2006 Cap Pages are now up

[Miguel]

http://www.patscap.com/2006capinfo.html
http://www.patscap.com/2006capfootnotes.html

My numbers are off by $3.6 million.

 

[TruthSeeker]

http://www.patscap.com/2006capinfo.html
http://www.patscap.com/2006capfootnotes.html



My numbers are off by $3.6 million.

3.6mill good or 3.6mill bad ?

 

[DaBruinz]

I hope the NFL gets off their arses and gets the new CBA done this off-season. Also, I hope we get good news on the salary cap (over $100 million) because of the giant increase in the Television revenues.

 

[Miguel]

3.6mill good or 3.6mill bad ?

In early December PFT reported that the Patriots' 2006 cap number was $92 million. I have it as $88.4 million so I am off by $3.6 million. I will leave it to you to decide if it is $3.6 million good or $3.6 million bad. To me, it is good to be so close to the actual number at this time of year.

 

[patsfan55]

is a restructuring of willie's contract in the near future?

 

[Mike the Brit]

I've been looking at your 2006 figures for a while now -- put them together with all the free agents (http://www.patscap.com/patsfreeagency.html) and it's quite disturbing.

Who (apart from Willie and, presumably, Starks) can we save money on?

 

[Willie55]

With a restructuring of Willie, cut Poole, Starks and Brown, the Pats could save some serious money.

 

[Miguel]

is a restructuring of willie's contract in the near future?

A redo of Willie's contract has become a given of the Patriots offseason.

 

[spacecrime]

awesome. thanks

 

[Miguel]

I've been looking at your 2006 figures for a while now -- put them together with all the free agents (http://www.patscap.com/patsfreeagency.html) and it's quite disturbing.

Who (apart from Willie and, presumably, Starks) can we save money on?

Redo Willie's deal (a $5 million cap savings)
Release Chad Brown (a $1 million cap savings)
Release Starks (a $3.6 million cap savings)
Convert Jarvis Green's $2.5 million roster bonus into a signing bonus (a $1.875 million cap savings)
Release Tyrone Poole (a $2.1 million cap savings)

The Pats would then be under my projected adjusted cap of $92 million by $13.575 million with 37 players signed.

Signing the 4 ERFAs will cost about $1.2 million.
Signing 10 street free agents (players who were on the Patriots practice squad are in this group) will cost about $3 million.

The Patriots now have 51 players on their roster and are under the cap by $9 million. With the Top 51 rule slightly lessening the net effect of signing a player I think that the Patriots are in good cap shape.

 

[Miguel]

Please note that I am hoping that some of the $3.6 million that I am off on are LTBE incentives included in the deal to help the team deal with the lack of a CBA extension. If that is true and the player did not reach those incentives, then the Pats will achieve cap savings at no cost (releasing a player or pushing bonus money to the future).

 

[Miguel]

Please also note that the Pats can save a couple of million dollars
1.) by converting part of Brady's $4 million salary into a signing bonus
2.) by extending Big Sey

 

[Mike the Brit]

Redo Willie's deal (a $5 million cap savings)
Release Chad Brown (a $1 million cap savings)
Release Starks (a $3.6 million cap savings)
Convert Jarvis Green's $2.5 million roster bonus into a signing bonus (a $1.875 million cap savings)
Release Tyrone Poole (a $2.1 million cap savings)

The Pats would then be under my projected adjusted cap of $92 million by $13.575 million with 37 players signed.

Signing the 4 ERFAs will cost about $1.2 million.
Signing 10 street free agents (players who were on the Patriots practice squad are in this group) will cost about $3 million.

The Patriots now have 51 players on their roster and are under the cap by $9 million. With the Top 51 rule slightly lessening the net effect of signing a player I think that the Patriots are in good cap shape.

I'm not big on converting roster bonuses into signing bonuses -- it's just postponing the pain, isn't it? And if it was such a great idea why didn't we do it in the first place? But maybe that's just me.

Apart from that, what you say is cheering. How much do we need, do you think, to sign Givens, Ashworth, Dwight (my priorities as keepers) and to find a decent FA line-backer and safety/corner?

 

[Miguel]

I'm not big on converting roster bonuses into signing bonuses -- it's just postponing the pain, isn't it? And if it was such a great idea why didn't we do it in the first place? But maybe that's just me.

