SALARY CAP : we're $2.7 mill. over 2007 salary cap ~ ~ ~

[TLusby]

:applause:

It is the equivelent of opening new credit card after maxing out the old one so you can keep over-spending. It does not actually fix anything, it just delays when the problem hits...

Let's see: I have a player who has three years left. In 2007 he will make $5M, in 2008 he will make $6M and in 2009 he will make $7M. If we restructure his contract and pay him a $6M bonus (for cap purposes would be $2M per year) and change his terms to $1M in 2007, and $4M in 2008, and $7M in 2009. We would now have a cap hit of $3M in 2007 instead of $5M! Presto; a $2M savings. We did not change anything. We did not max the credit card and run up another card. In fact we set him up for a two year deal and would most likely cut him on the third year and only take a $2M hit which is the unamortized portion of the bonus. That's the same $2M we saved in the first year. The difference is we are two years down the road and the cap has increased by approximately $10-15M more of space. That $2M isn't worth as much which yields a smart play by the front office. Start understanding how things work instead of making comments which have no substance. We understand the cap because we have money as a NFL franchise.

[Skin Patrol]

As long as the CBA demands the salary cap goes up every year under the current TV deal, you can borrow against future years. We almost were in cap hell this year until the CBA extension was signed. If the cap ever hits a peak, say the most it will ever go to is $125 million, then we can keep borrowing into the future.

This is a dangerous attitude.

The cap goes up by 7M each year. For perspective, Marcus Washington and Shawn Springs account for a 7.5M increase from 2006 to 2007.

You can "borrow against the future" because the salary cap increases, but this ignores why the salary cap increases; salaries increase. They didn't just arbitrarily decide that salary cap space should go up, it goes up with inflation and salaries. Players make more in 2007 than they did in 2001. And they made more in 2001 than they did in 1995. Et cetera.

There's no doubt that the Redskins can afford, financially, to postpone disaster year in and year out. There will always be some players to cut, there will always be "benevolent" players willing to "restructure" (meaning hit paydirt). The problem is, you're creating future salary cap hits that make these same players uncuttable. The team sacrifices future flexibility in personnel decisions so they can afford the biggest FA this year -- just so later we can lack flexibility when we restructure them.

Fans seem to have this "well look how the Redskins handled it last year?" attitude about our spending strategy. Where has that strategy gotten us? Our inability to fill the ranks of our team with quality talent is precisely why the 9th best defense in the league can QUITE EXPLICABLY become one of the worst in the league. Most teams do not experience that kind of drastic drop in production because they don't have to play endless salary cap games just to keep the starters together. You don't think that 15M over the cap had something to do with us starting Mike Rumph in 2006? Why do you guys think so many teams operate annually under the salary cap? Flexibility.

Our collective refusal to identify the failures of this team with our financial indiscretions is damning us to a perpetual failure. We might sneak in the occasional pipe-dream postseason once every 7 years when the stars align and our schedule permits and injuries don't happen. But long-term perpetual winning is done not only by the players on the field, not only by the coaches pouring over film, but also by a front office that makes quality personnel decisions combined with reasonable pricing of that same personnel habitual.

If the attitude really was "We'll be fine, we were in worse shape in 2005 and look how it turned out" my response is "look how it turned out".

[Skin Patrol]

Let's see: I have a player who has three years left. In 2007 he will make $5M, in 2008 he will make $6M and in 2009 he will make $7M. If we restructure his contract and pay him a $6M bonus (for cap purposes would be $2M per year) and change his terms to $1M in 2007, and $4M in 2008, and $7M in 2009. We would now have a cap hit of $3M in 2007 instead of $5M! Presto; a $2M savings. We did not change anything. We did not max the credit card and run up another card. In fact we set him up for a two year deal and would most likely cut him on the third year and only take a $2M hit which is the unamortized portion of the bonus. That's the same $2M we saved in the first year. The difference is we are two years down the road and the cap has increased by approximately $10-15M more of space. That $2M isn't worth as much which yields a smart play by the front office. Start understanding how things work instead of making comments which have no substance. We understand the cap because we have money as a NFL franchise.

What the above equation forgets is that in 2009 we might not want to keep the player and giving him guaranteed money makes it more difficult to cut him in the future. Let's consider...

In 2007 this player slows down because he is ageing. In 2008 this player cannot earn 4M of his base salary because he lost a step. This wouldn't be a problem before because we could have just cut him with little penalty to us, but now you've introduced an additional 4M we will have to pay in 2008 dead space (or 2M in 2008 and 2M in 2009 if cut after June 1st) when considering the cut. Thus it probably makes more sense financially to keep him around until 2009, just to knock a year off the prorated guaranteed money and still get a little bit of umph out of him. But regardless we're overpaying the player more than he deserves than we otherwise should because we restructured his contract in 2007. That we have to pay this guy -- because it won't save us any money in 2008 to cut him anymore, as it would had we never restructured -- is precisely why we cannot retain some other Redskin on the roster or pick up a valuable free agency need. So now our bad decision in 2007 is forcing fewer options or -- more likely -- bad decisions in 2008 as we have to restructure someone else to pay for this ageing, overpaid guy we would have otherwise cut if not for the now guaranteed money protecting his salary.

