68 million allocated to 7 players - Curran

[Miguel]

Well, see, there's a bit of a problem w/ that theory -- unless the league and NFLPA can come to a new CBA agreement, the 2009 season will be the last before an uncapped year, meaning NO money can be converted to bonuses and deferred to later years.

This means that in order to get cap relief on a players' contract, that player would need to take an actual pay-cut, and not just restructure.

The above is not true. The difficulty with 2009 being the last capped year is that salary increases are limited to 30% of the player's 2009 salary.

If a player redoes his deal in 2009 and his 2009 base salary is $1,000,000. His base salary in 2010 can be no more than $1,300,000.

 

[DarrylS]

i have an overwhelming sense that curran wants the patriots to perform poorly. everything we hear from this guy about the patriots is negative...no?

You obviously do not understand Tom, he is one of the finest Pats writers, privy to a lot of inside info.. he is not a ball washer though..for the most part he is trusted by the Pats org.. not only that he is extremely intelligent and understand what the pats are trying to do... try to catch him on the radio sometimes and you will see what I mean.

 

[JustWinBrady]

You obviously do not understand Tom, he is one of the finest Pats writers, privy to a lot of inside info.. he is not a ball washer though..for the most part he is trusted by the Pats org.. not only that he is extremely intelligent and understand what the pats are trying to do... try to catch him on the radio sometimes and you will see what I mean.

i would agree that was the case when he was a beat writer covering the pats for the projo. since then, he is not privy to as much info reats as he once was.

 

[Rob0729]

He was not counting Cassel because he said that the Pats have 44 players signed for the 2009 season and Cassel would be the 45th.

If he wasn't counting Cassel, then his numbers make absolutely no sense. There is no logical way that the top six paid players other than Brady have an average cap hit of $8.9 million unless you count Cassel with his $14 plus million cap hit.

 

[Va_Pats_Fan]

Miguel,
I know in the past the Pats have moved cap forward by giving out "fake" LTBE incentives. Is it possible to "reverse" that? Say we had 6M in cap space @ the end of the year, and knew that a NLTBE incentive was going to be hit, and eat up the space next year. Could that NLTBE incentive be accelerated into this year for accounting purposes?

 

[Rob0729]

There has been a not-so-subtle change in his (Curran's) viewpoint of all things New England. Perhaps it's just the way he genuinely sees things, but since the Brady knee story his attitude and demeanor toward the Patriots has clearly been different than in the past. I think he's afraid he was "played" by someone on the knee story and is now scrambling for exclusives.

He definitely seemed to have gone off the deep end since he was contradicted nationally on his Brady story. He seems to want the Pats to be in some insurmountally bad situation just so he can tell the world that he told us so. I just can't believe how thin skinned he appears to be and how much King, Schefter, Silver, etc. contradicting his story seems to have affected his demeanor and objectivity.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Miguel:

Unless Curran can provide the kind of detailed backup data that you do, there's no doubt that I'm taking your numbers over his!

PFS74

 

[bigjunk1]

Unfortunately it seems as though Curran got so much milage (air-time/face-time) out of the Brady story
that he is falling into the trap that so many Boston sports writers do: focusing on the negatives as a way
of generating interest.
His numbers don't add up. He is assuming things that have not yet happened and stating them as facts.
It is misleading and damages his credibility. Just as it has with Felger and (far more so) Borges.

 

[BradyManny]

I was stunned tonight when Tom Curran stated on "Sports Tonight" that the Patriots have allocated $68 million in cap space to 7 players. He said it twice and made it a point to mention it on the show.

I have the 7 players as
Brady, Tom 14,627,280
Green, Jarvis 5,007,280
Light, Matt 5,508,950
Moss, Randy 10,507,280
Seymour, Richard 9,792,280
Thomas, Adalius 6,407,280
Vrabel, Mike 4,393,280

for a total of $56,243,630.

I freely admit that my numbers are never 100% correct but if Curran is correct then I will be more off than I have been in the recent past. My numbers for Light and Vrabel should be off as I am considering their Pro Bowl incentives to be NTLBE for the 2009 season. They were LTBE for the 2008 season. I am not 100% confident in my number for Ty Warren but I really doubt that it is off by $12 million.

I hope that in the near future that Curran will provide more details.

Disclaimers - I should say that I am a fan of his work. He told me that he has visited my cap pages.

Like others said, perhaps he assumed the franchise tag. If you pull out Vrabel and then add in 14+ milli, you almost reach Curran's #s. You could probably shoot him an email and he'd respond. He's one of the better media guys at responding to readers and also making an effort on their behalf.

 

[VJCPatriot]

If he wasn't counting Cassel, then his numbers make absolutely no sense. There is no logical way that the top six paid players other than Brady have an average cap hit of $8.9 million unless you count Cassel with his $14 plus million cap hit.

He can't count Cassel because Cassel hasn't been tagged yet.
Regardless looking at that list, Jarvis Green and Vrabel making 5M??
That's a lot more than I would have figured.
Vrabel of 2007 might be worth the money but in 2008?
And why are we paying Jarvis who is the backup, more than either Wilfork or Warren?
Ok I'll answer my own question - they must still be on their rookie deals... but still that's an AWFUL lot of money for a backup.

 

[alamo]

Miguel,
I know in the past the Pats have moved cap forward by giving out "fake" LTBE incentives. Is it possible to "reverse" that? Say we had 6M in cap space @ the end of the year, and knew that a NLTBE incentive was going to be hit, and eat up the space next year. Could that NLTBE incentive be accelerated into this year for accounting purposes?

That happens automatically... NLTBE incentives which are actually earned are first taken from the current year's cap, and only if that puts the team over this year's limit does the excess get subtracted from next year.

