Urgent

Interesting take on Pats salary cap situation from Reiss:

Obviously very secretive guys. Funny to hear even Reiss beg for information...

I personally find it hard to believe the current CBA would include penalties for previously-acceptable cap behavior in the 2004 or 2005 season. (I assume Reiss means 2004 & 2005 as 'previous two seasons', not 2005 and the just-completed 2006 season when he speaks of the Brady and Seymour deals.) Why would teams agree to penalties in the future for actions in the past that were perfectly acceptable at the time? It would be like taking a draft pick away from any team that had two first rounders in a previous draft.

I wonder what Miguel's take on this is.

BradyManny

I agree 100% - it's ludicrous to penalize someone after the fact. That'd be like changing the speed limit on 495 and then going back and giving tickets to everyone who had traveled on it before the switch.

fgssand

Where are the "Kraft is cheap" people now???

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hwc

I think Miquel would say that his excellent spreadsheets can only be as reliable as the information available in the public domain (news reports, NFLPA salary data, etc.).

I think Miguel would be the first to say that there is a LOT about the Pats cap situation that is impossible to track in real time, especially in areas that don't directly impact listed NFLPA salaries.

RayClay

Oh c'mon, they're just cheap. And Reiss is a toady.

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PromisedLand

It is ludicrous, so much so that our founding fathers made it unconstitutional to do the same thing under the law:

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

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VJCPatriot

Unfortunately sports rules work outside normal legal rules. Otherwise the draft would have been considered unconstitutional as well. And as far as I know people are allowed to bargain away their rights, thus the CBA holds as legal since the owners and players agreed to abide by it.

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PatsChick87

Agreed, however, this may have some teeth and I find it interesting that Reiss having done some research, is still looking for clarification. Perhaps this is just one of the "sticking points" of contentious CBA negotiations of the past year. I'm more than happy to plead ignorance of the CBA and go along with the more simplistic history of spending that the Kraft's have done through the years. That's why I've never been in the "Pats are Cheap" camp, but solidly in the "Pats are Smart" one!

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spacecrime

He has a radio show on ESPN, and a TV Show called "Down on all Fours with Felger."

MoLewisrocks

What I believe Mike is talking about is penalizing teams who spent substantial cash over cap. I know that was something the have nots were lobbying for as part of the new CBA and revenue sharing formula. Tightening the loophole that allows teams to fairly circumvent the spirit of the cap if they have the cash flow to pull it off and they don't care about driving up the cost of business for the other 31 of their partners - more than half of whom don't.

Snyder as the prime example manages to keep his team under the cap while collecting all that name talent by paying huge signing bonuses on backloaded inflated salary deals. This allows him to acquire talent short term and then worry about it later as the cap hits are spread into later years when he figures the cap will again explode or be removed or the world will end for all he knows. And if not he'll just cut all his vets to dump salary and absorb their dead cap while adding new expensive FA's with low early cap hits on their huge bonus fueled deals. Meanwhile he's driving up the market prices for teams with weak revenue streams who don't have state of the art stadiums or billionaire owners who can play that game. They are limited in the number of big bonuses they can risk eating the balance of in two or three years not just because they fear the long term dead cap hits piling up but because they can't keep funding the recurring new huge bonuses themselves. They feel that keeps them on an unlevel playing field regardless of revenue sharing and basic cap funding.

Polian has played that game in Indy - Manning's contract is like a revolving credit card account you pay (cap hit) the minimum on. He did it believing they would have a new stadium deal by 2008 with revenue to keep rolling it out until after he and Peyton are gone, even though it meant Irsay had to sell his memorabelia collection to fund much of the $34M+ bonus. They couldn't have resigned players like Harrison and Wayne either because of the bonus money involved except that they got a little windfall buyout refund on the old lease of the RCA Dome this year ($30M) that basically covered the bonus money they paid out again this year on Manning, Harrison and Wayne. Cash over cap. Paid now but spread across the books for the next 5 years. Manning's deal paid him $45M over the first 3 seasons though he's only counted about $25M on the cap over that same time period. If he went down they are screwed not just on the field but on the books. Cash over cap is what allows the haves to manipulate cap and what kills teams that have not got a lot of cash (hefty revenue stream or billionaire owner) to work with. If he hadn't gotten his new stadium deal this year, Irsay likely would have had to do what his father did - move the team. He has no other revenue source but the team his father left him.

The Pats have hinted to the FOB's (friends of Bill) that there is a concern here because of the money being paid out to Brady and Seymour over a two or three year period (2005-2007 said to be $50M) the team is exposing itself to increased risk if one of them were lost and the team had to carry that hit plus the cost of replacing their production things could get uncomfortable here cap wise in a hurry. Which is why they are reluctant to add more double digit bonus contracts on guys like Branch and Samuel - not to mention others will be lining up right behind them. They have the cash to do it, but the business sense not to because they had to dig out of a mess once in this decade and are now committed work with an eye towards long term stability. They don't want to be one of those oops... teams facing $20M+ in dead cap eating away at their ability to field a seriously competitive team in say 2008-2009. Because then you are either forced to go cash over cap if you can afford it or weather a cap constrained season or two while you maneuver your way out of cap purgatory.