The (only!) official ES all things Kirk Cousins should we shouldn't we off-season thread.

[Morneblade]

33 minutes ago, tomwvr said:

Question on a QB contract what kind of incentives are allowed - WINS? YARDS? TDS? INTS? PROBOWL? PLAYOFFS? SUPERBOWL?

 

Could the team offer him a 5 yr 20 mil a year base with say 50 guaranteed  - and add millions on incentives such as what I listed?
 

 

Um, yeah. That's kinda how it works. You get you guaranteed pay and then incentives. Which is why you see stuff like 5 years/120 million with 75 million guaranteed. The other 45 million are incentives. Some are things like roster bonuses and workout bonuses, and others are performance incentives, like yards, TD's and others.

[Tsailand]

3 hours ago, Morneblade said:

You get you guaranteed pay and then incentives. Which is why you see stuff like 5 years/120 million with 75 million guaranteed. The other 45 million are incentives.

 

Incorrect.  The non-guaranteed portions of NFL contracts are mostly future year salaries.

[Morneblade]

23 minutes ago, Tsailand said:

 

Incorrect.  The non-guaranteed portions of NFL contracts are mostly future year salaries.

 

Absolutely incorrect.

http://overthecap.com/a-guide-to-the-nfl-salary-cap/

Workout Bonus

These are bonuses paid out for completion of a team’s offseason workout program. These programs now run for, I believe, 9 weeks, starting in late March and running through May. Teams can not require mandatory participation for offseason workouts so they often pay large bonuses to entice players to participate. The way these work are as long as you complete a certain percentage of the program you earn the full compensation. Some like Landry don’t bother and forego their bonuses. In addition all players will earn $175 a day for each day they participate in 2013. That per day number changes every other year, with the next increase slated for 2015. The NFL charges each team at the start of the 2013 league year a cap fee of $504,000 for minimum workouts on top of the contracted bonuses, so any reported cap space number between now and the start of free agency needs to be reduced by $504,000. At the end of the workout period teams have their salary cap credited for money that was not earned.

Other Bonuses

These are incentivized bonuses that are only earned for meeting some type of criteria. They can be simple things like weight, which are often given to linemen to avoid them getting too heavy, or very difficult to achieve bonuses like being elected to the All Pro Team. Like those in-season roster bonuses most of these other bonuses are based on performance from the year before. So if you have a $100,000 bonus for making the Pro Bowl in 2013 and you made the Pro Bowl in 2012, the team takes a $100,000 cap charge in 2013 because the bonus is now considered “likely to be earned”(LTBE). If the player does not actually meet the performance at the end of the year the team is credited with the money back on the cap which will then be carried over to the next league year. So whenever you see this money listed on a players cap its actually money not yet earned and money that may never be earned.

The CBA spells out all the criteria necessary for the categories in which individual bonuses may be paid. Again it’s a mechanism teams can use to circumvent the cap if the player was injured the year before. For example you could pay Mike Vick a $1 million dollar bonus for 2400 passing yards or Holmes a large bonus for 25 receptions. While in my mind those are pretty likely numbers, the NFL considers them “not likely to be earned” (NLTBE) in 2013. In general this section of bonuses can get very complex especially when teams begin to tie in bonuses based on individual criteria (say playing time) and team success (offensive ranking in a category) or playoff wins.

Prorated Bonus

I saved this for last because it is the money that seems to cause the most confusion when people look at the cap. For the most part prorated money is what is referred to as a signing bonus in the press. It is essentially a lump sum bonus that is considered paid out when a contract is signed or an option invoked, though in reality the payout occurs over a period of time. Now there are a number of less used prorated bonuses such as completion bonuses, fully guaranteed roster bonuses, bonuses when signed during a season, etc…but for this discussion we just are interested in those basic signing or option bonuses.

[Tsailand]

Yes, bonuses are common.  Their amounts are minor compared to salary. 

 

Example: John Norman. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/washington-redskins/josh-norman-9964/

 

5 years, $75M, $50M guaranteed. 

 

$36.5M guaranteed at signing: 2016 salary of $5M + 2017 salary of $16.5M + signing bonus of $15M.

2018 salary of $13.5M becomes fully guaranteed in March 2018, so add that in to get to the "guaranteed" number of $50M.

