OT: From "the cap is crap" to "we are up against the cap, oh crap"

[Fencer]

The Steelers as an organization rarely do anything stupid. Like the Pats, they make plenty of mistakes -- but few if any are stupid.

That said, they succeed somewhat differently than the Pats. E.g., both Roethlisberger and Harrison are intellectually-challenged thugs who, despite many other character flaws, play balls-out tough to win. I don't think those guys would have worked out nearly as well on the Patriots, but they've been great assets for the Steelers.

Conversely, the Pats got their first championship in big part because they remembered to work hard on special teams, while the Steelers let that aspect of the game slide. Detail-obsession has its merits.

And in some ways, they are very similar. The best generous-teacher-of-football story I've heard wasn't actually about BB; it was about Cowher.

 

[Salva135]

Welp, the Jets just restructured Brick's contract and created 7.5M in cap space out of thin air. I suspect it's the first of many restructurings. They'll have money, yet again. Maybe Tanny really is that good.

NY Jets and D

 

[Big-T]

Maybe Tanny really is that good

Pushing money into future years isn't good GMing, that's why bad teams stay bad by trying to win now at the expense of the future.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

No, he's no genius. He's doing what any team can do, the equivalent of one of us opening a new credit card account and rolling over as much of the balance on the old one as we can because the new one has low interest for 6 months... Keep doing that and eventually you end up with more cards than you can cover demanding more money than the old one used to with just what you should have been able to pay the monthly's on on it. It's the same thing he's already done to the extent he's in perpetual cap trouble every year now as he chases imaginary windows. When it gets really dicey is when a couple of these deals go belly up because the player gets injured or old in a hurry or screws up as more pressing needs emerge and you can't unload him because of dead cap. He got off the hook in 2011 because of some last minute first year get out of cap jail cards being issued under the new CBA. He's spending the windfall money from the TV deals in advance. That just means he will have less to actually spend when the windfall materializes and he or his eventual successor will have to keep playing the cap hit shell game or the gut the roster game down the road. Same thing that eventually sunk the SS Indianapolis and it's captain, Polian...

While Felger believes this is proof positive that the cap is crap, all it really proves is desperate/disappointing times beget desperate/shortsighted measures and men desperate to save their own job will take that approach because saving their own ass is what it's all about for them. They aren't into building sustainable models, they're into surviving another season and maintaining the illusion of a window.

 

[Rob0729]

Welp, the Jets just restructured Brick's contract and created 7.5M in cap space out of thin air. I suspect it's the first of many restructurings. They'll have money, yet again. Maybe Tanny really is that good.

NY Jets and D

That restructure was expected. They don't have a lot of other moves like this to make. Right now, they are at best in position to retain Pouha and sign their draft picks. If Pouha hits the open market, they might not even have enough cap room to retain him and sign their free agents right now. They still have a lot of holes and won't be big players in free agency because of their cap situation. You take away the money they need to sign their draft picks, they have about $3-4 million to go crazy in free agency including retaining their own free agents.

The one player they need to restructure to get more significant cap dollars is probably going to be hard to do. They need Sanchez to take a pay cut. His cap is too big, but they probably don't want to do what they did with Ferguson and spread more money out over years because Sanchez is at a crossroad and could be gone next season. Sanchez isn't going to take a pay cut because he knows he could be gone next year and the Jets have backed themselves into a corner in committing to him this upcoming season. The Jets may bite the bullet and give him most of his salary in a bonus, but I think they are hesitant to do that.

 

[Triumph]

All the Jets have to do is restructure present contracts to make cap room now. Ferguson just did.

The Redskins have been spending like drunken sailors for years.

 

[Triumph]

That restructure was expected. They don't have a lot of other moves like this to make. Right now, they are at best in position to retain Pouha and sign their draft picks. If Pouha hits the open market, they might not even have enough cap room to retain him right now. They still have a lot of holes and won't be big players in free agency because of their cap situation.

Sanchez and Holmes.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

All the Jets have to do is restructure present contracts to make cap room now. Ferguson just did.

The Redskins have been spending like drunken sailors for years.

Different approach. They didn't bother with restructures. They just ate the dead cap on their failed signings and signed new ones to bonus heavy (low front end cap hit) deals they had the cash over cap to squander on due to their league leading revenue stream. Woody doesn't have that luxury, he's still trying to sell PSL's to fund his share of a new stadium.

