A couple of salary cap/JT related questions

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

1. How badly does the Alex Smith signing affect the Pats' ability to offer JT a reasonable contract? I thought I read they were 4-5M under the cap with the rookies to sign. That was before the AS signing. Does that mean that will have little left to offer Taylor? Alex Smith's contract is worth 1.5M, quite a lot, considering how little room they had left. I am quite surprised they would take on a relatively large contract for a guy who will probably be a JAG. It seems that, if they want Taylor, and by all indications they do, that money could be the difference. My strong instinct is that Taylor will be asking between 4-5M, while the Pats will probably start at 2-3M.

2. Can the Pats sign a player to a contract, go over the salary cap, and then cut other player before a certain date? I know that there were teams over the cap at the beginning of the offseason... how were they able to cope? Is the cap just a projected pay scale, or a real-time barrier?

 

[eom]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

check the pats rookie salary projections thread for some good tidbits.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

check the pats rookie salary projections thread for some good tidbits.

Yeah, good tidbits, but not really sure how much cap space we actually have now or how the rookie pool will eat into the cap as a whole.

 

[amazinPats]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

Pats can still make other moves to accommodate whatever they need. They can cut Jarvis Green, or restructure his contract. I'm inclined that they will attempt the latter before actually cutting or trading him.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

Okay, I found it. So around 3.5M remaining. Like I said, the Smith signing surprises me considering Kraft is openly courting Jason Taylor. If JT will sign for 3.5, we will really be out of options unless we cut someone. I'm surprised we wouldn't wait around for some of those August cuts before paying 1.5 to a dime a dozen player, but in BB I trust. Maybe they are going to trade Watson and perhaps a couple more guys.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

2. Can the Pats sign a player to a contract, go over the salary cap, and then cut other player before a certain date? I know that there were teams over the cap at the beginning of the offseason... how were they able to cope? Is the cap just a projected pay scale, or a real-time barrier?

It's a real-time barrier. If you go over the cap for more than 24 hours (you can exceed the cap for relatively short periods while getting your house in order, so to speak), the NFL will start canceling contracts until you're under (starting with the most recent).

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

It's a real-time barrier. If you go over the cap for more than 24 hours (you can exceed the cap for relatively short periods while getting your house in order, so to speak), the NFL will start canceling contracts until you're under (starting with the most recent).

Wow. I hope Alex Smith did not cost us Jason Taylor's services. I don't know what the market is for him, but I'm guessing again that he'll be asking for something above 3.5M. As much as I'd like to see Taylor here, there are lots of vets that get cut in August. Having an extra couple of million can get you a lot when those players start to get desperate. Then again, I'm reminded of Doug Gabriel and Reche Caldwell, and think maybe it's just better to get your loose ends tied first.

 

[eom]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

the rookie pool doesn't eat into the cap.

this is just my understanding, so don't take it as fact, but the rookie pool is just a leaguewide pool that gets divided up between teams depending on their draft, and the team's alloctaion just becomes a subset of the overall salary cap.
it's just a cap figure for rookies.

now, as mentioned in that other thread, you need to be aware of how they calculate the cap figures for each team, and they way they do that right now is they only count the 51 highest salaries of the current 80 man roster, along w/some signing bonus amortizations added in.

initially, when you draft a player, he's assigned a 310k(?) salary for cap purposes, until he signs a contract, so really none of those guys would count in the top 51.
once they sign deals, the higher salaried players replace some other players that are currently being counted against the cap because you just count the highest 51 --- like if you sign a guy for 800k salary, that figure would bump off the lowest of the 51.
so if the lowest of the 51 is 500k, then you really just increased cap by 300k --- aside from the aforementioned signing bonus amortizations.

bottom line, if no particular high salary guy gets cut, signing these rookies probably adds up to maybe a million or two, leaving us w/maybe around 4 million in cap.
that's ripping off guesstimates from other posters, by the way.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

the rookie pool doesn't eat into the cap.

this is just my understanding, so don't take it as fact, but the rookie pool is just a leaguewide pool that gets divided up between teams depending on their draft, and the team's alloctaion just becomes a subset of the overall salary cap.
it's just a cap figure for rookies.

now, as mentioned in that other thread, you need to be aware of how they calculate the cap figures for each team, and they way they do that right now is they only count the 51 highest salaries of the current 80 man roster, along w/some signing bonus amortizations added in.

initially, when you draft a player, he's assigned a 310k(?) salary for cap purposes, until he signs a contract, so really none of those guys would count in the top 51.
once they sign deals, the higher salaried players replace some other players that are currently being counted against the cap because you just count the highest 51 --- like if you sign a guy for 800k salary, that figure would bump off the lowest of the 51.
so if the lowest of the 51 is 500k, then you really just increased cap by 300k --- aside from the aforementioned signing bonus amortizations.

bottom line, if no particular high salary guy gets cut, signing these rookies probably adds up to maybe a million or two, leaving us w/maybe around 4 million in cap.
that's ripping off guesstimates from other posters, by the way.

Thanks EOM. Does that include the Alex Smith deal for 1.5M?

 

[jmt57]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

I agree that Smith's contract/cap number is higher than one would hope for, but it's not a deal killer. He or others could have their contract re-worked/extended to reduce the cap hit. If push came to shove and the decision was to either keep Smith or sign Taylor, I think there's no debate as to what the Pats would do.

Regarding going over the cap, I've read a team can never go over, but I've also read that a team has 24 hours to do something to get back under. That actually makes more sense because you don't want to cut a player and then have your next move (trade or signing) fall through.

In regards to teams going over the cap, keep in mind the NFL year starts March 1st. When you see an article stating a team is "$8 million over the cap" it is probably referring to the current roster at that time if no moves are made. For example, a column on February 15 may state Team X is $8m over the cap, but what they are referring to is the roster on that date and contract/cap numbers after March 1.

 

[jmt57]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

Take Smith's $1.5 million number and subtract/replace player #51 from Miguel's cap page - Dan Connolly at $467,280 - and the net is slightly over $1 million. That would lower the Pats cap space from $6.7 million to about $5.7 million.

 

[Urgent]

Re: A couple of salary cap/ JT related questions

The Patriots are currently under the cap by about $6.5mm on the artificial Rule of 51 basis.

They project to being under by around $3.5mm on the regular season basis, including 53-man roster and practice squad (I had Tate on PUP with this projection). Teams typically like to have $2-3mm in available cap room for IR replacements.