And the rest of us are wondering what it is that makes either of them believe that the Cowboys have a championship window.

Owner Jerry Jones told the NFL Network that since some key Cowboys are getting older, they need to win a championship sooner rather than later. And that's true, I suppose, but I don't know if the Cowboys are as close to a championship as Jerry thinks they are. From NFL.com:

"Well, my window is getting shorter. Time goes by," Jones told NFL Network at the NFL spring meetings. "I do feel real pressure because we do have players not only in (quarterback) Tony Romo, but (tight end) Jason Witten (and linebacker) DeMarcus Ware, to leave out several that are (also) in the prime of their career. And we need to strike and strike soon with those guys.

"(Coach) Jason Garrett feels exactly the same way about it and understands how urgent it is. Candidly, you're looking through rose-colored glasses if we all don't realize that now is the time to compete on the field."

Romo is 32, Witten is 30 and Ware is 29. Despite those fellows being in their prime years, the Cowboys have not made the playoffs the last two seasons. The last time they qualified for the postseason was 2009, in Wade Phillips' last full year as head coach. That year, they got their only playoff win since 1996.

Romo, the guy who will ultimately have the most to do with whether or not the Cowboys can compete for a Super Bowl, disagrees. He doesn't see a window opening or closing. The window's always the same for him.

"It's not closing. I think there's a sense of urgency every year that you play, whether it's your first year in the league or your 22nd. You never know when all that stuff is going to happen, so you just play every year as if it's an urgent day."

So maybe these two gentlemen just see the issue differently, and that's that. The other possibility is that Jerry Jones would really like to ignite a sense of urgency in his players and Tony Romo is just not getting it.

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The question we were asking all along when it came to the "spirit of the salary cap" penalties handed down to the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, Oakland Raiders and New Orleans Saints was, of course, "How on earth can teams be in violation of salary cap rules when there is no salary cap in place?"

Turns out, the NFL Players Association was asking the same question, and now, they will do so in court. On Wednesday morning, the NFLPA released this statement in part:

The Class Counsel under the Reggie White settlement agreement and the NFL Players Association today filed a complaint, on behalf of the NFL players, charging the NFL, its clubs and their owners of collusion during the 2010 NFL season. The complaint details a conspiracy to violate the anti-collusion and anti-circumvention provisions in the White Settlement Agreement (SSA) by "imposing a secret $123 million per-Club salary cap for that uncapped 2010 season."

The written claim is filed with the United States District Court of Minnesota, which oversees the SSA and alleges that the league and owners acted illegally and "solely by self-interest, unconstrained by their clear and unambiguous SSA obligations."

The claim was filed just one day after Special Master Stephen Burbank dismissed the appeal filed by the Redskins and Cowboys. Clearly, the NFLPA had this one on a tripwire.

The Cowboys and Redskins were the hardest-hit by the league; the Redskins were docked $36 million in salary cap room over two seasons, and the Cowboys $10 million, for the offloading of onerous player contracts during the uncapped year of 2011. At that time, there was no official rule regarding just how much salary and other player income a team could dump during that time, but as it turned out, the NFL had verbally warned all teams that any nebulous violation of the rules that could be perceived during a capped year would be dealt with severely.

Of course, the uncapped year occurred during the lockout, after the old collective bargaining agreement ran out, and the salary cap with it. Until a new agreement could be struck, the NFL could not possibly send out written instructions for teams to avoid either offsetting or "overpaying" its players without providing the NFLPA with a boilerplate collusion case.  According the NFLPA, the penalties handed down, and the language used by the league and the Management Council, is enough to warrant the complaint.

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

"Our union recently learned that there was a secret salary cap agreement in an uncapped year. The complaint today is our effort to fulfill our duty to every NFL player. They deserve to know, above all, the facts and the truth about this conspiracy," added NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth.

''The claims have absolutely no merit and we fully expect them to be dismissed,'' the NFL said in a statement. ''On multiple occasions, the players and their representatives specifically dismissed all claims, known or unknown, whether pending or not, regarding alleged violations of the 2006 CBA and the related settlement agreement. We continue to look forward to focusing on the future of the game rather than grievances of a prior era that have already been resolved.''