Remember that everytime you "restructure" you are turning unguaranteed money now into money that may one day protect an unearnable salary. In the absolute best case scenario we simply postpone the inevitable, as you don't "save" any money. In the worst case scenario you shoot yourself in the foot by giving a player money that protects money he shouldn't be paid in the first place. Given the structure of contracts, the high tail-end increases that the team has absolutely no intention of paying, it is in the team's best interest to remain flexible. Restructuring is not advantageous.

[TLusby]

What the above equation forgets is that in 2009 we might not want to keep the player and giving him guaranteed money makes it more difficult to cut him in the future. Let's consider...

If you read my post it states we would most likely cut that player in 2009. Is the glass half empty in your life?

We also would not restructure someone in 2007 if they have lost a step in that same year. Also, if they suck in 2007 and we want to cut them in 2008; we would only have a $4M cap charge. So in 2008 he would actually be cut which reduces $4M in salary and we would have a $4M deadcap charge in 2009 assuming he was a June 1st cut.

Simply put, restructures are golden if your player remains healthy and doesn't suffer a carreer ending injury. There is probably a 1/50 chance of any NFL player having a carreer ending injury. I'll take those odds on a restructure anyday.

[Skin Patrol]

If you read my post it states we would most likely cut that player in 2009. Is the glass half empty in your life?

We also would not restructure someone in 2007 if they have lost a step in that same year. Also, if they suck in 2007 and we want to cut them in 2008; we would only have a $4M cap charge. So in 2008 he would actually be cut which reduces $4M in salary and we would have a $4M deadcap charge in 2009 assuming he was a June 1st cut.

Simply put, restructures are golden if your player remains healthy and doesn't suffer a carreer ending injury. There is probably a 1/50 chance of any NFL player having a carreer ending injury. I'll take those odds on a restructure anyday.

I'm saying that the decision to cut them in 2009 will be made more difficult by the restructure. I also suggested that we might want to cut them in 2008 -- a decision also made more troublesome by the restructure.

We restructure 2007 contracts prior to the 2007 football season. They lose a step in the 2007 season after we've restructured. This should have gone without saying.

You admit that a restructure in of the 2007-2009 salary would result in additional dead cap hits in '08-'09. That was the point of my post; it makes the decision to cut them more difficult, the action of cutting them less likely, and thus increases the chance that we are forced by circumstances of our own making to pay them money they would not normally be able to earn.

Simply put, you're just wrong. Restructures are not "golden". They are short-sighted bandaids that come back to haunt teams later. Sometime in the very near future, Chris Samuels will be incapable of earning the 8M he gets paid a year though we will not be able to cut him because he has such a massive dead cap hit protecting his salary -- because we've restructured him in the past.

You think restructuring is clever because you think it saves money; it doesn't. If all restructuring did was postpone the inevitable that would be fine; it doesn't. You've tacitly acknowledged that guaranteeing bonuses now results in dead space hits later. What you've ignored (again) is that the amount of dead space the team takes is what guides our decision to cut players, meaning guaranteeing salaries and prorating them makes it more difficult to cut those players later. Thus we sacrifice our future flexibility to "save" (in this instance not meaning "save" at all") money now. It is our history of doing precisely this that puts us in the unfortunate position we are in; of having to try and get below the cap by restructuring. In other words, a vicious cycle that we can partially blame our recent failure as a franchise on.

[Bang]

You really don't know if they work within the framework of the rules or not. You never know people are cheating until they get caught. One possible explanation of why Vinny still has a job is that he knows where the bodies are burried and has to be kept on while coaches and players come and go. The funny thing is if this were true would be that if caught Snyder wouldn't be bothered by a fine or a lost 3rd rd pick but by the fact that the other cheaters did well on the field when they cheated but it would become known that his team had to cheat in order to suck....what would have happened if they theoretically hadn't cheated.

So he's guilty until proven innocent

I get it.

Look, the Redskins do this every year. The media absolutely HATES them. There's no one the media would love to catch cheating MORE than Dan Snyder. They'd throw a PARTY. He has EVERYONE bamboozled?

the Niners got caught because they did things thinking that the cap was so new no one would catch them, and they were wrong. They tried hiding money they were paying to players as if it had been paid prior to the implementation of the cap. This opportunity doesn't exist any more. there is no place to hide money.

Remember when the Chiefs got in trouble because Dick Vermiel gave his kicker a bottle of WINE and didn't claim the thing on the cap?

Ah, but they can't catch Dan and Vinny.

This makes sense until the second i take off my tin foil hat.

What the Redskins do to manipulate the cap is called backloading contracts. It's nothing new, and it certainly isn't anything unique to this team, and it's certainly NOT illegal. Because the redskins offer large bonuses, they also offer longer contract terms. Most BIG big bonus signees are signed for 6 or 7 yrs. Note Mark Brunell... seven year contract. Ridiculous number. Does you honestly think that they expected him to 1. see the end of the deal, and 2. collect the last 4 or 5 years of the salary? Generally after the 3rd or 4th year the player is expected to renegotiate.

