NFL Owners Vote to Honor Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins Cap Penalties

In an unanimous vote, the NFL owners decided to move forward Tuesday with harsh salary cap penalties against both the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins.

According to NFL Network's Albert Breer, the vote finished 29-0 in favor of a resolution to continue the arbitration case, with one NFL team abstaining from the vote and the Cowboys and Redskins obviously not taking part. The league will now move forward with the sanctions.  

The NFL is docking the Redskins $36 million and the Cowboys $10 million for illegally front-loading contracts during the league's uncapped year of 2010. The teams are allowed to either take the hit all in 2012 or spread out the penalties over the next two years.

Both teams are currently in the process of filing grievances against the penalties, which made the vote necessary to continue forward.  

The two teams will still get a chance to fight their case, but this resolution's definitive vote only proves the kind of league-wide support that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had when he handed down one of the most severe salary cap penalties in NFL history.

It seemed unlikely that any owner would vote against the resolution.

Owners obviously had a clear incentive to move forward with heavy sanctions against the two teams for both competitive and salary cap reasons, as the Cowboys and Redskins remain cap strapped in 2012 and '13 and the 30 other teams received $1.6 million in salary cap budget to balance the process.

For the Cowboys and Redskins, this represents only one bump in the road during their legal battle to retain the $46 million. Don't expect this story to die down any time soon, and it's likely to get even more ugly before a final verdict is reached, which may end up taking place in a federal court.