The complaint centers around one very damning quote from New York Giants owner John Mara, who also serves as the Chair of the NFL Management Council Executive Committee. When the penalties were handed down in March, Mara was asked about the reasoning.

"What they did was in violation of the spirit of the salary cap," Mara said. "They attempted to take advantage of a one-year loophole … full well knowing there would be consequences."

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RENTON, Wash. -- The Seattle Seahawks raised eyebrows with two of their draft picks in 2012, but it appears that both players -- first-round defensive end Bruce Irvin of West Virginia and third-round quarterback Russell Wilson of Wisconsin -- could be raising eyebrows in a far more positive sense sooner than expected.

While Irvin (the 15th overall pick) impressed through the Seahawks' 2012 rookie minicamp, the real news came via Wilson, who showed impressive command of an NFL offense in his first opportunity to do so. Despite standing 5-foot-10 5/8 -- a fact that had a lot of draft experts rating him as a fourth-round prospect -- Wilson displayed many of the positive aspects required for his position. He was consistently nifty in the pocket, rolled out to throw very well, threw his receivers open downfield over and over, and sold play-action like a pro. Head coach Pete Carroll was beyond impressed -- with Matt Flynn, Tarvaris Jackson and Josh Portis already on the roster, Carroll insisted that Wilson had already done enough to be in the running for the starting quarterback competition. If Wilson won the job before the season started, he would be just the second third-round quarterback in NFL history to claim that prize -- Buffalo's Joe Ferguson did the same in 1973.

"He did an excellent job of demonstrating that he prepared for this and there was — we think, in the three days — there was one call that he stumbled with the verbiage on," Carroll said. "And you saw him, he probably threw close to 400 passes and he took over 500 snaps. I don't know what it was with the running game stuff.  So that's an amazing load we threw on him, but he handled it like he's been here. That was a great first sign just about his willingness to prepare and his ability to hold on to the information and use it quite well.

[NFP: Seven NFL teams poised for turnaround seasons in 2012]

"Here's what I'm going to say about it: He's going to be in the competition. He showed us enough. That is going to tax us, as we know. But he's showed us enough that we need to see where he fits in with these guys. It won't be because he doesn't understand or that he can't learn it or any of that. And it isn't going to be because he can't throw a football — because he can. He's got a terrific arm. So we'll just have to see how he fits as the time goes on."

Carroll had a three-way race for starter at USC once; a competition Matt Barkley eventually won. That made him open-minded enough to consider Wilson for that same position ... despite the obvious and oft-mentioned height disadvantage.

"It's been an issue all along for him since he was a little kid," Carroll said of Wilson's height on April 27; the day he was selected. "He's always been the smaller guy playing since he was a freshman at NC State and he was the first guy in the history of the ACC to be an all-league quarterback as a freshman. He started right from the beginning of setting records and doing things that people can't imagine. We know that he's found his way. Interesting statistics about the guy — his number of knockdowns last year I think was four for the season. Everybody would think it would be on the other end of the spectrum — it wasn't. Then just his game-winning ways and stuff makes him off the charts.

"Frankly, this is something [where] I called Bud Grant, an old friend and mentor, and I talked to him. To me it was really an interesting conversation. We had a long talk about, 'How did Fran [Tarkenton] do it? How could he be so extraordinary?' And it just gave me a sense that it supported what [Seahawks general manager] John [Schneider] had seen and studied over the years and followed this kid along. We just really felt we had a great guy."

[Also: Saints rookie Corey White gets reality check from Drew Brees]

Grant didn't have Tarkenton as a rookie -- he didn't coach the Vikings until 1967 and didn't get Tarkenton back from the New York Giants until 1972 -- but he was able to help make a future Hall of Famer out of a player who had been cast aside by conventional wisdom. In the 1960s, Tarkenton's mobility was considered a fatal flaw, and his 6-foot stature didn't fit the NFL suit. Despite those perceived impediments, Tarkenton started 10 of 14 games for the expansion Vikings in 1961, and his first regular-season game -- which he didn't technically start -- saw him complete 17 of 23 passes and throw four touchdown passes in a 37-13 win over the Chicago Bears. Of course, when Tarkenton did start the next game, he went 8 of 24 for 117 yards, no touchdowns and two picks against the Dallas Cowboys.

So, no matter how impressive Wilson may have been over the weekend, it's still a process.

