T-ShirtDynasty

http://www.boston.com/sports/footbal...lary_info.html

PATSNUTme

Wasn't the CAP # $92mil? If so, then this shows that the CAP and monies paid are two differnet things.

This was the point that I was trying to make on another thread but didn't do a very good job of explaining.

ilduce06410

isn't there a penalty?
the penalty isn't assessed until the contract is terminated or the player leaves the roster, right?
at that point, a certain amount is deducted from that team's cap figure. isn't there a term called salary cap hell?
the nfl cap is called a 'hard' cap, right?
BTW seems to me the patriots have $7 million in dead money. they're gonna take some kind of a cap hit this year. that means they don't really have $15 million to spend. but i don't know last year's cap figure (too lazy to look it up).

PatsFanInVa

Since "Salary" is just one component of what players can make, but you would expect "Payroll" to really be the amount paid to all players in a given year, the two numbers should be different, although the Pats could be seventh in both categories independently.

As to the question of whether we spent 94 mil on a 92 mil cap, that might be the case, if you calculate it including incentives paid, which (if I understand this right,) reduces your team's adjusted cap for the following season. I'm pretty murky on this particular point, and you need a real capologist to get it right.

Last point... where you rank in payroll is significant, only in that you should spend to the cap every year, in my opinion, one way or another. If you miss that goal it shouldn't be an ongoing thing. And you should do it in such a way that you get max value from your spending.

Where you rank in salary is insignificant. Assuming you're spending to the cap, your salary spending only indicates a philosophy of paying in salary and keeping bonuses down as a total proportion. If you can use bonuses to the mutual advantage of the players and the team, you could very easily end up with a low salary total, because a lot of salary is going into bonuses.

The only other tea leaf to read into these proportions is the question of incentive tied to big bonuses. That is, you don't pay a bonus you'll be prorating for five years, if a player is injury prone or not otherwise motivated... those bonuses take money off the table and into the player's pocket, with no guarantee of performance (except to the extent that the bonuses are tied to incentives.) On the other hand, bonuses can move cap hits from year A to years B,C,D, etc... or could put one big hit in year A, and keep salaries low in B,C,D... whichever direction you desire the accounting to go. So the available tools can easily affect whether you have a "high" or "low" rank in salary in a given year, without changing how much each player gets.

PFnV

pats1

Exactly (again.)

Teams like the Seahawks and Falcons on the list (~100 mil.) handed out a lot of bonus money last year, but that actual cap hit of them paying that money is prorated. So, again, if they signed player X to a 4-year deal in 2005 with a $16 mil. signing bonus, what they ACTUALLY PAID (PAYROLL) was $16 million, but what went towards the CAP was only $4 mil. They paid $12 mil. more than the cap hit in 2005, but in each year between 2006 and 2008 they'll have a cap hit of $4 million more than what they'll actually hand out in those years.

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/footb...sel&player=140

USAToday lists each signing bonus as it was paid out. Therefore, Monty's 2006 page (assuming he makes the team ) will have his salary, NO signing bonus, then other bonuses, to give a total salary that is LOWER than his cap value, opposite of what last year had.

Last year, his actual total salary was HIGHER than his cap value, because the team paid him $425k in signing bonus, but it was pro-rated into $212.5k a year - the figure that is added with salary and other bonuses to find his CAP value.

MoLewisrocks

Bonus money is the culprit in "cash over cap", and it is precisely because it is paid out in the current year and amortized over 4-6 years depending on the length of contract and what the CBA is presently allowing.

The Pats have the resources to spend cash over cap with impunity. They also have the good business sense not to. They know the key is spending over the cap judiciously and not consistently. The have nots must stockpile revenue or dip into personal resources (as Irsay did selling his few collectible assets to help fund Peyton's $34.5M signing bonus in 2004 that counts just under $6M a year on their cap through 2009) in many cases to spend cash over cap. Which is why the feel they are at a disadvantage in the FA market more often than not. Guys like Snyder have the consistent excess revenue to spend over cap with impunity, as does Paul Allen by virtue of his immense personal wealth. What stops them is the cap, and the fact that they have to bookeep that cash outlay to remain under it going forward or find themselves in cap hell cutting players they cannot afford to lose or replace easily to get back under it.

In 2005 we spent roughly $10M in cash over cap (the 2005 cap was around $85M, a little less for us due to adjustments to account for our use of NLTBE to stretch our 2004 cap space). In 2004 we were around $3M under in cash over cap. In 2003 we were over again by about $7M, but in 2002 we were miles under (although right up against the cap because we were still paying the piper cap wise for the Law deal and Milloy's and eating Drew's dead cap).

And these figures are for total player payroll only (salary and bonuses). Don't include benefits, PS, coaching and scouting and administrative staff. Forbes had our total payroll including all those things over $100M last season. There are no limits to what a franchise can spend on off field staff other than how paying them impacts their ability to cover on field payroll. Again, a haves vs. have nots issue mitigated by individual ownership wealth and their willingness to dip into that as opposed to relying on franchise revenue stream alone.

godef

Careful about the meaning of "median".

Two teams can have the same "average" salary but have completely different medians.

Consider this simple example of two basketball teams with 5 players:

Team A salaries:
Player 1: $14M
Player 2: $13M
Player 3: $5M
Player 4: $4M
Player 5: $4M

Team B salaries:
Player 1: $7M
Player 2: $6M
Player 3: $5M
Player 4: $1M
Player 5: $1M

Media salaries:
Both teams: $5M

Average salaries:
Team A: $8M
Team B: $4M

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flutie2phelan

Excellent, clear discussion!
Mo makes it easy to fathom.

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