17th at Pebble Beach after Tiger fell apart Sunday. But Romo says Tiger's close to putting something special together. Tiger didn't weigh in on whether Tony is.

Blogging the Boys posits that at least part of the Cowboys' Jerry Jones problem is that Jones hasn't connected with a head coach since Jimmy Johnson, then goes on to examine whether Jason Garrett can fill that void. I'll say this: I feel pretty confident that Jones will give Garrett every chance to succeed. He's invested in Garrett in a number of ways.

Washington Redskins

Mike Jones looks at the reasons why Matt Flynn might not make sense for the Redskins as a free-agent quarterback solution. I don't think, based on what little I know about it, that Flynn is very high on the list. I'd rank him behind Kyle Orton, Peyton Manning and Robert Griffin III on the list of likely Redskins starting quarterbacks in 2012. But I have been wrong before.

John Keim has a look at Orton and whether he makes sense. He's an imperfect solution, to be sure, but if they can't trade up for Griffin or be completely convinced Manning is healthy, they're not going to find a perfect solution. Mike Shanahan likes Orton but didn't want to deal picks for him when he was available last summer. Now that it's just money ... just don't be surprised, is all.