Cap-love: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Found a Sliver of Hope

[Kwyn]

This is gonna be long …

Dr. Cap-love, Part 1: How the Best NFL Teams Abuse the Credit Card

Cash over Cap / Hyper-Aggressive

What: Continuously push salary obligations into future years. They count on cap inflation to keep up with their spending.

Why: To maximize championship windows. The last five champions all follow this model.

The Risk: The risky part is that this strategy often results in dead money via void years. Teams take a massive hit if they cut or trade a player who is underperforming but is owed a lot of money.

Who: Howie Roseman is the innovator of this strategy and the Eagles and the Rams are the gold standard. The 49ers are in this group also. The Seahawks embraced this prior to their win as well. These teams have outside wealth and don’t penny-pinch when it comes to their football teams. Their owners have huge wallets and aren’t afraid to open them.

So what’s the opposite of that? Total penny-pinching

 

[Kwyn]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 2: Why Small-Market Owners Fight the Cap

Cash-to-Cap / Pay-As-You-Go

What: Teams that do this try to avoid future debt and try to keep future spend down. They spend what they have on hand and usually rely on a draft and develop model.

Why: They are cash-poor and financial security is more important than going balls out to win. The benefit is that you don’t end up paying dead money on a player that is cut or traded.

The Risk: Can’t compete in free agency and a reliance on paying their own players and keeping them even if they are aging or underperforming.

Who: Teams like the Packers, who are publicly held and a non-profit, and the Bengals, who have relatively poor or cash-strapped owners, fall into this group. Colts and Steelers are also here. You see lots of the family-owned ownership groups here where their entire wealth is wrapped up in the team.

So where do the Cowboys fit? Neither, really and that’s the problem

 

[Kwyn]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 3: The Billion-Dollar Brand with a Ten-Cent Head

The Cowboys in the Salary Cap Era

What: Unfortunately, for the last twenty years our genius owner, who has the most valuable sports franchise on the planet, has acted like the Bengals, Steelers and Colts. Cash-poor teams who are ultra-conservative and always making sure they know where their next meal is coming from.

Why: Jerry and Stephen have a paralyzing fear of making a bad investment. Their core philosophy had been to draft players and then keep them forever and overpay rather than take big swings at free agents and trades. Jerry was traumatized by the post-Super Bowl years once the salary cap era started and his hyper-aggressive spending resulted in salary cap hell and bad rosters for a decade.

Risk: It’s a timid approach that shows in Jerry’s unwillingness to compete for free agents. He hates bidding wars where he can’t control the terms. This also explains his preference to negotiate directly with players and his contempt for agents.

Who we were: The Cowboys have the cash of a Maximizer but the timid mindset of a Conservative.

They have used a draft and develop strategy as a shield to avoid competing in free agency.

They hoard and roll over cap space every year not because Jerry is cash-poor like the Bengals, but because the front office is paralyzed by risk aversion.

They value year-to-year financial comfort and protecting themselves from their own mistakes. They absolutely have not gone “all in” in efforts to win a Super Bowl.

That was the Cowboys for twenty years. Then something happened.

 

[Kwyn]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 4: How I Stopped Worrying and Found a Sliver of Hope

The Now: Maybe Jerry had a revelation, or maybe it’s looming specter of death, but the last year has shown a fundamental shift in how this team approaches financial risk and roster management.

Giving up on the homegrown crown jewel of the past ten drafts by trading him for picks and Clark was shocking. To then trade those picks for a big-time player from another team is the opposite of the draft and develop strategy of prior years. Not only that, they promptly gave him a mega-contract.

They also restructured their three biggest contracts this offseason to free up cap while shoving an enormous pile of debt into the future. Jerry maxed out his credit cards.

The massive roster turnover and treating players as disposable pieces. Dumping Osa one year into his deal and taking on the dead cap hit is new behavior.

Players are assets, not family. Max out the card, eat the dead money and move on. Thats the Howie mindset and it needs to be ours.


This feels weird.

When I started this, I was in my feelings of resentment toward Jerry for all the failure of the past thirty years, but here I am at the end, scratching my head and wondering if maybe things are changing. I haven't been a “this is our year” guy since 1995.

But over the past year or so, the Cowboys have actually become aggressive and are showing signs of operating like those teams I’ve been envious of for years.

I’m pessimistic about our chances this year due to a really tough schedule and what is still a talent gap on defense, but I am finding hopeful signs of change.

Shifting to a risk-embracing strategy doesn’t guarantee success, just ask the Saints, but at least we’re not acting scared.

That’s hard for a die-hard Jerry hater to admit.

 

[McKDaddy]

Well done @Kwyn

 

[LouBrown]

In some ways I agree - Dallas should be a lot more aggressive in spending cash in the short-term.