As for Irvin, thought to be a second-round prospect by many because of his size as a pure pass-rushing defensive end (6-foot-3, 245 pounds) and projected inability to be an every-down player, there were few concerns among the coaching staff when they finally got Irvin on the field. One play in particular stood out on Friday -- one doesn't often use the term "closing speed" when describing a defensive end, but Irvin trucked around the left tackle, ran across the formation, and caught up to the athletic Wilson. Had they been participating in contact drills, Wilson may have had his bell rung a bit.

"I just like to run," Irvin said when I asked him about that play. "If the play is 20 or 30 yards downfield, I just love to run so much that I'm going to chase it down. I might not have a chance to get him, but I just love to run. That's what I do. I have great closing speed and I look forward to showing that more often."

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If you're the type of person who's already interested in the line for the Week 8 game between the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers -- and, let's face it; you're on Shutdown Corner on a Wednesday afternoon four months from the start of the season, so we know the answer -- then you may want to clear the next 20 minutes.

Cantor Gaming, a company that runs a number of Las Vegas sportsbooks, has released lines for every NFL game through Week 16 of the 2012 NFL season. Want to bet on the Lions-49ers rematch? Hoping to get on the RGIII bandwagon early? Eager to throw some money on your favorite team to win after their bye week? Desperate to find another way to lose your paycheck in Vegas? You're in luck, my degenerate friends.

What do the odds show? Vegas loves the Philadelphia Eagles, has no idea what to do with Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos, wavers on the decimated New Orleans Saints and is fairly certain how Mike Mularkey's first season in Jacksonville is going to go. The season spreads contain few surprises -- the Indianapolis Colts are expected to be bad, the Green Bay Packers are expected to be good -- but are a good way to kill some time during the NFL's May doldrums.

A week-by-week selection of the most interesting lines (via Covers.com):

Week 2

Detroit Lions (+3.5) at San Francisco 49ers

Week 3

New York Giants (PK) at Carolina Panthers

Week 4

New York Giants (+4) at Philadelphia Eagles

Week 5

Green Bay Packers (+9.5) at Indianapolis Colts

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Two things stand out looking at the 10 best rookie quarterback seasons in modern (post-merger) NFL history: one, that there aren't very many great ones; and two, that most of those are recent. If the trend continues, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III  could wind up positioned well on lists like this one in the future.

For now, though, here's who they're chasing. These are the quarterbacks who have gotten off to great starts.

10. Vince Young (Tennessee Titans, 2006)
Vince Young won't appear on many lists of tremendous quarterbacking accomplishments, but he does squeeze onto this one. VY went 8-5 as a starter as a rookie, and just finished on the wrong side of the TD/INT ratio, with 12/13. That doesn't set the world on fire, but for a rookie, it's at least decent. Young's legs added a ton of value, giving the Titans an extra 552 rushing yards and seven rushing TDs.

9. Sam Bradford (St. Louis Rams, 2010)
Bradford threw the ball an insane 590 times as a rookie, trailing only Peyton Manning and Drew Brees in attempts in 2010. And he completed 60 percent of those, which is a plateau not often reached by rookie QBs. It also feels like it's worth pointing out that the top two receivers on that 2010 Rams team were Danny Amendola and Brandon Gibson. That ups the degree of difficulty significantly.

[Related: The best skits from Eli Manning's 'Saturday Night Live' gig]

8. Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens, 2008)
All Joe Flacco did in his rookie year was compile a record of 11-5 and lead the Ravens to the AFC Championship game. He also hit the 60 percent completion mark, and had more TDs than interceptions, and ended up being named the Rookie of the Year. The only blip was in Baltimore's last game of the season, the AFC championship game in Pittsburgh, which is not an ideal scenario for a rookie QB. Pittsburgh killed him, forcing him into a 13-of-30, 0 TD, 3 INT performance.

7. Andy Dalton (Cincinnati Bengals, 2011)
Dalton was perhaps overshadowed a bit by Cam Newton, but you could argue that he was just as good, especially if you're into the "Quarterback Wins" statistic. Even without it, though, Dalton was formidable: 3,398 yards, with 20 TDs against just 13 INTs. And before the season, most people expected the Bengals to be just horrific. They exceeded all expectations and made the playoffs, due in large part to Dalton's steady play.