 

[spacecrime]

He definitely seemed to have gone off the deep end since he was contradicted nationally on his Brady story.

Did I miss something? Curran said Brady's ACL and MCL were loose and might need a second surgery.

No one contradicted that that I've heard.

All that I heard was that Brady is on schedule and is working out daily. That contradicts nothing, unless someone says Brady is on schedule to be fully healed my training camp and his ACL/MCL is not loose.

So far neither Curran nor Pats front office have contradicted each other. THe fact that Brady is working out every day does not contradict Curran at all.

 

[Va_Pats_Fan]

That happens automatically... NLTBE incentives which are actually earned are first taken from the current year's cap, and only if that puts the team over this year's limit does the excess get subtracted from next year.

No, it doesn't. LTBE incentives are counted current year, NLTBE are counted against the next years cap. If it happened automatically, teams could not push cap space forward using that mechanism.

 

[BelichickFan]

Did I miss something? Curran said Brady's ACL and MCL were loose and might need a second surgery.

No one contradicted that that I've heard.

All that I heard was that Brady is on schedule and is working out daily. That contradicts nothing, unless someone says Brady is on schedule to be fully healed my training camp and his ACL/MCL is not loose.

Charley Casserly said that his MCL is a little loose but that it's not unusual or overly concerning at this point in the process.

It's clear to me that Curran took some basic in fact and exaggerated them to a ridiculously bad worst case.

 

[Rob0729]

Did I miss something? Curran said Brady's ACL and MCL were loose and might need a second surgery.

No one contradicted that that I've heard.

All that I heard was that Brady is on schedule and is working out daily. That contradicts nothing, unless someone says Brady is on schedule to be fully healed my training camp and his ACL/MCL is not loose.

So far neither Curran nor Pats front office have contradicted each other. THe fact that Brady is working out every day does not contradict Curran at all.

Apparently you did miss something. Of course they contradict Curran's story and it is stupid to argue otherwise. In fact, Schefter, King, Silver, and the Globe went out of their way to say that their information that they are getting from their sources CONTRADICT what Curran is stating. That is their words, not mine.

No they did not go into the specifics of each point that Curran argues, but they did say that what they are hearing is contrary to what Curran hears. We can get into the semantics that they didn't argue point by point, but that is Curran apologist goblidy gook.

Curran may ultimately be right, but to say no one in the media wrote or broadcast stories that contradicted what Curran wrote is dealing with fantasy. The reality is that four legitimate news organization, at least one with better sources close to Brady than Curran, contradicted Curran's report.

 

[Rob0729]

Charley Casserly said that his MCL is a little loose but that it's not unusual or overly concerning at this point in the process.

It's clear to me that Curran took some basic in fact and exaggerated them to a ridiculously bad worst case.

Well, if the MCL is loose, then it is no big deal. The MCL, unlike the ACL, has the ability to heal on its own. It would make more sense that the MCL and not the ACL being loose since the infection was in the MCL and not the ACL.

 

[lamafist]

The above is not true. The difficulty with 2009 being the last capped year is that salary increases are limited to 30% of the player's 2009 salary.

If a player redoes his deal in 2009 and his 2009 base salary is $1,000,000. His base salary in 2010 can be no more than $1,300,000.

Oops. Sorry, my bad. Shows what I get for gleaning information from sites like Profootballtalk.com.

Am I correct, however, in my general understanding that '09 being the last capped year will make it significantly trickier for teams to clear cap space by playings around with the structure of veterans' contracts?

For example, how much cap space would the Pats be able to clear up by restructuring Brady's deal?

 

[Miguel]

Am I correct, however, in my general understanding that '09 being the last capped year will make it significantly trickier for teams to clear cap space by playings around with the structure of veterans' contracts?

Yes.

For example, how much cap space would the Pats be able to clear up by restructuring Brady's deal?

Presumptions -
Brady will not agree to take less new money in 2009 ($8 million).
Brady will not agree to take less new money in 2009 ($6.5 million).
Brady has to make in the 1st 3 years of the contract as least as much Randy Moss does in his contract ($27 million).

Even with those presumptions I come up with a maximum cap savings of $1.36 million. In order to come up with those savings Brady has to agree to trade a $3 million roster bonus on 2/27, a larger 2009 salary by $1.3 million, a larger 2010 salary by $3.944 million for a $1.7 million signing bonus in 2009.

 

[spacecrime]

Apparently you did miss something. Of course they contradict Curran's story and it is stupid to argue otherwise. In fact, Schefter, King, Silver, and the Globe went out of their way to say that their information that they are getting from their sources CONTRADICT what Curran is stating. That is their words, not mine.

You got a link to what Shefter said? Only thing I've ever seen from him was that he couldn't confirm that. King, SIlver and the Globe go with the "Brady's working out every day" which sounds like a rebuttal but is not if you think about it.

It is never stupid to to debate an arguable point.

 

[Miguel]

Curran was including the franchise tag for Cassel.

"http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/28527539/"

"Meanwhile, it’s been reported that having Brady and a franchised Cassel under contract for 2009 means that a cumbersome 23.5 percent of the $123 million salary cap would be allotted to those two. Making things even tighter for the Pats is the fact that several other key players also have ballooning cap numbers in 2009. Unless restructuring is done, Brady, Cassel, Richard Seymour, Randy Moss, Adalius Thomas, Matt Light and Jarvis Green have 2009 cap hits that add up to approximately $65 million. That would leave New England with just $58 million to pay for the other 46 men on the roster.

Currently, the Patriots have about $101 million allocated to 44 players. If they franchise Cassel, that will be close to $115 million for 45."

Seeing and hearing it on TV left me with a different impression than the one I got reading the above.

Sorry about that,