Salary Cap Question

Cwby41

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info
 

xwalker

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info

No cap problems if Dak signs a contract. First year cap hit low in new contract.

Cap tight if Dak stays on Franchise Tag.

Gregory probably RFA (restricted). Will only have 3 years service time.

Teams can borrow against future cap due to expected exception for 2021 due to Covid and reduced NFL cap due to low or no attendance of games in 2020.
 

Flamma

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info

Like in post #2, better against the cap if he signs. Probably better for the first 2 years if you compare it to the tag. That said, I think most of the players on your list will be gone anyway.
 

jazzcat22

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info

Bell is not really a jag, he is a decent TE, but not sure what his cap hit is, I don't think it is all that bad, he may only be on a 1 year deal anyway.
Dalton on 1 year deal, and his contract decent anyway.
Lee will probably retire as I don't recall anyone ever whining about his cap hit anyway.
Woods and Crawford, and I think Lewis all will be a FA, no cap concerns.
Jones, needs to be gone, but not sure the cap hit all that bad.

There are other players that would help the cap more if released, but can they be replaced with a better player.
 

Flamma

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Bell is not really a jag, he is a decent TE, but not sure what his cap hit is, I don't think it is all that bad, he may only be on a 1 year deal anyway.
Dalton on 1 year deal, and his contract decent anyway.
Lee will probably retire as I don't recall anyone ever whining about his cap hit anyway.
Woods and Crawford, and I think Lewis all will be a FA, no cap concerns.
Jones, needs to be gone, but not sure the cap hit all that bad.

There are other players that would help the cap more if released, but can they be replaced with a better player.

I'm guessing the only one that might stay, and that's up in the air, is Bell. Right now it looks like he's at vet league minimum. But with Shultz and Jarwin, I think it's going to come down to where Blake Bell wants to play. Because the Cowboys aren't going to pay him a lot.

Dalton, if he plays halfway decent moving forward I have to believe he'll be gone next year.

Lee, Crawford, and Jones probably won't be here next season. I'm assuming Lee will retire.

Lewis and Woods will probably hit FA unless they want to play cheap. You might even throw Chido in there for good measure. Jerry already paid the guy he wanted to keep, Anthony Brown.
 

MrPhil

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DISCLAIMER: This is all just a tick above a SWAG.

A lot will depend on what the NFL sets next years cap at. For the moment we have ~$27.3M in cap space. If we do not spend any of that, then it rolls over to next year. According to Over The Cap, we are currently projected to have $28.5M in cap space but as stated up front, a lot depends on what the cap will actually be next year. Having said that, if these numbers hold, we will have $27.3M + $28.5M = ~$55.3M in cap space next year.

As for Dak's cap hit, I do not personally see any way that they franchise him again. I think they either sign to a long term deal or let him walk. For comparative purposes, Mahomes cap hit for 2021 is ~$24.8M. From there just guesstimate what percentage of that you think Dak will count if he signs a contract. For the sake of discussion, lets say 80% which is ~$19.8M. I recognize that I am oversimplifying this but it at least gives you some idea of what range Dak's first year cap hit COULD be if he signs a long term deal similar to Mahomes in terms of money. So, simple math says at those numbers we COULD have between ~$30.5 and ~$35.5M available.

Certainly the Cowboys will make other moves (cuts, restructures, etc.) that impact the bottomline. As will the rookie salary pool.

Gregory is under contract next year so maybe they try to extend him early for a discount....say $10-12M per with a first year cap hit of ~$5M. If you can sign Smith to $15M per (maybe wishful thinking) with a first year cap hit of ~$10M, that leaves you with ~$20M (minus rookies salaries). Dunno how close I am with the above estimates but figured I would throw something out there.
 

RamziD

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DISCLAIMER: This is all just a tick above a SWAG.

A lot will depend on what the NFL sets next years cap at. For the moment we have ~$27.3M in cap space. If we do not spend any of that, then it rolls over to next year. According to Over The Cap, we are currently projected to have $28.5M in cap space but as stated up front, a lot depends on what the cap will actually be next year. Having said that, if these numbers hold, we will have $27.3M + $28.5M = ~$55.3M in cap space next year.

As for Dak's cap hit, I do not personally see any way that they franchise him again. I think they either sign to a long term deal or let him walk. For comparative purposes, Mahomes cap hit for 2021 is ~$24.8M. From there just guesstimate what percentage of that you think Dak will count if he signs a contract. For the sake of discussion, lets say 80% which is ~$19.8M. I recognize that I am oversimplifying this but it at least gives you some idea of what range Dak's first year cap hit COULD be if he signs a long term deal similar to Mahomes in terms of money. So, simple math says at those numbers we COULD have between ~$30.5 and ~$35.5M available.

Certainly the Cowboys will make other moves (cuts, restructures, etc.) that impact the bottomline. As will the rookie salary pool.