 

The $25M which isn't guaranteed breaks down like this: 2019 salary of $11M + 2020 salary of $12M + 2017-2020 roster bonuses totaling $2M

 

92% of Josh Norman's non-guaranteed money is future year salaries.

 

When we talk about non-guaranteed money, we are talking about non-guaranteed future year salaries.

[fjblair]

^^^^

I was going to tell mr. "absolutely incorrect" that he was dead wrong but you did a much a better job. Incetives and bonuses are peanuts compared to future salary.

[TheGreek1973]

On 4/1/2017 at 3:09 PM, desertbeagle85 said:

This is why players like Kirk piss me off. Brady going down as best QB to play the game and he takes less money a lot less money. Brock I believe made more than him last year.

 

Think about that

Tom Brady gets a nice Friday paycheck
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/04/01/tom-brady-gets-a-nice-friday-paycheck/

 

 

With that being said we need Kirk signed long term. So pay him his money, but it is sad. Of course maybe he just doesn't want to play here. Which I don't blame Kirk if that's the case.

I don't understand what exactly pisses you off?  The fact that we basically said to him "we don't think you are good enough to repeat what you just did and we don't trust you to give you a long term deal" or  the fact that we are saying the exact same thing to him right now by low balling him with a deal that probably barely gets it done last year?  LOL

[goskins10]

23 hours ago, Morneblade said:

 

Um, yeah. That's kinda how it works. You get you guaranteed pay and then incentives. Which is why you see stuff like 5 years/120 million with 75 million guaranteed. The other 45 million are incentives. Some are things like roster bonuses and workout bonuses, and others are performance incentives, like yards, TD's and others.

 

Sorry, unless I missed something, I believe you are on the wrong side of this one. There are several components to salary: Base Salary, Signing Bonus, Injury Guarantees, and Incentives. The amount of guaranteed money is not a function of any of those individually. It's the amount of the total compensation the team will guarantee. More and more teams are making thee guarantees injury guarantees in the form of roster bonuses. But this is kind of new for the most part.

 

If you have say a $25M/yr average salary contract for 5 yrs with $75M guaranteed and a $45M signing bonus. For the sake of easy numbers, it would be something like this (again, jsutg a hypothetical, actual contracts are more complicated).

 

$45M signing bonus

 

2016 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2017 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2018 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2019 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2020 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

The team will have fulfilled the guarantees once they paid $30M in salary ($75M total guarantee) - $45M signing bonus = $30M.

 

So after 2017 all the guaranteed money will have been paid. None of the last 3 yrs $16M salaries would be guaranteed. They would have dead cap though of $27M in 2018, $18M in 2019 and $9M in 2020.

 

They can also add incentives which become fully guaranteed if they meet them and that's what you may be thinking of. That can add to the guaranteed money, but it's not what they list as the difference when reporting the contract details. Much of the non-guaranteed monies are later yr salaries.

[desertbeagle85]

2 hours ago, TheGreek1973 said:

I don't understand what exactly pisses you off?  The fact that we basically said to him "we don't think you are good enough to repeat what you just did and we don't trust you to give you a long term deal" or  the fact that we are saying the exact same thing to him right now by low balling him with a deal that probably barely gets it done last year?  LOL

 

I also said that maybe he just doesn't want to be here and also said I don't blame him.

 

Reason for that statement was because of how the organization has handled his contract situation.

 

With that being said I've always wondered why guys that say they want to win a championship can't take 3-5 million less a year when they're already making so much money.

 

If it was me I would take 20 million a year and be happy. Of course I'd also want so much guaranteed as he does. 

[Tsailand]

1 hour ago, desertbeagle85 said:

If it was me I would take 20 million a year and be happy.

 

If it was me I would leave 15 gallons of  "chocolate ice cream" on Snyder's desk with a note that I don't like bull****.

 

[carex]

I wonder if Kirk wants an easy out if things go wrong, the three year proposal last year would have made him a FA again when Gruden's contract was up, or if he doesn't want a contract that could make this the only big contract of his career?

[Morneblade]

5 hours ago, Tsailand said:

Yes, bonuses are common.  Their amounts are minor compared to salary. 

 

Example: John Norman. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/washington-redskins/josh-norman-9964/

 

5 years, $75M, $50M guaranteed. 

 

$36.5M guaranteed at signing: 2016 salary of $5M + 2017 salary of $16.5M + signing bonus of $15M.

2018 salary of $13.5M becomes fully guaranteed in March 2018, so add that in to get to the "guaranteed" number of $50M.

