There’s a belief in some league circles that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to grant preliminary reinstatement to Cowboys cornerback Pacman Jones was aimed, expressly or implicitly, at securing the cooperation of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in connection with efforts to hammer out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and the NFL Players Association.

Jones is a wild card in the CBA process; with the high profile of his team and the new revenues he’ll generate from a billion-dollar stadium that opens next year, Jones might be tempted to experience an uncapped year in 2010, in the hopes of ultimately hammering out a CBA that excludes a limit on player spending.

But that would only happen by pushing the negotiations closer to the brink of a work stoppage.  If a deal isn’t in place by March 2010, the beginning of the uncapped league year, the urgency to hammer out an agreement won’t arise until the CBA expires as of the April 2011 draft. 

Our guess is that, if anything, it’s an unspoken quid pro quo, aimed merely at making Jones happy with the league office and thus inclined to entertain its view regarding any and all other issues, including the CBA. 

It also might not hurt the CBA process if the Cowboys were to win a Super Bowl to cap the 2008 or 2009 seasons.  The team’s return to the top of the heap could make Jones less tempted to nudge the process toward an uncapped environment in order to allow himself to try to buy a title.

Then again, a Super Bowl win within the next two seasons might prompt him to try to create a system in which he’d believe that he’d be able to purchase many more of them.

Regardless, the point is that there’s a suspicion that Pacman Jones is playing ball now in the hopes that Jerry Jones will play ball later.