Latest Cap Status Update

[makewayhomer]

I am amazed that neither Tampa nor Jacksonville has stepped up to sign Bryant Johnson. Who is arguably as good or better than the likes of Jerry Porter and Javon Walker.

Also, Tampa NEEDS to spend some money because they are in jeopardy of not reaching the cap FLOOR. Yes, you read that right. There is a cap FLOOR. An absolute minimum that teams are required to spend every year. Also, I believe, and Miguel can correct me on this, that when teams don't use all the cap money, the salary caps get adjusted up for the following year.

not every organization has the actual money to spend all their available cap dollars. getting to the minimum is probably just a matter of issuing LTBE incentives.

 

[TimU]

There have been numerous threads on this. But here is the rundown. Adrian Peterson's contract had a cap hit of 2.04 million last year. The maximum increase in the rookie pool is 5%. So that spot would carry a cap hit of 2.142 million this year.

This doesn't sound right. Just the reported guaranteed money ($17mm) for Peterson amortizes to more than $2mm per year, never mind salary and incentives.


Think about it: Brandon Merriweather's cap # is about $1.4mm. If the difference in cap charges between picks #7 and # 24 is just $600,000, why are all the teams whining about how overpaid the top picks are?

 

[captain stone]

I am amazed that neither Tampa nor Jacksonville has stepped up to sign Bryant Johnson. Who is arguably as good or better than the likes of Jerry Porter and Javon Walker.

Also, Tampa NEEDS to spend some money because they are in jeopardy of not reaching the cap FLOOR. Yes, you read that right. There is a cap FLOOR. An absolute minimum that teams are required to spend every year. Also, I believe, and Miguel can correct me on this, that when teams don't use all the cap money, the salary caps get adjusted up for the following year.

What's more amazing is that Tampa just signed WR Antonio Bryant, a certified malcontent and underacheiver, instead of Bryant Johnson. Sometimes FOs are too smart for their own good.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

This doesn't sound right. Just the reported guaranteed money ($17mm) for Peterson amortizes to more than $2mm per year, never mind salary and incentives.


Think about it: Brandon Merriweather's cap # is about $1.4mm. If the difference in cap charges between picks #7 and # 24 is just $600,000, why are all the teams whining about how overpaid the top picks are?

Guaranteed money isn't necessarily all amortizable, some of it is later guaranteed salary or option bonus guaranteed by salary if not executed. Only signing bonus or other bonus money or salary later converted to signing bonus (usually referred to as a simple restructure) is amortizable.

Top picks are perceived as overpaid because of the signing bonus or guaranteed portions of contracts they are commanding. Those deals have to be structured to stay under that rookie cap in the first season, after that all bets are off cap wise. So they're backloaded. I'm sure the initial intent was the use the rookie cap as a means to slow down escalating rookie contracts, but agents found with all the loopholes in the cap rules you can dance around most anything. You will even notice that signing bonus per se is giving way to guaranteed language because signing bonus remains recoupable under certain circumstances (like say Vick's or a player like Rickie "retiring"). And a lot more rookie deals are being heavily incentivized with insane escalator clauses with lower thresholds. That is what got Arizona in cap trouble with Fitzgerald this year - pushed his remaining 2 years of rookie deal salaries to $31M+...

 

[ctpatsfan77]

This doesn't sound right. Just the reported guaranteed money ($17mm) for Peterson amortizes to more than $2mm per year, never mind salary and incentives.

Think about it: Brandon Merriweather's cap # is about $1.4mm. If the difference in cap charges between picks #7 and # 24 is just $600,000, why are all the teams whining about how overpaid the top picks are?

Guaranteed money doesn't mean it's paid out on day one.

Also, the issue for top-10 rookies isn't the cap hit in year one, it's the cap hit in years two and beyond. [For a related example, look at Welker's cap hits over his five-year contract: $1.7M, $3.7M, $4M, $4.2M, $4.5M.]