 

The $25M which isn't guaranteed breaks down like this: 2019 salary of $11M + 2020 salary of $12M + 2017-2020 roster bonuses totaling $2M

 

92% of Josh Norman's non-guaranteed money is future year salaries.

 

When we talk about non-guaranteed money, we are talking about non-guaranteed future year salaries.

 

 

Thanks for the breakdown. You are absolutely correct on this, and I was wrong. My apologies!

[tomwvr]

6 hours ago, goskins10 said:

 

Sorry, unless I missed something, I believe you are on the wrong side of this one. There are several components to salary: Base Salary, Signing Bonus, Injury Guarantees, and Incentives. The amount of guaranteed money is not a function of any of those individually. It's the amount of the total compensation the team will guarantee. More and more teams are making thee guarantees injury guarantees in the form of roster bonuses. But this is kind of new for the most part.

 

If you have say a $25M/yr average salary contract for 5 yrs with $75M guaranteed and a $45M signing bonus. For the sake of easy numbers, it would be something like this (again, jsutg a hypothetical, actual contracts are more complicated).

 

$45M signing bonus

 

2016 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2017 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2018 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2019 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

2020 $16M salary - $9M prorated signing bonus.

The team will have fulfilled the guarantees once they paid $30M in salary ($70M total guarantee) - $45M signing bonus = $30M.

 

So after 2017 all the guaranteed money will have been paid. None of the last 3 yrs $16M salaries would be guaranteed. They would have dead cap though of $27M in 2018, $18M in 2019 and $9M in 2020.

 

They can also add incentives which become fully guaranteed if they meet them and that's what you may be thinking of. That can add to the guaranteed money, but it's not what they list as the difference when reporting the contract details. Much of the non-guaranteed monies are later yr salaries.

That is a great answer - I just didn't know if the LEAGUE allowed you to say put a 1 million dollar bonus for making the playoffs ect.

[Tsailand]

26 minutes ago, tomwvr said:

That is a great answer - I just didn't know if the LEAGUE allowed you to say put a 1 million dollar bonus for making the playoffs ect.

 

Not aware of any reason why not.  I don't think a bonus like that is popular with players compared to simply an extra 500k salary guaranteed regardless of how well the team does.

 

 

@Mornebladeis it still April Fool's day?  I think that was the first time in the history of ES that a poster admitted he was wrong about something and apologized politely.

 

[Morneblade]

2 minutes ago, Tsailand said:

 

Not aware of any reason why not.  I don't think a bonus like that is popular with players compared to simply an extra 500k salary guaranteed regardless of how well the team does.

 

 

@Mornebladeis it still April Fool's day?  I think that was the first time in the history of ES that a poster admitted he was wrong about something and apologized politely.

 

 

Nah. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong. I also realize I'm wrong about more things than I care to think about! 

And I'm glad you and Goskins took the time to show me that. You show me proof, that's all I need. I appreciate that.

For me, it's just something else I know, instead of being uneducated about. Knowledge is power!

[goskins10]

37 minutes ago, tomwvr said:

That is a great answer - I just didn't know if the LEAGUE allowed you to say put a 1 million dollar bonus for making the playoffs ect.

 

 

They can put in virtually any bonus they want. Eddie Lacy has a weight bonus in his contract. the only thing they have to be careful about is if the incentives put them over the CAP the team can have problems. There is a final accounting of salaries and if the players put the team over the CAP they can get penalized. Otherwise teams would make everything incentives and never have to worry about the CAP.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

8 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

 

Nah. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong. I also realize I'm wrong about more things than I care to think about! 

And I'm glad you and Goskins took the time to show me that. You show me proof, that's all I need. I appreciate that.

For me, it's just something else I know, instead of being uneducated about. Knowledge is power!

 

That's what you get for putting Vinny as your avatar lol...

[Morneblade]

4 minutes ago, Califan007 said:

 

That's what you get for putting Vinny as your avatar lol...

 

ROFL!!!!!!

[Tsailand]

3 hours ago, goskins10 said:

if the incentives put them over the CAP the team can have problems.

 

Not really. http://russellstreetreport.com/salarycap/nfl-salary-cap-faqs/ , scroll down to " How do incentives affect the Salary Cap? "

 

Short version is that if the team guesses wrong about an incentive, the next year's salary cap is adjusted accordingly.  It's not a big deal.