Unless you assert that they are somehow paying players under the table, or providing them with extravagant gifts, it's just not possible any more. Every single dime is accounted for twelve times over.

Some of you guys equate this to continuing to extend debt, but you forget that the debt goes AWAY.

When a player is cut, the cap hit is the remaining pro-rated bonus money.

Salary money GOES AWAY. It does NOT exist. It is simply numbers on a paper.

Contracts i nthe NFL are not guaranteed unless specifically written to BE guaranteed (Shawn Alexander is the only one I know of who's contract has any sort of salry guarantee in it,, he got it in his last deal which he got prior to the start of the 05 season. It's a new trend, i think one other guy got a guaranteed contract, but i can't remember who. )

The ONLY thing in an NFL contract a player is guaranteed to receive is his bonus. The rest does not accummulate once the player is gone.

~Bang

[TheREALJBird]

Not an issue really IMO. We always manage the cap, that's one thing Snyder actually does well. Now if we can just use the cap and get the best out of it without doing our usual spending spree....we might have something here

[Skin Patrol]

Not an issue really IMO. We always manage the cap, that's one thing Snyder actually does well. Now if we can just use the cap and get the best out of it without doing our usual spending spree....we might have something here

I don't understand why we heap praise on Snyder for his cap wizardy when cap wizardy is only required because we're horrible at managing it. It is akin to praising the city for responding so well to a collapsed bridge while ignoring that the city built the faulty bridge in the first place. Why do so many of our opponents have mounds of cap space (and more wins) yet Dan Snyder gets respect because he manages to "save us" from (self imposed) cap disaster every year? Shouldn't we question why our team needs saving year in and year out?

[Bang]

I don't understand why we heap praise on Snyder for his cap wizardy when cap wizardy is only required because we're horrible at managing it. It is akin to praising the city for responding so well to a collapsed bridge while ignoring that the city built the faulty bridge in the first place. Why do so many of our opponents have mounds of cap space (and more wins) yet Dan Snyder gets respect because he manages to "save us" from (self imposed) cap disaster every year? Shouldn't we question why our team needs saving year in and year out?

being over by 2.7 mil in January is hardly a position of needing to be saved. While I agree with what you're saying, I'm just protesting those that think it is somehow indicative of field performance. As you pointed out, it doesn't take a bunch of money and savvy to be a winner.

My belief is that what it takes is coaching consistency, most teams that succeed have the same staff for a while.

While we backslid a bit this year (I maintain it wasn't too hard to see considering the flux that was going to be at the QB position. the defensive letdown was a shock.), the consistency should eventually pay off. As Campbell gets better, the chances improve greatly.

All the cap management does is try to keep some consistency among players, at least in key areas. (You can't do it like the old days, draft a team and keep it forever.. guys are mercenaries now.)

While we have turnover in players, i think that is looking up, the OL is one example of a key element that has remained intact for a while. With the maturity of the most important position (QB) the team should succeed. (Provided the defense can pull it's head back out of it's ass, and the players progress along with Campbell.)

We've had more problems due to coaching turnover than anything. A new coach every two years is constantly working with parts of a machine that isn't his. Marty had to deal with Norv's players, Spurrier with Marty's etc.

We've stopped the coaching carousel, now they have to give the QB position time to settle in, and then we find out if it works.

~Bang

[Skin Patrol]

being over by 2.7 mil in January is hardly a position of needing to be saved. While I agree with what you're saying, I'm just protesting those that think it is somehow indicative of field performance. As you pointed out, it doesn't take a bunch of money and savvy to be a winner.

My belief is that what it takes is coaching consistency, most teams that succeed have the same staff for a while.

While we backslid a bit this year (I maintain it wasn't too hard to see considering the flux that was going to be at the QB position. the defensive letdown was a shock.), the consistency should eventually pay off. As Campbell gets better, the chances improve greatly.

All the cap management does is try to keep some consistency among players, at least in key areas. (You can't do it like the old days, draft a team and keep it forever.. guys are mercenaries now.)

While we have turnover in players, i think that is looking up, the OL is one example of a key element that has remained intact for a while. With the maturity of the most important position (QB) the team should succeed. (Provided the defense can pull it's head back out of it's ass, and the players progress along with Campbell.)

We've had more problems due to coaching turnover than anything. A new coach every two years is constantly working with parts of a machine that isn't his. Marty had to deal with Norv's players, Spurrier with Marty's etc.

We've stopped the coaching carousel, now they have to give the QB position time to settle in, and then we find out if it works.

~Bang

I agree with most of what you've said. I want to soften my position slightly by just saying that I would much rather we be the kind of team that is under the salary cap on any given year than one that constantly has to find ways to get below the salary cap on any given year.

[supadrummer]

we'll restructure as usual and release some ppl to free up some cap space and be fine as ususal. We'll still be able to afford top notch FA's like Nate clements, and others.

If you didn't know already Dan Snyder OWNS the cap.

Yeah, just tired of Winning the moneybowl. Lets win a Superbowl!!