 

[JoeSixPat]

Where exactly is Tampa Bay going to spend all that money?

Likely on their own players, seeing as they have the whole year. It doesn't make sense to do it now, but can't they amend certain contracts and actually frontload them to use their cap space now and save it for later?

That makes more sense than spending it on players who aren't worth the money. But of course there's some risk with that as well, should a player get injured or otherwise flame out.

We shouldn't forget that the Salary Cap isn't "real" money - but frontloading contracts with guarantees ensures that the money becomes "real" and the owners will have to actually write that check (as opposed to dealing with dead cap space but not having to shell out the $$)

 

[Miguel]

This doesn't sound right. Just the reported guaranteed money ($17mm) for Peterson amortizes to more than $2mm per year, never mind salary and incentives.

http://content.usatoday.com/sports/...ame=peterson&player=4579&loc=interstitialskip

Think about it: Brandon Merriweather's cap # is about $1.4mm. If the difference in cap charges between picks #7 and # 24 is just $600,000, why are all the teams whining about how overpaid the top picks are?

[/quote]

Meriweather's 2007 cap hit was $1,140,000.

 

[AllabouttheVinces]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=jc-underthecap031008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Miguel, great data. Look down toward the bottom of that report:

30. Dallas $3.9 million


Speculation is that the 'Boys are the front-runners for Pacman Jones. Even with his jailbird status, Pacman is unlikely to play for short money. Dallas will be lucky to get their draft picks under the cap. They couldn't (or chose not to) resign Julius Jones. How's the Pacman going to fit?

 

[Miguel]

Miguel, great data. Look down toward the bottom of that report:

30. Dallas $3.9 million


Speculation is that the 'Boys are the front-runners for Pacman Jones. Even with his jailbird status, Pacman is unlikely to play for short money. Dallas will be lucky to get their draft picks under the cap.
They couldn't (or chose not to) resign Julius Jones. How's the Pacman going to fit?

http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111299&page=7

 

[DaBruinz]

not every organization has the actual money to spend all their available cap dollars. getting to the minimum is probably just a matter of issuing LTBE incentives.

This is where you are incorrect. The actual money is what is distributed to teams each year from the different TV contracts and such. They HAVE the money. Its whether they chose to USE it.

 

[AdamJT13]

Miguel, great data. Look down toward the bottom of that report:

30. Dallas $3.9 million


Speculation is that the 'Boys are the front-runners for Pacman Jones. Even with his jailbird status, Pacman is unlikely to play for short money. Dallas will be lucky to get their draft picks under the cap. They couldn't (or chose not to) resign Julius Jones. How's the Pacman going to fit?

The Cowboys will need less than $2.2 million of cap room to sign all of their rookies, based on their current draft picks. That leaves about $1.7 million available to spend on veterans. Pacman is under contract for a base salary of $1,742,500. Because of the Rule of 51, he'd reduce Dallas' cap room by $1,372,500. That leaves more than $300,000 of cap room, even without the Cowboys having to do anything to create cap room (they have several easy ways to do that, as shown in the link Miguel provided).

 

[Ring 6]

This is where you are incorrect. The actual money is what is distributed to teams each year from the different TV contracts and such. They HAVE the money. Its whether they chose to USE it.

The difference comes in HOW you use the cap money.
Cap cost and dollars spent in a year can be significantly different.

Example:
You can sign a guy to a 5 year deal with a 10mill signing bonus and a 500k salary the first year. Cap hit is 2.5 mill, $$ spent is 10.5 mill
or you can sign a guy to a 2 year deal with a 500k signing bonus and a 2.25mill first year salary. Cap hit is 2.5 mill, $$ spent is 2.75 mill.

Naturally, if you are trying to to go cheap, and limit signing bonusses, you will tend to be picking up cheap players, because you are out of the market for the expensive ones.