And restructuring Sanchez and Holmes could prove too dicey even for a GM desperate for cap space because the jury is still out on both of them remaining JETS beyond this season...

 

[Rob0729]

Sanchez and Holmes.

I addressed Sanchez in my revised last post.

No way are they going to push more of Holmes' cap dollars in the future. They are worried as it is that they are going to have to cut him next year and he will already have over $11 million in dead money if they cut him in 2013 because since they were forced to guarantee his entire 2013 salary for having him on the roster a few weeks back. The Jets are not going to make it harder to cut Holmes next year if he is an underperforming, selfish lockerroom cancer again like last season. Holmes' contract is virtually untouchable this offseason.

 

[Rob0729]

All the Jets have to do is restructure present contracts to make cap room now. Ferguson just did.

The Redskins have been spending like drunken sailors for years.

The difference is until 2014, the cap isn't going to grow that much. Yu can do that approach when the cap is growing at a large rate like it did under the last CBA. Not as much with the new CBA until the new TV contracts start up.

 

[Salva135]

Pushing money into future years isn't good GMing, that's why bad teams stay bad by trying to win now at the expense of the future.

I'm not a cap guy by any means, but what is so bad about pushing money back for a guy you know you want on your team for years, especially with the cap jump expected in two years? I see no reason why the Jets won't keep on doing this forever and never truly finding themselves in the "cap hell" we think they will ultimately end up in.

 

[jmt57]

Welp, the Jets just restructured Brick's contract and created 7.5M in cap space out of thin air. I suspect it's the first of many restructurings. They'll have money, yet again. Maybe Tanny really is that good.

NY Jets and D

Tannenbaum always gets the credit but the guy who is actually maneuvering the numbers and manipulating the cap over there is Ari Nissim.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I'm not a cap guy by any means, but what is so bad about pushing money back for a guy you know you want on your team for years, especially with the cap jump expected in two years? I see no reason why the Jets won't keep on doing this forever and never truly finding themselves in the "cap hell" we think they will ultimately end up in.

Because in anticipation of that jump and when it happens all contracts will be increasing in price and you will have a boatload of essentially dead cap already eating up your expanded cap. And that's even before disaster strikes like one or god forbid more of those guys you know you want on your team for years suffers a career ending injury or slowly morphs into an entitled douche bag or lands on the omishioners schit list or that of some local prosecutor or the feds... Because once that money is pushed forward it will remain there (other than being accelerated if the player is cut or traded) so you end up paying for a whole lot of nothing. There is a way around that for a time but it takes a lot of cash over cap or bonus money expenditure and unless you're the Redskins or Cowboys you aren't going to have that much more of that than your peers, with whom you will still be competing for new acquisitions who will also require a chunk of cash over cap.

 

[Salva135]

Because in anticipation of that jump and when it happens all contracts will be increasing in price and you will have a boatload of essentially dead cap already eating up your expanded cap. And that's even before disaster strikes like one or god forbid more of those guys you know you want on your team for years suffers a career ending injury or slowly morphs into an entitled douche bag or lands on the omishioners schit list or that of some local prosecutor or the feds... Because once that money is pushed forward it will remain there (other than being accelerated if the player is cut or traded) so you end up paying for a whole lot of nothing. There is a way around that for a time but it takes a lot of cash over cap or bonus money expenditure and unless you're the Redskins or Cowboys you aren't going to have that much more of that than your peers, with whom you will still be competing for new acquisitions who will also require a chunk of cash over cap.

Yeah, I get it, it really only works with a guy like D'Brick that they expect to remain a viable starter years down the road and don't mind eating that future cap space. Eventually they will get bitten by this practice when all of these guys become non-viable and are eating up dead cap space, but if the Jets are truly in "win now" mode as so many claim, they can still get away with this for a few more years.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Yeah, I get it, it really only works with a guy like D'Brick that they expect to remain a viable starter years down the road and don't mind eating that future cap space. Eventually they will get bitten by this practice when all of these guys become non-viable and are eating up dead cap space, but if the Jets are truly in "win now" mode as so many claim, they can still get away with this for a few more years.

They can get away with it for a while, but to what end? It isn't working, and they've lost ground in the last year. And their earlier use of the practice cost them the flexibility to retool last season. And looks to be going to do that again this year. That's the trouble with the widows win now philosophy. If it doesn't work on the first couple of tries, the window starts closing and you can't afford to make the kind of moves it would then take to force it to re-open.

