The cap IS worrisome over the next few years

[Fencer]

As per Miguel's page, this year:

Brady is playing at a very depressed cap hit, with a huge increase coming next season.

Moss is playing for well below what it would cost to keep him.

Asante is playing for a somewhat below his current market value.

Seymour (assuming he bounces back) is playing for below is current market value. He has one more year in that range, then he spikes up a few mil, then he's a FA.

A. Thomas is playing on the depressed first year of a long-term deal, and hence several mil below his value or future hits.

Warren is playing for millions below his future level of cap hit.

Watson has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Wilfork has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Koppen is early in his deal, and playing at somewhat below his future cap hits.

Mankins has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Green has two more years on a deal that is probably somewhat below market value, and then is a FA.

Gay is a FA after this year, and presumably will be able to command a raise.


CONCLUSIONS:

1. The Pats can probably keep something like the current level of talent together for another year or two, but after that it will be very difficult.

2. The Pats are likely to stick to their guns about not paying FULL market value for anybody expensive. Guys who won't accept that will therefore be gone.

3. Seymour is likely gone after his current contract expires.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

If you want to bring up the 2-3 year future, every team in the NFL has the same problems.

 

[Seels]

Not to be too much of a **** but I think you need to learn how the salary cap really works before getting too worked up.

 

[Fencer]

If you want to bring up the 2-3 year future, every team in the NFL has the same problems.

More precisely, it's a strong force pulling teams back toward parity.

And the Pats are about as far from parity right now as any team in the modern history of the NFL.

What I'm doing with this thread mainly is trying to quantify WHEN the problem will occur.

 

[Fencer]

Not to be too much of a **** but I think you need to learn how the salary cap really works before getting too worked up.

I'm sorry, but I disagree -- I think you ARE being too much of a ****.

By the way, Miguel -- if you're reading this, please put me back in the credits on your "thank you" list on the cap page. As for my dithering back and forth on which name to use, please use my real name. If you've forgotten it , I'll email it again.

 

[rabthepat]

I say "Live for Today". Who knows what the future holds. I thought the Colts were going to be done 2 years ago because of the contracts they gave to Peyton and Marvin. Well, they then gave even more money away to Freeney and Wayne. The salary cap goes up and solves everyone's cap problems.

 

[flasox27]

Keep in mind that the salary cap if it is still in existence will increase significantly.

 

[Tyler.Durden]

Brady moss and welker will get it done on offense, bb prides himself on discovering passed-over talent on the cheap

 

[maverick4]

The salary cap goes up year after year.

Also, who knows who will retire after this year, we may have a lot (Seau, Bruschi, Harrison, Troy, etc).

Colvin isn't going to stick around here with his salary.

Stallworth probably won't be back.

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

Hmmmm, I'll leave it to the experts to worry about "future" cap issues. Seeing that they've not given me reason to think they cannot handle that responsibility, I think that's only fair. Me, I think I'll just enjoy the product that they are putting on the field week after week.

 

[DisgruntledTunaFan]

Every year, the Skins supposedly are WAY over the cap. But every year, they do a good job creating cap space to sign the necessary FAs et al to plug in any holes.

Look at them this year, with all the injury woes + the ST tragedy, they are doing VERY well, why? B/c they have DEPTH(the DBs, LBs, and even the QB that have stepped in fill their voids nicely).

 

[Menlo]

dont worry everyone will take a paycut to play in foxborro or Bill can just pay them under the table, either way, cap is safe

 

[ALP]

one good thing about the cap is that we wont be paying stallworth....

and prob not kelley either

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Fencer, I agree that it is worrisome. To your detractors I would say, don't expect that 2-3 year window to come and go without some pain. We have been building toward it for some time. But then again, we're all accustomed to taking the hits we need to take, and we do have a front office well skilled in every shell-game available to cap managers.

We can localize the hits position by position and have those arguments too. What happens to Stallworth, for example? Is the price tag too high, or do we see him as a potential extension of the Moss Principle? Does he have to re-do his deal after this year?

Rosie Colvin is playing great, and Seymour is back at that high level we associate with him... Asante Samuel has proven he is the real deal.

Cap inflation is continuing, and the pace is faster than it was prior to the last CBA extension a couple years ago. Add to that that we did great against the cap in the first year of everybody's new "prove it" contract.