Revenues from team to team vary greatly. While league revenue, such as TV money is split equally, ticket and concession money, and sale of merchandise varies a lot, not to mention on the other side of the balance sheet is the cost of your facilities (which is widely different from team to team) and non-player employee expense.

One year the Vikings went cheap and signed a huge FA corner contract (Winfield?) and gave him almost no signing bonus but a huge first year salary (basically they paid the entire signing bonus as salary in year 1) so that they could use up more cap room, and not be below the floor. (I believe that was the last year before they sold they team)

 

[Miguel]

How are the Jets going to sign that #6 pick (et al) with 4.5 million? I guess they'll have to spread it out into future years and deal with it later. Which probably means Mangina doesn't expect to be there next year and if he is they won't be signing anymore big names anytime soon.

Please keep in mind
1.)the Top 51 rule
2.) When draft picks are typically signed
3.) Dewayne Robertson

 

[Miguel]

For all of the moaning about how much the Top 10 picks are getting paid, these numbers prove that if the owners wanted to spend money on the so-called blue-collar, lunch-pail vets they could.

 

[Miguel]

One year the Vikings went cheap and signed a huge FA corner contract (Winfield?) and gave him almost no signing bonus but a huge first year salary (basically they paid the entire signing bonus as salary in year 1) so that they could use up more cap room, and not be below the floor. (I believe that was the last year before they sold they team)

That was in 2004 - before the current CBA.

 

[sebman2112]

As of 3/19/08 The Patriots were $8M under the cap.

I just sent the specifics to Miguel.

 

[Ring 6]

That was in 2004 - before the current CBA.

Couldnt you still do the same thing now?
In other words, if you are in danger of not meeting the salary cap minimum and you are going to sign a guy for 5 years with a 10mill signing bonus, couldnt you just make the signing bonus part of the first year salary, or a reporting bonus or something?
My point was that there is a wide difference between cap $$ and real money paid out in a year, and while most teams use signing bonusses to mitigate the cap hit by spreading it out, you could do the opposite.

I suppose it a year when you have excess cap space, it would make sense to, helping future years, ie in the example above the players cap charge would be 2 mill less for each subsequent year after the first.

Is any of that no longer allowed?

 

[signbabybrady]

Couldnt you still do the same thing now?
In other words, if you are in danger of not meeting the salary cap minimum and you are going to sign a guy for 5 years with a 10mill signing bonus, couldnt you just make the signing bonus part of the first year salary, or a reporting bonus or something?
My point was that there is a wide difference between cap $$ and real money paid out in a year, and while most teams use signing bonusses to mitigate the cap hit by spreading it out, you could do the opposite.

I suppose it a year when you have excess cap space, it would make sense to, helping future years, ie in the example above the players cap charge would be 2 mill less for each subsequent year after the first.

Is any of that no longer allowed?

I dont think the details of the contract went down as you explain above but didn't we front load A. Thomas contract. I Don't think it was in place of the bonus but I do think we put more cap dollars up front to make it less of a hit on later years.

 

[Vern]

Is any of that no longer allowed?

You can still front load deals - using roster bonuses mostly. What you can't do is play many games with salary.

The "Deion Sanders" rule, for example, prevents salaries from jumping too high from year to year.

 

[Miguel]

As of 3/19/08 The Patriots were $8M under the cap.

I just sent the specifics to Miguel.

I believe that the 8 million number is not taking into account the Top 51 rule.

The Pats were under the cap by 10.8 million on March 6th. Since then they signed Lewis Sanders, Tank Williams, and Fernando Bryant to vet min deals meaning that the 3 displaced players with $370,000 salaries from the Top 51 list so the net effect of signing the trio was less than $400,000 (490,000 - 370,000)*3.

I have the Pats under the cap by 10.5 million.
There are 8 players not in the Top 51 list.
5 of them have $370,000 salaries
3 of them have $295,000 salaries.

1,850,000 (370,000 *5)
885,000 (295,000 *3)
2,735,000

10.5 million minus 2,735,000 is approximately 8 million.