According to Clayton Freeney's cap scheduled hits for 2007 and 2008 will be $5.75M. That means in the remaining 4 years of his deal there will be $60M to account for in salary and amortization.
That's merely an average of $15M per year, although I'm sure Polian will find a way to reshuffle the deck chairs...because cap management/philosophy wise that is what he does. He pays whatever it takes to keep his 4-6 premier talent/core players (who change a little from time to time) in tact and he asks Dungy to coach up the rest and make do as best he can.
Manning's cap hits for 2009-2010 are currently scheduled for close to $20M per. Harrison (35 this year) facing mid teens cap hits may be gone by then (unless he drastically reduces his $9-11M backloaded salaries) but his dead cap probably won't be. Wayne and Mathis will be in the backloaded backend of their deals. Sanders if they keep him (and given his injury history and how it would effect one of Polian's deals I doubt it - more likely they tag him) will be in the early years of his deal. Ditto Glenn or Clark if there's anything left for them.
The key for Polian to keeping the top 5-6 in tact is bonus money because it allows him to manipulate their cap ramifications for a time. All GM's use bonus money in this way to some extent, Polian just uses more of it per player more broadly than most do and certainly more than we do. Which has been a neat trick since his team was small market, no stadium, owner not independently wealthy team was often cash strapped to the point Irsay had to sell his collectibles - which aside from this team he inherited is about all he owns. The new stadium will now boost revenue as long as they keep winning. And given the growth in value of all NFL franchises, Irsay could have found worse ways to re-invest his mad money.
Eventually though as players age in the midst of deals so engineered or you run out of length of time to further amortize or god forbid they get seriously or chronicly injured, is when the proverbial **** starts to hit the cap fan. That's why Belioli and Kraft eschew too many of those types of deals on the books at any given time - having one or more of those kinds of players MIA hurts you on and off the field. We haven't really seen Indy get caught short yet (although absent a CBA agreement last March and with Simon on the roster we nearly saw a preview) because none of their big ticket core pieces have aged out or run out of restructure room or been seriously injured yet. I think Polian feared Edge could become that type of player so they tagged him and then let him walk thereafter.
Harrison and Manning eventually will age out because they are or will be on deals designed to outlast them (run them up to 40) for present day cap manuverability purposes. In Freeney's case 32 isn't necessarily the end of the line for DE's - though in his case speed and agility are his calling cards so it could be. If Dwight simply slows down or little nagging injuries start to pile up before 2011 and hamper his spinability, his dead cap hits not to mention his scheduled cap hits will have heads spinning in Indy. Which is why I doubt you see Sanders on that kind of long term deal unless he plays a full season this year and really appears to have put the injury prone/fragile tag behind him.
In the final analysis this is Polian's approach and it differs from ours in that we seem to be trying to balance pay as you go with just a smattering of backloaded deals and asking players to be proavtive themselves and take a little less up front so we can surround them with a little more above average talent and back it all up with a little more talented depth without risking adversely impacting the future. Once Manning was drafted, given Irsay's finances and stadium situation, Polian could never have afforded to take that approach - so he developed an alternate philosophy based in part on his belief that overwhelming offense can be the best defense if it's they only one you can afford anyway and it simultaneously puts fannies in seats as defense never will.
Both methods (NE vs. Indy) have achieved fairly enviable results compared to most of the league, ours are just little more enviable to date. The real test will be where the teams stand in the decade to come. Can each continue on successfully once the GM, HC and QB are headed down the road to the HOF. Is there a model in place that will translate with new players and coaches or will there be a cap mess to clean up prior to a total system overhaul. My gut tells me we're better prepared continue on competitively with a far less noticiable bump in the road than most teams end up facing in transition. And the transition in Indy will be a lot bumpier because of the choices Polian made to worry about the present and cross the bridge to the future (or set someone else u[ to cross it) if and when it comes.
