I thought solman made perfect sense.
You have to get down to 53 players on cutdown day. If you want 54, tough. CUt players until you are down to 53.
To say it is legal to stash players as coaches is silly. Why didn't we just hire Gay and Wilson as coaches, then bring them back when we needed them?
Solman makes perfect sense? Really? How do you figure. He didn't offer up any facts or anything to support the idea that it would be a violation of some sort. Its not a violation of the salary cap to pay someone to be a coach. Someone who isn't healthy enough to PLAY. Also, Its a seperate type of contract to be a player and it WOULD count against the cap.
I don't know where you get the idea that you p[enalize a guy for being a coach. Solman didn't say that. If Brown wants to be a coach he can. But he's a coach, not a player. Do you think we can activate Don Davis from the coaching staff next December if we are low on ILBs?
Well, first off, Davis filed his retirement papers so he'd have to file new papers to be ruled eligible. But, yes, if he was ruled eligible, there'd be no reason the Pats couldn't sign him to a player contract and he'd count against the cap.
There are, or at least were, player coaches, but they took a player roster spot. That isn't the intent here. The intent of making Troy a coach is to keep him, and pay him, without using a roster spot until we need him
Again, if he's not healthy, then so what? By all accounts, Troy is NOT healthy, currently. There may be something that says that Troy would have to file his retirement papers, but if that is the case, it would be similar to the Don Davis scenario you presented.
All we can do it cut him in Sept, and if no one signs him (he can legally refuse to sign with someone else), then we can sign him.
But Solman wasn't being ridiculus at all.
(I would assume the fining of a draft pick would be for bypassing teh salary cap. If Brown were paid as a coach for 10 games, he wouldn't count agaisnt the cap. Then if he were brought on board, only 6 games would be on the cap.)
Yes, you and he are being ridiculous because you are both making an assumption that the intent would be to bypass the salary cap. What neither of you realize is that there would be no intent to bypass the cap. And, should Troy sign a coaching contract to be with the team and then sign a player contract when he is healthy, the player contract would count against the salary cap.
Its not a violation of the cap because during the 1st 10 games, he wasn't actually PLAYING. He was acting as a coach. So why would it count against the cap? How is it BYPASSING the Salary Cap?
The least you could do is offer up a concrete idea of how having Troy Brown as a COACH and paying him as a COACH would be bypassing the salary cap if the Pats should add him to the 53 man roster by signing him to a player contract down the line?