INSIDE THE CAP with J.I. Halsell
J.I. Halsell has 4 seasons worth of NFL Salary Cap and Player Contract experience. For 2 seasons, he was the Salary Cap Analyst for the Washington Redskins, where he played a role in every player contract negotiation to occur during that period. Prior to his stint with the Redskins, he worked for 2 years for the NFL's labor relations department, the Management Council.
here is a link that was taken from a link in this thread --- it's the source for the haynesworth contract, and I thought was pretty interesting reading.
it's got analysis from a very informed source on top of just the #'s.
also, just to clarify a few things --- and this is just based off stuff I've read from this board, so I don't want to mislead anybody into thinking I'm any kind of informed source:
I think what people here are talking about is that the pats and carolina are NOT talking about a peppers trade because he hasn't signed that 17m franchise tag everybody refers to.
however, his agent can talk to the pats about possible contracts all he wants.
the agent then pitches an idea to carolina that they should cut a deal w/the pats
whereby carolina REMOVES the tag for a 2nd round pick, allowing him to become a fa and sign a contract already waiting in his mailbox.
failing that, the agent cuts a deal w/the pats and simply pitches the same deal to carolina, getting him signed and then traded to new england that same day.
basically, the pats don't need to clear 17m --- just the space required as if he were a fa, which is still substantial, but also substantially more likely.
carolina is apparently currently right at the cap, so they are highly motivated to do SOMETHING to alleviate this, and peppers apparently won't sign a deal w/them.
the confusion about the haynesworth deal, and I haven't finished reading the link above, I think comes from the semantics of it.
they seem to use a 2010 bonus to circumvent 2009 cap hits, and they 'guarantee' it by guaranteeing the situation and not the money.
meaning they actually agree to two different but equal bonuses that cover two mutually exclusive situations, so neither bonus is guaranteed, but he's guaranteed of getting one of them.
anyway, that's how it was explained to me elsewhere, although I've been getting very confused.
it seems the big question is how much would peppers really take, when he's due 17m and stands to cut a new deal in an uncapped year, and could the pats even come up w/a 'paltry' 7m, if that's what it came down to?
also, a note about the brady restructure.
I believe solmon was just using 100m as a number for illustration, but in that particular illustration, while we dodge '09 wouldn't we be getting bent over in 2011+ on that cap hit?
and as miguel has mentioned, what if 2010 ends up capped under a new cba?