 

[goskins10]

6 minutes ago, Tsailand said:

 

Not really. http://russellstreetreport.com/salarycap/nfl-salary-cap-faqs/ , scroll down to " How do incentives affect the Salary Cap? "

 

Short version is that if the team guesses wrong about an incentive, the next year's salary cap is adjusted accordingly.  It's not a big deal.

 

 

I would not say it's not a big deal. There may not be any penalties - but it can reduce your CAP for the next year. If the team is already close and has a few players hit some big incentives, it can cause some problems. That happened to us during the penalty phase thanks to ****ing mara. The team was so close in CAP that the incentives made it necessary to make some CAP moves the team did not want to make.

 

https://overthecap.com/tag/nfl-incentives/

[Tsailand]

That's more about getting a 16M penalty with no warning than about a having to pay a few hundred thousand that you knew were a possibility back when you gave the player the incentive.

[TheGreek1973]

18 hours ago, desertbeagle85 said:

 

I also said that maybe he just doesn't want to be here and also said I don't blame him.

 

Reason for that statement was because of how the organization has handled his contract situation.

 

With that being said I've always wondered why guys that say they want to win a championship can't take 3-5 million less a year when they're already making so much money.

 

If it was me I would take 20 million a year and be happy. Of course I'd also want so much guaranteed as he does. 

I have been saying this to all of you "why doesn't he take less if he wants to be here" crowd.  This team just paid a CB from another team that is older than Cousins (and really had 1.5 great seasons before we signed him) 50 million guaranteed 70 million total and you expect a QB that you just tagged for 24 million to take 20 per year with 40 guaranteed?  I am sorry but if this math works for you then go back to arithmetic 101.  Personally if by some miracle Cousins takes this deal I would be HUGELY disappointed because I would conclude your QB is a total idiot.

[purbeast]

25 minutes ago, TheGreek1973 said:

I have been saying this to all of you "why doesn't he take less if he wants to be here" crowd.  This team just paid a CB from another team that is older than Cousins (and really had 1.5 great seasons before we signed him) 50 million guaranteed 70 million total and you expect a QB that you just tagged for 24 million to take 20 per year with 40 guaranteed?  I am sorry but if this math works for you then go back to arithmetic 101.  Personally if by some miracle Cousins takes this deal I would be HUGELY disappointed because I would conclude your QB is a total idiot.

This is what is baffling me about so many people, the front office included.

 

It is elementary school math that is going on here and it's like the FO thinks that they are going to "trick" Kirk Cousins into doing some bad math.  I'm pretty sure he knows that 2+2 = 4 and that 4 is greater than 3.  

[HTTRDynasty]

I badly want to keep Cousins here, don't get me wrong, but part of me wonders how much the Texans would be willing to give up for a proven starter at QB to pair with that elite defense and above average RB/WRs...

[Taylor 36]

2 hours ago, HTTRDynasty said:

I badly want to keep Cousins here, don't get me wrong, but part of me wonders how much the Texans would be willing to give up for a proven starter at QB to pair with that elite defense and above average RB/WRs...

Why would we be willing to give up "a proven starter at QB" for unknown picks?  The Texans have done just as well if not better than us at drafting the last decade or so, so why would we give up our advantage to swap places with them in the unknown/disadvantaged category?  I don't care what they offer, even three first and a two.  We did so well with that load the last time we went for a QB.

[HTTRDynasty]

4 minutes ago, Taylor 36 said:

Why would we be willing to give up "a proven starter at QB" for unknown picks?  The Texans have done just as well if not better than us at drafting the last decade or so, so why would we give up our advantage to swap places with them in the unknown/disadvantaged category?  I don't care what they offer, even three first and a two.  We did so well with that load the last time we went for a QB.

 

I said that part of me wonders what they'd be willing to give up - it's not like I'm over here rooting for it to happen.  But if we go with your scenario and get 3 1sts and a 2, I would be strongly tempted to do it.  The only reason I wouldn't is because I'd be expecting the Texans to pick around the late 20's, at worst, for all those years.

 

Part of the thinking in this equation is my questioning whether we can actually work out a LTD with Kirk this off-season.  If we do not believe we have a good chance of getting a deal done, I would take 3 1sts and a 2 from Houston without hesitation.  The alternative would be getting a 3rd round comp pick from Cousins' departure either next year or the year after.