Well, we do what we have to to keep Moss, you have to figure. Do we see Samuel as a must-sign? Stallworth? Kelly Washington is obviously out the door or a re-done deal; I think his future's elsewhere. And so on, and so on. But if you plot the growth of this dynasty since 2000-2001, you see stars emerging out of the middle-class "soup" of veterans we always had around. Lots of them, these days.

And a lot of deals do come due in 2010, if memory serves.

So anyways... we can say, hey, here's our window to try to close out the decade 7-3 in terms of Super Bowl championships (heh), which is pretty much the goal anyway, and/or we can think about hard choices along the way. I think it's obvious we'll be making them during that time frame.

There are lotsa "I can make 10 million bucks appear magically by re-doing this deal and that deal" tricks you can talk about, but ultimately even our expanding pot of money is finite, and we have acquired a good deal of our firepower on cheap first-year deals (this includes Moss, Stallworth, and Washington, but not Gaffney, Welker, or Adalius Thomas, if I remember correctly.) Also, as you note, we put Brady on a 7M credit card for this year, which will bleed us a little at a time moving forward (not that he is not worth it -- but eventually, somebody has to "not be worth it.")

I guess you can say this front office has beaten the hell out of the system this year, without committing (yet) to deficit spending on our bonanza.

I'm curious to see whether that's coming; i.e., whether an NFL dynasty built in the Salary Cap era (we and the Colts are really the only ones you can speak of, for purposes of consistent success and possible super bowl aspirations annually), is like a "main sequence" star: It has certain phases of life, where the mix of elements move from one state to another, and then finally ejects most of its matter in a supernova (or in NFL terms, 49ers-esque "fire sale.") In the NFL, you start out with a lot of "light elements," the draft picks and cheap free-agents that are the hydrogen of the NFL. You start infusing helium into the balance in the form of more and more highly paid NFL veterans. You extend the lifecycle by jettisoning those who value themselves higher than their worth to the team, regardless of fan sentiments. But eventually what you (as a front office) regard as a "core" may lead you to make a decision to move forward with less regard to cap consequences.... We have shown signs lately of moving toward this model.

Do I WANT to maintain a healthy balance? Of course. Am I personally betting on uncapped years in the future? I'm not, and I don't think Kraft is. I think labor and management both understand that labor peace is in everybody's interest. So, we will likely have some version of the cap well into the future...

Well, either the "Patriot Way" we're accustomed to kicks in, and we lose some fan-favorites and what we see as inescapable necessities, or some bills come due around the 2010 time frame (too lazy to hit M's page this morning, and even if you do, someone lectures you about what legerdemain you can employ to make it all better. But I believe the biggies start around then.)

I'm currently wondering, for example, whether we get Asante done, or he walks. Well, your league-low point-allowing NE Patriot defense might look a tad shakier next year without him... but again, $10M a year for a number of years, with a bunch of it up-front?

He needs to be the deciding factor in a lot of games for that money.

PFnV

 

[MoLewisrocks]

As per Miguel's page, this year:

Brady is playing at a very depressed cap hit, with a huge increase coming next season.

Brady is also due for an extension that would lower that hit exponentially, not to mention his cap hit in 2010 has room to dump more amortization into if they don't do the extension until 2009...

Moss is playing for well below what it would cost to keep him.

Not necessarily - with incentives his cap cost this season is around $5M, which is in the range of what a first year hit would be on a reasonable 3-5 year deal extending him.

Asante is playing for a somewhat below his current market value.

That's somewhat debateable. If they extend him his cap hit will be close to half of what it is this season, and if they don't he'll be gone because he wanted more that he was worth TO THEM.

Seymour (assuming he bounces back) is playing for below is current market value. He has one more year in that range, then he spikes up a few mil, then he's a FA.

OMG

A. Thomas is playing on the depressed first year of a long-term deal, and hence several mil below his value or future hits.

And if and when when his cap hits exceed his value he will either be restructured or cut. But low initial cap hits for younger talent who are replacing older talent by then will likely balance it all out.

Warren is playing for millions below his future level of cap hit.

Watson has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Wilfork has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Koppen is early in his deal, and playing at somewhat below his future cap hits.

Mankins has two more years of a cheap deal, and then is a FA.

Green has two more years on a deal that is probably somewhat below market value, and then is a FA.