The Colts went that route albeit not via FA but by maintaining their core including Manning at substantial cost. They did manage to win in the window, but they struggled to keep it open much longer (they fielded 19 first time players the year after their SB win) and while they made it back to a SB a second time by the following year they were facing the closing window and it slammed shut last September... And basically the fallout will include basically everyone responsible for the slamming short of the owner (they never get fired or cut or traded) being kicked to the curb.

 

[BTTA]

Welp, the Jets just restructured Brick's contract and created 7.5M in cap space out of thin air. I suspect it's the first of many restructurings. They'll have money, yet again. Maybe Tanny really is that good.

They had to do something, and this is the best first big move they've got. The general view seems to be that Brick didn't play as well this year as in the past. He's relies on quickness more than most LT so if his ability to react is eroding, then this move only makes things worse for the Jets, and they are pushing more money into the future for a player that is already eroding.

Nobody knows for sure, for sure.

 

[Rob0729]

I'm not a cap guy by any means, but what is so bad about pushing money back for a guy you know you want on your team for years, especially with the cap jump expected in two years? I see no reason why the Jets won't keep on doing this forever and never truly finding themselves in the "cap hell" we think they will ultimately end up in.

There is no way around the fact that the Jets are definitely in Cap Heck. Maybe not Cap Hell like the Steelers appear to be in, but the Jets are going to be seriously hindered in free agency to make moves to go after quality free agents when they clearly have needs to fill.

The Jets would love to go after a quality safety, OLB, RT, and/or WR in free agency especially since the draft is devoid of many of those positions at the top of the draft. They would love to franchise Pouha rather than let him to go to free agency and potentially leave for more money than the Jets can afford to spend. Hence then they will be in a market for a NT too. The cap is going to hamstring the Jets from getting impact players at these position in free agency.

The Jets will restructure some more and make some cuts, but at this point they don't have a lot of money to do much of anything when you factor cap money for the rookies. They might be able to free up money to sign some lower tier free agent players to fill some holes.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

I'm not a cap guy by any means, but what is so bad about pushing money back for a guy you know you want on your team for years, especially with the cap jump expected in two years? I see no reason why the Jets won't keep on doing this forever and never truly finding themselves in the "cap hell" we think they will ultimately end up in.

But they're already and have been in a position where they dont have depth and are weak in some areas. Thats really what cap hell means, theres always a way to restructure and get back to the cap or under, they have to, but it inhibits them from signing more quality players.
The Jets arent going to explode one day or not field a team because they're in cap hell, it just means the team is weaker in areas and they cant do anything about it. They could probably create 20 mill in space by cutting guys and signing minimum contract guys to take their place but thats not gonna help the team win.

 

[DEVIOUS 1]

If you want a good chuckle, go over and read the thread in JI on this topic.

There is basically one poster over there explaining the obvious cons to this team building approach, followed by the majority of posters hurling insults at him and stuffing there heads in the sand in regards to his critical logic.

 

[Ring 6]

I'm not a cap guy by any means, but what is so bad about pushing money back for a guy you know you want on your team for years, especially with the cap jump expected in two years? I see no reason why the Jets won't keep on doing this forever and never truly finding themselves in the "cap hell" we think they will ultimately end up in.

Because the bill comes due. First, you overpaid the guy. Now you are manipulating (legally) the system to reduce his cost against the cap for one year and increase it for the next 6. Looking at only one player doesn't illustrate the issue. They are in the boat they are in because they have consistently done it.

If the NFL had not created a rule after the fact that allowed them to not count the dead money they had on the books last year, they would have been in as bad or worse shape then too.

It's the equivalent of being on a fixed income and having a $6000 bill due. Instead of paying it, you take a 6 year loan and pay $1000 for 6 years. For each of the next 6 years you are living on less income. When you consider that the amount is somewhere around 5% of the cap, the Jets have decided that to free up money to spend this year, they will accept only having 95% of the cap going forward for the next 6 years. On top of that, given the way the Jets are run, they will use that money to sign more players with large signing bonusses to push even more moeny off into the future.

Its bad business, and it should have come home to roost a year ago, but the NFL put a rule in the CBA that allowed teams to waive dead money hits on players cut in a very small window, which basically, only the Jets did. That was an inexpicable 8 figure gift that won't be coming again.