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Shutdown Corner takes you through Eli Manning's appearance on "Saturday Night Live." The show itself wasn't very good and Manning was a little wooden in his performance, but he acquitted himself well for an athlete/first-time host. While the show lacked the iconic moment that Peyton or Joe Montana had in their hosting gigs, Eli avoided a Michael Phelps-like disaster.

Monologue*

Eli talks about "his" New York, which features trips across the Hudson to eat at the Olive Garden, walking slowly with husky kids in Times Square and making up for the closing of "Cats" by going to pet stores and listening to the soundtrack on his iPod.

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Babies, don't let your grandmamas grow up to be Cowboys cheerleaders.

Sharon Simmons, a 55-year old grandmother of two, spent the weekend auditioning for the 2012 Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Her tryout was the culmination of a 33-year goal to try out for the famed squad.

The Carrollton, Texas, resident wanted to audition for the team when she was 22, but a number of factors -- including a lack of money, outfit, routine and child care -- forced her to give up that dream. Years later, as a grandmother, successful fitness author and burgeoning actor, Simmons tried again. She hired a former Cowboys cheerleader to help her prepare for the audition and said she was ready to compete with women half her age.

[Also: Washington Redskins don't take long to fall in love with RGIII]

The tryout wasn't a rousing success, though. Simmons, who has been competing in fitness competitions for the past few years, told the Dallas Morning News that she forgot her routine during the freestyle portion of the tryout.

"For me, it has been about the journey," she told the Dallas Morning News.

Simmons would be 56 at the start of the 2012 NFL regular season. If she makes the team, she'd be the oldest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader in history, 14 years older than the previous record-holder.

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With all the talk about the right or wrong behind the NFL's decision to suspend four current and former New Orleans Saints players for the roles (both alleged and admitted) in the recent bounty scandal, perhaps the most troublesome aspect of the process is the extent to which the NFL Players' Association has asked the league for specific information regarding the process Roger Goodell and his minions went through ... and hasn't received it.

Yahoo's own Mike Silver and Dan Wetzel have written well this week about what needs to happen on both sides for this process to seem fair and equitable. When Shutdown Corner spoke with NFLPA lead outside counsel Richard Smith on Friday, we were surprised to find that the post-suspension appeal process isn't even about the right and wrong of bounties at this point -- right now, it's about jurisdiction and due process. In other words, folks, the repercussions of the bounty scandal have just begun.

[Related: Read the NFLPA's filings here]

When the NFL made its decisions known -- that Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma would be suspended for a full season, current Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Anthony Hargrove for eight games, defensive end Will Smith for the first four games, and current Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita for the first three -- the NFLPA attempted to do what it does. According to Smith, the PA received nothing but a summary statement and the ability to review a PowerPoint presentation the league put together regarding the particulars of the violations.

Beyond that, Smith says, the NFLPA was given nothing requested -- no player names, no interview transcripts, no dates of violations per the NFL's investigations ... they weren't even allowed to take a copy of the PowerPoint with them to review it. Based on Smith's recollection of the process, the NFLPA's attempts to get that information and properly represent the players resembled the student court in "Animal House" -- a kangaroo court process from start to finish.

"All the PA ever physically received from the NFL were the report and the coaches' suspension decision [attached as Exhibits A & B] to the Burbank grievance, and the suspension letters to the 4 players, attached as Exhibits C-F to the Burbank grievance," Smith told us. "This the sum total of the "facts" that have been provided by the NFL.  The League exhibited the PowerPoint in a meeting in March, 2012, but refused to make a copy available.  They refused to make anything else available, even under an agreement of confidentiality.  The PA's multiple requests to the NFL  for documents and for the ability to interview witnesses have all been denied.  The letters that were sent asking coaches to give interviews  to the PA have all gone unanswered."

[Silver: NFL needs to publicly release evidence of players' bounty involvement]

The Burbank grievance smith spoke of is the grievance the NFLPA felt it had to file, given its unsuccessful attempts in the post facto discovery process. On Thursday, the PA  filed a grievance with the NFL's vice president of labor arbitration and litigation, Buckley Briggs, and a System Arbitration with the System Arbitrator, Professor Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. You can find the filings here, but in a nutshell, these are the PA's contentions:

1. Roger Goodell's punishments "violated the [league's] duty of fairness to the players" and went against several aspects of the new collective bargaining agreement. First, per the filing, authority for any on-field conduct rests with the System Arbitrator (Burbank has served in this capacity for years) and not with the Commissioner.

