Based on this tidbit, I think Bruce may have created the Redskins an additionial $9 million in cap space

[pram11]

I started a thread last week about the potential cap room the Redskins could have for 2011 -- if there is a 2011 season. In it, I alluded to Bruce Allen's creativity with contracts and the salary cap, saying I would expect different contracual management than your standard contract with big signing bonuses and inflated base salaries after the first 3-years in the deal. I also made note of a loophole in the current CBA that Allen may take advantage of if it exists in the next CBA. In essence, this loophole allows teams to insert bogus "LTBE" incentives into a player's contract after the season begins, and when it is not met the team receives a cap credit for the following season in the amount of the LTBE incentive; increasing the team's salary cap above the league-wide cap number in the amount of said LTBE incentive. Here's how it works, and mind you I got this from a Philly board:

According to Eagles Salary Cap Central www.eaglescap.com the Eagles have more then 29 million is Cap Space. This is because the Eagles have 13,615,833 in LTBE charges going toward their cap. What LBTE charges are is such:

A team's salary cap may be adjusted downwards for NLTBE bonuses that were earned in the previous year and upwards for LTBE bonuses that were not earned in the previous year.

Any incentive added to a contract after the start of the regular season is considered "Likely To Be Earned" and immediately counts against the cap.

So teams with leftover cap room near the end of the season can give a player an unreachable incentive, and the amount of the incentive counts against the cap (thereby using up the leftover cap room).

At the end of the year, that incentive obviously was never earned. By rule, because it counted against the cap and was never paid, it gets credited to the team's cap the next season. So if a team used a $5 million incentive to exploit the loophole, its cap in 2007 could be $114 million instead of $109 million. In essence, it allows you to push your unused cap room forward to the next season.

Eagles players who did not acheive their LTBE bonuses in 2007:

Reno Mahe, $4 million

Akeem Jordan, $2.5 million

Shawn Andrews, $2.125 million

Tanard Davis $1.6 million

Michael Gasperson, $1.6 million

Darren Howard, $1.5 million

Marcus Paschal, $1 million

Brian Dawkins, $800,000

Jon Dorenbos $90,833/year over six years

http://sports-boards.net/forums/showthread.php?132771-Eagles-Cap-Space

So having established how it works, I found this bit of info on Donovan McNabb's contract, which was signed AFTER THE SEASON BEGAN:

McNabb was erroneously counted among my Top 5. His salary number had been inflated by a $5 million signing bonus, as well as an over $9 million special teams NLTBE. Substituting McNabb with Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford resulted in a Top 5 average of $15.975 million.

http://www.macsfootballblog.com/2011/02/ajustment-to-qb-franchise-tag.html

Reading that -- if true -- it seems Bruce Allen has taken advantage of the uncapped rules yet once again, and potentially created the Redskins an additional $9 million in cap space for 2011 if we get a CBA at some point and the league allows teams that took advantage of that LTBE loophole to carry it over onto next season's cap. And I have to think that Bruce believes it will apply; otherwise, why insert a $9 million special teams incentive into a quarterback's contract, a player that takes part in absolutely no special teams phase of the team?

[Spade]

Hopefully they keep that loop hole or just let the teams be grandfathered in the new (unlikely) CBA. Be nice to have an extra 9 mil as long as they don't spend it all in one place(person) =/

[andrewk78]

Do we really know anything at all until we get the new CBA?

[jasjhughes]

Do we really know anything at all until we get the new CBA?

We know we have our first competent GM this century. (but we already knew that)

[Popeman38]

All well and good, but there was no cap in 2010 for LTBE or NLTBE incentives, so there can be no credit applied to 2011.

[Jacoby6644]

If this is true/counts/was BA's intent, That is awesome!!!!!! A GM that actually knows how to work within/manipulate the given rules/CBA structure to maximize the outcome for the team. Novel idea!!!! As someone previously posted, I guess this will all be contingent on the next CBA deal, but at least BA's thinking is in the right direction!!!

[SkinsHokieFan]

I have no clue why we never took advantage of this earlier this decade.

The Vikings were masters at this loophole in the cap and created 10 million plus in cap room every year

[jnhay]

Thanks for the informative posts, even if they might not turn out to be 100% correct I appreciate the updates.

[pjfootballer]

I have no clue why we never took advantage of this earlier this decade.

The Vikings were masters at this loophole in the cap and created 10 million plus in cap room every year

Two Words: Stupid Vinny.

[e16bball]

I have no clue why we never took advantage of this earlier this decade.

The Vikings were masters at this loophole in the cap and created 10 million plus in cap room every year

As I always understood it, we were pressed up flush against the cap, so we couldn't take advantage. Adding in-season incentives to contracts can only be done when you've got the cap space to absorb the incentive (because it's classified as Likely to Be Earned). When you're pressed up against the cap, you can't add such incentives without risking going over.

That's why the teams that took advantage of this loophole were always the ones who didn't spend all their cap, like the Vikings, Eagles, Bucs, etc.

[Rufus T Firefly]

I have no clue why we never took advantage of this earlier this decade.

The Vikings were masters at this loophole in the cap and created 10 million plus in cap room every year

It's really not that great a loophole anyway. It just takes one year's cap room and moves it to the next year.

If we did it last year, it would make a lot of sense, obviously, since there was no cap last year.

[Conn]

As I always understood it, we were pressed up flush against the cap, so we couldn't take advantage. Adding in-season incentives to contracts can only be done when you've got the cap space to absorb the incentive (because it's classified as Likely to Be Earned). When you're pressed up against the cap, you can't add such incentives without risking going over.

That's why the teams that took advantage of this loophole were always the ones who didn't spend all their cap, like the Vikings, Eagles, Bucs, etc.