Gay is a FA after this year, and presumably will be able to command a raise.

blahblah:

CONCLUSIONS:

1. The Pats can probably keep something like the current level of talent together for another year or two, but after that it will be very difficult.

2. The Pats are likely to stick to their guns about not paying FULL market value for anybody expensive. Guys who won't accept that will therefore be gone.

3. Seymour is likely gone after his current contract expires.

Conclusions: The Pats will pay close to full market value for anyone they believe represents value to this team at that price. It's what they have consistently done. Part of the equation is how much winning football matters to these players, as opposed to getting every last nickle on the table. They will add new talent that represents value to them as needed. They will not overpay to acquire or retain talent, and in doing so retain a higher quality level of depth than most to cushion the blow when higher paid talent inevitable become unavailable for stretches due to injury, and that is why they do not and will not get in cap trouble.

They've been managing to do this under the cap for eight years now without any real trouble - and I include Milloy in that assessment since they had located Rodney prior to cutting him and we won the next two superbowls without him. They plan out their cap 5 years in advance so they layer players in the early, mid and late stages of deals to balance each other out. Players like Colvin who appear to be a problem are not. He will either be extended or restructured or out - and extended is the rational bet - at a cap hit close to half his 2008 projected hit.

They're doing just fine, as you would expect with Belioli at the helm. The Colts are a lot closer to being in cap trouble than this team will ever be, yet if you ask Miguel they aren't in trouble at all since they are remaining competitive and signing the players they truly want to keep and rolling excess cap into future years when the cap will grow exponentially (remember there will be a new blockbuster TV deal coming in 2012, when the cap will already likely have grown to $140M+ before that windfall).

 

[FrontSeven]

If you worry about the team's cap then you have nothing to do but rub your worry warts.

If you are not convinced by now that this team knows how to handle its finances then you need to go to remedial something-or-other. With all of the things in this world to worry about, the Patriots cap hit is near the bottom of my list.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Every year, the Skins supposedly are WAY over the cap. But every year, they do a good job creating cap space to sign the necessary FAs et al to plug in any holes.

Look at them this year, with all the injury woes + the ST tragedy, they are doing VERY well, why? B/c they have DEPTH(the DBs, LBs, and even the QB that have stepped in fill their voids nicely).

I live in the DC area. Doing VERY well for this team is winning 2 games in a row, and sometimes (gasp!) 3. If we were doing VERY well like Washington, people on this board would be slitting their wrists.

I think they've underachieved on first string for so long nobody even considers it underachievement anymore. Combine that with (as you say) good (and overachieving) second stringers, and you get a decent plateau of performance, in the presence of a decent response to the Taylor tragedy. But the last thing I'd do is hold up the Skins as a model franchise for cap management.

Of course, as you say, if "over 500, sometimes", is a good goal, you are correct. Although they pay as if they are building super bowl champions, they are somehow always able to maintain a consistent level of mediocrity even if an overpaid star goes down. (and to be fair, Taylor was probably relatively cheap since he was still on his rookie deal. More's the pity...)

PFnV

 

[ShrewBeer]

Every year, the Skins supposedly are WAY over the cap. But every year, they do a good job creating cap space to sign the necessary FAs et al to plug in any holes.

Look at them this year, with all the injury woes + the ST tragedy, they are doing VERY well, why? B/c they have DEPTH(the DBs, LBs, and even the QB that have stepped in fill their voids nicely).

since when have the skins done "VERY well?" just because they dont bust the cap doesnt mean crap. their team stinks every year.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Fencer, thanks for starting a great thread. Personally, i just don't have the bandwidth to try to develop some expertise on the cap and tend to leave these discussions to folks like miguel and yourself. Nonetheless, here is my amateur take:

1) If the cap works (and it apparently does), eventually the pats will probably have to pay the piper for assembling this much talent while still staying under the cap (not to mention having to figure out what to do with a top ten draft pick). the fact that they've done it at all is amazing and a tribute to piolichick and to the willingness of a few key players to stay at a discount to their market value.

2) My impression is that they would be able to restructure a couple of the contracts that you cite, but, again, that just pushes the problem out a few more years.

3) We should enjoy this while we can.

 

[blackglass3]

remember there will be a new blockbuster TV deal coming in 2012

*crosses fingers* Come on Sunday Ticket on cable (I can't get DTV HD here due to the trees being in my line of site) or Pay Per View regular season games!