Gregory is under contract next year so maybe they try to extend him early for a discount....say $10-12M per with a first year cap hit of ~$5M. If you can sign Smith to $15M per (maybe wishful thinking) with a first year cap hit of ~$10M, that leaves you with ~$20M (minus rookies salaries). Dunno how close I am with the above estimates but figured I would throw something out there.

Let’s give Gregory a full offseason to see if he can avoid any hiccups and a full season under his belt before we talk about a contract. This is how we end up with bad deals when we rush to get one done early.
 

Whyjerry

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info

I think this upcoming season is going to be very hard to judge. Chances of cap being flat are high. Just look at the NHL. Average salaries of the top paid QBs is higher so if they franchise Dak again he will get a nice raise. If they sign him to a LT contract the hit will be less. I strongly believe Crawford will be gone. Lee will be gone. It’s a non zero event T Smith retires. One of the 3 will be a surprise cut - Cooper, Zeke, or Smith. Add it all up and I think Dak will fit neatly into the cap and they will likely have room for DEs.
 

gjkoeppen

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Lets assume we sign Dak to a contract similar to what we had on the table last year ( probably a bit more)
I would think the following players are gone with some additional jags on roster
blake bell
Andy Dalton
sean lee
xavier woods
tyrone crawford
jourdan lewis
chris jones

I feel we will re sign Aldon Smith and Randy Gregory. I would love to have Looney back but I believe he will be on the fence. How bad are we looking cap wise after this. Who else do you feel will be gone or kept?Thanks for the info






When you said Prescott would be signed similar to last years, maybe a little bit more, were you figuring the entire salary for next year comes from next years cap? On normal years teams are allowed to carryover 5% of their cap to the next year but with the way things are this year, the owners approved to allow teams to carryover unlimited amount to next years cap and the Cowboys will have a carryover of 25 mil so the amount coming of next years cap could be just 10 mil or so. So does that change your mind on how many and which players get let go?
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Pessimist_cowboy

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Gregory has already been extended for 2021.

If Dak signs a long term deal that would likely open up a ton of cap space for Free agency. If Dak is Franchised again that will handicap the Cowboys because the salary cap is going to drop next offseason.
 

jazzcat22

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Gregory has already been extended for 2021.

If Dak signs a long term deal that would likely open up a ton of cap space for Free agency. If Dak is Franchised again that will handicap the Cowboys because the salary cap is going to drop next offseason.

No way the NFL allows the cap to drop, IMO. Too many players will have to be released from teams to get or stay under the cap. Then no team will sign them to huge contracts. The NFL will have far less talent which will show on the field.

At worse case the NFL will freeze the cap at its current level. They are already talking about allowing teams to borrow from future years. Which could be a huge mistake.
I think they will just have to suck it up for a year or 2 until things get back to normal, whatever the new normal will be.

They could freeze it, until the new TV contracts are in place. They could allow a soft cap or a luxury tax type cap such as other sports did for a while, or maybe still do.
However, IMO, they will not allow it to drop.
 

Kaiser

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Teams can borrow against future cap due to expected exception for 2021 due to Covid and reduced NFL cap due to low or no attendance of games in 2020.

Even dropping the cap to 175MM the Cowboys will have enough space to do whatever they need to. And like you say, the NFL is always going to work in loopholes that teams will take advantage of - the Cowboys more than anyone.
 

MrPhil

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Let’s give Gregory a full offseason to see if he can avoid any hiccups and a full season under his belt before we talk about a contract. This is how we end up with bad deals when we rush to get one done early.

Agreed.
 

Kaiser

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Another factor to keep in mind is that the top five salaries on the books for 2021 (DLaw, Amari Cooper, Zack Martin, Tyron and Zeke) have 68.5 Million in salary on the books. You can do the automatic restructures in one afternoon on those and create up to 50 Million in cap space if you have a reason to.
 

Cwby41

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Thanks for all the feed back. Hopefully we could replace those players with a few good DBs a LB and another DT to go with Hill, Gallimore and Woods. Enjoy your Thanksgiving and enjoy the game.
 

gjkoeppen

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No way the NFL allows the cap to drop, IMO. Too many players will have to be released from teams to get or stay under the cap. Then no team will sign them to huge contracts. The NFL will have far less talent which will show on the field.

At worse case the NFL will freeze the cap at its current level. They are already talking about allowing teams to borrow from future years. Which could be a huge mistake.
I think they will just have to suck it up for a year or 2 until things get back to normal, whatever the new normal will be.

They could freeze it, until the new TV contracts are in place. They could allow a soft cap or a luxury tax type cap such as other sports did for a while, or maybe still do.
However, IMO, they will not allow it to drop.




It's already been announced that the cap will be smaller next year because of no preseason games this year. The networks make their payments for the season at the start of the new league year and then the money is allotted to the teams and this was before the preseason was cancelled.
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