You see, that just makes way too much sense to be true.

[Romberjo]

I think it was in fact a really important loophole b/c even though all it did in the abstract was allow you to move cap space from one year to the next, rather than increase the total, a) if you didn't use the move, cap money for the current year would disappear, so it was important to use it so as to push cap space forward rather than lose it, and more fundamentally it gave you a lot more flexibility--you could keep hanging on to that extra, say, $10 million in cap space every year, which allowed you to 1) temporarily carry more players/cap space during the offseason, e.g., allowing you to wait for June 1 when you can release players and have the cap hit come partly from the following year--i.e., you could use the extra cap space to allow maneuvering room rather than having to renegotiate contracts that to some extent mortgage the future, and 2) it allowed you to decide what years you actually wanted to spend relatively more (or less) so that you could, e.g., spend more in a year when the salary cap didn't go up much league-wide so your cushion gave you a competitive advantage over the rest of the league, or if there was a particularly good match b/w need and bpa among free agents, or if you were anticipating a rebuilding/non-playoff year anyway, you could spend less and push cap space from the year into subsequent years when a player or two might put you over the top. Who knows if the provision will be in the new cba, but Allen seems savvy enough to take advantage of it if it is.

And as to the specific subject of the thread re: Allen's move, I'm sure that the move was not permissible for this past year, when there was no cap--otherwise a team could load up $100 million in NLTBE and create that space going forward. Can't be. I presume the $9 million NLTBE for McNabb was to make the deal seem larger. That's presumably partly to assuage McNabb's ego, and also b/c Snyder/Allen, I think wisely, want to retain the idea that they're willing to pay top dollar so that they can attract free agents they really want.

[SoCalSkinsFan1975]

I started a thread last week about the potential cap room the Redskins could have for 2011 -- if there is a 2011 season. In it, I alluded to Bruce Allen's creativity with contracts and the salary cap, saying I would expect different contracual management than your standard contract with big signing bonuses and inflated base salaries after the first 3-years in the deal. I also made note of a loophole in the current CBA that Allen may take advantage of if it exists in the next CBA. In essence, this loophole allows teams to insert bogus "LTBE" incentives into a player's contract after the season begins, and when it is not met the team receives a cap credit for the following season in the amount of the LTBE incentive; increasing the team's salary cap above the league-wide cap number in the amount of said LTBE incentive. Here's how it works, and mind you I got this from a Philly board:

According to Eagles Salary Cap Central www.eaglescap.com the Eagles have more then 29 million is Cap Space. This is because the Eagles have 13,615,833 in LTBE charges going toward their cap. What LBTE charges are is such:

A team's salary cap may be adjusted downwards for NLTBE bonuses that were earned in the previous year and upwards for LTBE bonuses that were not earned in the previous year.

Any incentive added to a contract after the start of the regular season is considered "Likely To Be Earned" and immediately counts against the cap.

So teams with leftover cap room near the end of the season can give a player an unreachable incentive, and the amount of the incentive counts against the cap (thereby using up the leftover cap room).

At the end of the year, that incentive obviously was never earned. By rule, because it counted against the cap and was never paid, it gets credited to the team's cap the next season. So if a team used a $5 million incentive to exploit the loophole, its cap in 2007 could be $114 million instead of $109 million. In essence, it allows you to push your unused cap room forward to the next season.

Eagles players who did not acheive their LTBE bonuses in 2007:

Reno Mahe, $4 million

Akeem Jordan, $2.5 million

Shawn Andrews, $2.125 million

Tanard Davis $1.6 million

Michael Gasperson, $1.6 million

Darren Howard, $1.5 million

Marcus Paschal, $1 million

Brian Dawkins, $800,000

Jon Dorenbos $90,833/year over six years

http://sports-boards.net/forums/showthread.php?132771-Eagles-Cap-Space

So having established how it works, I found this bit of info on Donovan McNabb's contract, which was signed AFTER THE SEASON BEGAN:

McNabb was erroneously counted among my Top 5. His salary number had been inflated by a $5 million signing bonus, as well as an over $9 million special teams NLTBE. Substituting McNabb with Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford resulted in a Top 5 average of $15.975 million.

http://www.macsfootballblog.com/2011/02/ajustment-to-qb-franchise-tag.html

Reading that -- if true -- it seems Bruce Allen has taken advantage of the uncapped rules yet once again, and potentially created the Redskins an additional $9 million in cap space for 2011 if we get a CBA at some point and the league allows teams that took advantage of that LTBE loophole to carry it over onto next season's cap. And I have to think that Bruce believes it will apply; otherwise, why insert a $9 million special teams incentive into a quarterback's contract, a player that takes part in absolutely no special teams phase of the team?

I hope this goes towards getting NA from Oakland. I honestly believe this is the key to getting our deffense back into the top 10 status. If we have him opposite D Hall the rest of the D can swarm the opposing QB and cause a ton of problems. I know a lot of free agents have not worked out, but I love NA because he is still young. I would be all for a high price tag long term deal to secure him.

[joeknows]

why would any player agree to a contract that contains "unreachable incentives"?

[tiger187126]

why would any player agree to a contract that contains "unreachable incentives"?

most players, if not all, have them in their contracts. that's why there's such a desparity in between guaranteed money and the number that comes up when you see their contract. calling haynesworth the 100 million dollar man isn't correct because only 40-something million is guaranteed, the rest of the contract is elevators and performance bonuses.

the contract will have things like "if he plays 70% of all special teams plays he earns $2 million"

"if he leads the team in tackles he earns $3 million"

it's kind of all just fluff to add apparent value to the contract. most guys never really close the gap between guaranteed and theoretical money in their contract, but every once in a while you'll see a QB get a couple million because of wins or playoff appearances.