2. Per the new CBA, Goodell is "prohibited from punishing NFL players for any aspect of the 'pay-for-performance/bounty' conduct occurring before August 4, 2011," which is when the new CBA was ratified. As we saw when the league came down hard of the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins for alleged salary cap violations at a time when the salary cap didn't technically exist, Goodell now feels that the timeframe in which the league operated in a vacuum is now completely in his jurisdiction. The PA argues that the league agreed to release players from penalties for any pre-CBA conduct.

There are other issues here, but let's take a break from all that legalese and read the statement the NFL released on Friday as a response to the grievances.

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Can you spot the mistake in ESPN's NFL draft chyron for Eddie George? The former Houston Oilers (1996) and Tennessee Titans (1997-2003) running back announced the Titans second-round pick in Friday's NFL draft but the graphics department at the network confused Houston's old team with Houston's new team (which was founded in 2002).

In ESPN's defense, the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans/Houston Texans triumvirate can get confusing. I had to recheck this post multiple times to make sure I had it correct. Also: Eddie George only played for the former Oilers franchise until 2003? And his last year was with the Dallas Cowboys? Doesn't it seem like he was just on the cover of Madden and being the anomaly to the so-called curse?

We're getting old, y'all.

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Given that 2012 marked the first season with the combination of a rookie wage scale and the absence of a lockout, speculation was high that teams would be trading around the first round with a frequency rarely seen.

Little did we know.

There were three trades among NFL teams with the first 10 picks alone, starting with the Cleveland Browns, who moved up from the fourth overall pick to the third in order to grab Alabama running back Trent Richardson. That move took the Minnesota Vikings from the third pick to Cleveland's fourth, and added fourth, fifth, and seventh-round picks to an already stacked Vikings pick list -- they now have 13 picks overall in this year's draft, and they got their much-needed elite pass protector in USC's Matt Kalil. The Vikings later made a deal with the Baltimore Ravens to move down again in the first round. The Jacksonville Jaguars then moved up to the fifth pick by trading their seventh overall selection and an extra fourth-round pick for the privilege of taking Oklahoma State receiver Justin Blackmon. The Bucs may have been in the hunt for Richardson,  but the move down still netted them Alabama safety Mark Barron, one of the safest and most versatile players in this draft class.

The big traders in that top 10 were the Dallas Cowboys, who took their 14th overall pick and their second-rounder and gave it to the St. Louis Rams to move up to St. Louis' sixth-overall selection. From there, they took LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne and left the Rams with even more chips in the later rounds. You'll be hearing from them a lot on Friday and Saturday.

Later in the first round, the New England Patriots proved once again that they see no fixed positions in any draft by trading up twice for two much-needed additions to their front seven -- linebacker Dont'a Hightower and Syracuse pass rusher Chandler Jones. Not bad for a couple of fourth-round picks. The Bucs and Denver Broncos, who were also part of one of the Patriots' trades finished things off by switching picks in the 30s so that Tampa Bay could grab Boise State running back Doug Martin.

But the most surprising trade, at least when it came to the final result, happened when the Seattle Seahawks took their 12th overall pick and dropped with Philadelphia's 15th. The Eagles selected Mississippi State defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, which seems a great value pick, as many mocks had Cox going as early at No. 6 overall to the Rams. The Seahawks confounded most observers by taking West Virginia's Bruce Irvin while some impressive and much-needed talent -- including Stanford guard David DeCastro, South Carolina end Melvin Ingram and Alabama linebacker Courtney Upshaw -- were still on the board. Irvin is a speed pass rusher who reminds some of an embryonic Von Miller, but few expected him to go in the first round at all.

Seattle knew better, or at least they thought they did. Sources said that the San Francisco 49ers had basically guaranteed Irvin a pick at 30th overall if he fell that far, and the Seahawks already felt they had their man. Brushing the naysayers aside, head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider seemed thrilled to come out of the first round with Irvin and two more picks.

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