New CBA and draft strategies

[shakadave]

At the beginning of April, the average team was under the cap by $10 million.

This statistic seems misleading to say the least. Whenever that was that the new salary cap came out (February?) a team that previously was under the cap, was suddenly at least $17m under the cap! There wasn't time to spend all of the new windfall yet! (unless you're the Redskins ) All the free agents on the market wouldn't have cost as much as teams had.

By the Fall, teams will be feeling more "constrained" by the cap. And if a team still has room, maybe they are saving some for next year's new contracts --- lucky are those who were up for new contracts THIS offseason! (Probably this isn't much of a factor; teams probably are getting creative so that they can spend to the full cap each and every year.)

 

[Miguel]

It is implicit because as you pointed out, signing bonuses in previous years could only be prorated for a determined length of time. Let's not play dumb here, you know that better than anyone else on the board.

There was no limitation in the old CBA on the length of rookie deals. There have always been a limit on the proration of the signing bonuses. That is not the same thing.

 

[Miguel]

Hmmm... this thread I started seems to have turned into a rather long and heated discussion. That's a good thing, I think, because that's what these forums are for!

But I think the discussion may now be getting a bit more polarized than it really needs to be. I started this thread with a hypothesis that basically stated that shortening the maximum length of rookie contracts would tend to devalue the value of a draft pick. sg93 joined my camp in agreement. I still think that this position is valid, to a greater or lesser degree.

Miguel and others, during the course of the discussion, have added some data which tends to show that while our theory may be correct, in practice the effect may be minor, or even insignificant because:

a. Most picks in the first half of the first round, which can now sign for only 6 years, previously did not sign for more than 6 years.

b. Most picks in the second half of the first round, which can now sign for only 5 years, previously did not sign for more than 5 years.

c. Most picks in the second and later rounds, which can now sign for only 4 years, previously did not sign for more than 4 years.

d. Of those few affected by the new contract length limits, only some will become stars who will command big dollars in their second contracts.

Therefore I now agree that while my theory is correct, the practical effect will be small because in practice, there will not be that many players who would have been signed for a longer time under the old rules and who would also generate major interest in the free agent market.

sg93 and miguel, can we all agree on that much?

Thanks for stating my position better than I did.

The only question remaining in my mind, then, is whether sg93 is correct in thinking that agents will always push for shorter contracts than the maximum, no matter what the maximum is, so that (for example) they will now be pushing for 4 years contracts for players drafted in the second half of the first round. I'm sure that will be the case, but I'm not sure whether the rookie market will force teams to agree, or whether the natural market forces would already cause contracts to gravitate to longer length.

We will get our answer in July/August/September when the 1st round picks are signed.

 

[Miguel]

Unfortunately, you do not take into account that players may not want to sign. Also, we all know that just because the Pats have plenty of cap room, it surely doesn't mean that they'll sign Brady to a Manning type contract or Givens to sign for a Givens/Titans contract. Just because a team has cap room doesn't mean that they'll be able to or want to sign their upcoming FA's.

But that has nothing to do with the new limits.

 

[Miguel]

Doesn't contradict it at all. The point was that there will be more players available a year earlier and just because some of them choose to sign extensions, the mere fact that there are more players out there available a year earlier means that any player who doesn't choose to extend is one extra player in free agency.

It is not a mere fact but your opinion.

 

[Miguel]

Maybe you do, if you can't understand that more players available for a finite amount of money means that there's less money to go around for each player.

FYI - I do understand the concept. I just do not think that it will happen.

I do understand that the cap has gone up each and every year in the salary cap era and that the cap is expected to continue to increase.

I happen to believe that you have yet to show that the new limits will actually cause more players to be available in free agency than otherwise would be.

Will there be free agents like Joe Andruzzi, David Givens, Adam, who chose to leave a team?? Yes. But their reasons and their team's inability to extend them will have nothing to do with the new limits.

 

[PromisedLand]

I just wanted to apologize to smg93 for mistakenly calling him "sg93" in my earlier post. It wasn't intentional!

 

[PromisedLand]

Thanks for stating my position better than I did.

You're welcome! I figure we're even now for all the work you put into maintaining the cap page! (Just kidding - we're all indebted to you for that!)

We will get our answer in July/August/September when the 1st round picks are signed.

We'll begin to get an answer, but this year is a bit unusual in that there was suddenly so much more cap room. It may also take teams and agents a few seasons to figure out the best strategies to take advantage of the new rules, just as it took teams several years to figure out how to manage the salary cap so that they don't have to cut a bunch of expensive veterans after June 1st. It may take a while before we really have an answer.

 

[smg93]

Therefore I now agree that while my theory is correct, the practical effect will be small because in practice, there will not be that many players who would have been signed for a longer time under the old rules and who would also generate major interest in the free agent market.

I think that at the end of the day you're right about first of all the Polarized aspect of this topic. I am more than willing to concede that the answer will most likely be found somewhere in the middle of both views. We'll all start finding out how the new rules will begin to change or not change how contracts are handled, beginning with this crop of draft picks. We'll have an even better idea of how these changes might potentially affect FA in the next two, three or maybe four years from now as these rookies approach free agency and the end of their first contracts in the NFL.

While I feel my position does have merit, the defense of that position should not in any way be misconstrued by anyone, especially Miguel to think that I feel his position is totally without merit. As I've said time and again, Miguel's cap wizardry is amazing and I have total respect for the time and skill he puts in to it. Regarding this particular CBA wrinkle however, we obviously are looking at things from a different angle and no amount of back and forth convincing will likely be able to change to a material degree how each of us speculates on the likely outcome of these CBA changes. But anyone reading this should not feel that the "heated" nature of this discussion is in some manner a way of showing disrespect to a fellow board member.