Mike, you are not the only fan to express the same concern. FWIW, this front office does not share your concern about pushing out bonus money to the future. It has done so each and every year. This year I think that the Pats pushed out close to $8 million. I really wish that the search feature worked.

 

[Miguel]

Apart from that, what you say is cheering. How much do we need, do you think, to sign Givens, Ashworth, Dwight (my priorities as keepers) and to find a decent FA line-backer and safety/corner?

What really matters is what their cap hit will be in 2006. This year Cedric Wilson signed a 4-year deal with the Steelers receiving a $2 million signing bonus. His 2005 cap hit was 1.043 million. Let's say that Givens gets a $5 million signing bonus and that his gross cap hit is $2 million, at worst. His net cap hit would be $1.7 million.

I can't imagine that the deals for Ashworth and Dwight would end with them having a net cap hit higher than a million.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I hope the NFL gets off their arses and gets the new CBA done this off-season. Also, I hope we get good news on the salary cap (over $100 million) because of the giant increase in the Television revenues.

The news on that is already in. Since the increased revenue is phased in in those contracts (paying less in the early years and more in the later years) the estimate the NFL is working with is in the $92-95M range.

At any rate that is more than double the $4M or so annually that the cap has increased in the recent past. So going by Miguels's estimates (that include potential player cuts and Willie's restructure I too anticipate) that would have us between $9-12M under with 51 players. The draft will take up another $3M but that can easily be made up if needed by converting a portion of Brady's contract (which jumps to $14M - a contract high in his 6 year deal that has plenty of room at the end to absorb conversions because it doesn't contain any phony inflated salary years - unlike so many other QB contracts). And the way he's now playing a restructure/extension for Colvin would not be out of the question and could save a few million more.

The Pats are in very good shape going forward both from a financial and roster standpoint. I think the only hurdle will be dealing with Seymour's contract expectations, and that will be a philisophical rather than financial problem. Hopefully it can be solved creatively to everyone's satisfaction as Brady's deal was. Richard has had another season to watch what transpires when a financially disenchanted former teamate make the wrong-headed choice to equate respect with phantom $$$$ and jump to the kind of team usually willing to dangle them.

 

[BelichickFan]

Apart from that, what you say is cheering. How much do we need, do you think, to sign Givens, Ashworth, Dwight (my priorities as keepers)

Steven Neal is a UFA and is second in importance to Givens, IMO. I'd like to re-sign Ash and Dwight but as long as we re-sign Givens and Neal we won't lose too much this offseason.

 

[mgteich]

I disagree. The patriots are fine with the cap at $92-$95M. We easily have $10M available after paying for a full 51 man squad, and rookies. An increase to over $100M would help the teams in cap trouble and drive up prices for free agents.

I hope the NFL gets off their arses and gets the new CBA done this off-season. Also, I hope we get good news on the salary cap (over $100 million) because of the giant increase in the Television revenues.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Steven Neal is a UFA and is second in importance to Givens, IMO. I'd like to re-sign Ash and Dwight but as long as we re-sign Givens and Neal we won't lose too much this offseason.

Good point! O-Line is a mystery to me and it is the one area this season where our vaunted depth has really paid off, but the times I've seen Neal run-blocking he looked pretty scary to me.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Mike, you are not the only fan to express the same concern. FWIW, this front office does not share your concern about pushing out bonus money to the future. It has done so each and every year. This year I think that the Pats pushed out close to $8 million. I really wish that the search feature worked.

There's a real contrast of approaches here. At the other extreme, the Eagles (according to your admirer BJ) will have $17m cap room for 52 players signed with no cuts or restructuring!

http://www.geocities.com/eaglescap/FutureCapHits.html

The Eagles seem to play amazing hardball when negotiating contracts with their players (not just TO); no pushing off cap into the future, roster bonus not signing bonus, etc. Perhaps all you get from that is disaffected players (but we had Seymour sit out because he thought he had "outplayed his contract"). Nevertheless -- until this season at least -- the Eagles had put together an excellent roster and were very successful. Now they can go out and sign pretty much whatever top players they fancy this off-season (no one has mentioned them in relation to David Givens, but he'd be a great asset there). We're in a position that, even to maintain a "steady state", we have to cut popular players (Troy last off-season, Willie this coming one). On the other hand, we have managed to sign free agents and no one can argue with the Patriots' success.

Who's smarter, the Eagles or the Patriots?