But I don't think Philly and LAR are really a gold standard. They're basically just doing what Dallas did in the early 2000s. There's lots and lots of examples of big spending teams who don't go anywhere too.

Personally, I'd rather have a lot of kicks at the can than just hope that your one shot pays off.

That said, when you have an older QB like Dak, the window is going to close soon anyway and you're going to have to rebuild, so you might as well think in the short term.

The Jones are just cheap. They have a cash budget and that's all they're going to spend on players.

 

[StarLord]

I really like you assessment overall. I think it's pretty accurate.

I'm very 30 times bitten, twice shy right now. So I expect the results to be the same until proven otherwise.

I do think you're right that some things are different from the ol Jerry Norm. Fingers crossed!

 

[fivetwos]

If there’s one thing they don’t understand the most, it’s windows to win.

They’d rather be short on the field…be good yet not good enough, but not have any down years. Maybe this serves them best financially, but it’s tough to compete on the field with other teams who are willing to operate that way, as they are essentially working with more cap room because it’s borrowed.

Thats starting to change a little though, but not by much and probably not enough

 

[Flamma]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 4: How I Stopped Worrying and Found a Sliver of Hope

The Now: Maybe Jerry had a revelation, or maybe it’s looming specter of death, but the last year has shown a fundamental shift in how this team approaches financial risk and roster management.

Giving up on the homegrown crown jewel of the past ten drafts by trading him for picks and Clark was shocking. To then trade those picks for a big-time player from another team is the opposite of the draft and develop strategy of prior years. Not only that, they promptly gave him a mega-contract.

They also restructured their three biggest contracts this offseason to free up cap while shoving an enormous pile of debt into the future. Jerry maxed out his credit cards.

The massive roster turnover and treating players as disposable pieces. Dumping Osa one year into his deal and taking on the dead cap hit is new behavior.

Players are assets, not family. Max out the card, eat the dead money and move on. Thats the Howie mindset and it needs to be ours.


This feels weird.

When I started this, I was in my feelings of resentment toward Jerry for all the failure of the past thirty years, but here I am at the end, scratching my head and wondering if maybe things are changing. I haven't been a “this is our year” guy since 1995.

But over the past year or so, the Cowboys have actually become aggressive and are showing signs of operating like those teams I’ve been envious of for years.

I’m pessimistic about our chances this year due to a really tough schedule and what is still a talent gap on defense, but I am finding hopeful signs of change.

Shifting to a risk-embracing strategy doesn’t guarantee success, just ask the Saints, but at least we’re not acting scared.

That’s hard for a die-hard Jerry hater to admit.

Temper your excitement. Get a hold of yourself man. You described the Cowboys in part 3 perfectly. They believe in their process, and have said as much multiple times. Well, the son has. What we saw this offseason was probably an emotional reaction to a bad situation. An effort to compensate for the unexpected loss. I don't know how long it's going to continue, but once they're satisfied, back to business as usual.

The future is even more bleak. What we're seeing right now is all Jerry. His son will never do this. He has mentioned in the past that he'd take less risk when Jerry is no longer with us. He has also touched on pushing money forward. This was recent. What I got out of what he said was that he likes your Part 2 model, despite not being cash poor. There is only so much money you want to push forward. No, there's only so much money he wants to push forward.

 

[DanTanna]

Good post Kwyn. I agree about the wealthy vs Poor owners and how Jerry is confused. I have very little hope for this team as long as Jerry and Spawn are in charge.

 

[Flamma]

If there’s one thing they don’t understand the most, it’s windows to win.

They’d rather be short on the field…be good yet not good enough, but not have any down years. Maybe this serves them best financially, but it’s tough to compete on the field with other teams who are willing to operate that way, as they are essentially working with more cap room because it’s borrowed.

Thats starting to change a little though, but not by much and probably not enough

They're happy competing, but make no serious effort to contend. They believe in the, anything can happen when you make the playoffs. Something I never agreed with. You either try to win a championship, or you don't. Most teams are rewarded accordingly.

 

[Stash]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 4: How I Stopped Worrying and Found a Sliver of Hope

The Now: Maybe Jerry had a revelation, or maybe it’s looming specter of death, but the last year has shown a fundamental shift in how this team approaches financial risk and roster management.

Giving up on the homegrown crown jewel of the past ten drafts by trading him for picks and Clark was shocking. To then trade those picks for a big-time player from another team is the opposite of the draft and develop strategy of prior years. Not only that, they promptly gave him a mega-contract.

They also restructured their three biggest contracts this offseason to free up cap while shoving an enormous pile of debt into the future. Jerry maxed out his credit cards.

The massive roster turnover and treating players as disposable pieces. Dumping Osa one year into his deal and taking on the dead cap hit is new behavior.

Players are assets, not family. Max out the card, eat the dead money and move on. Thats the Howie mindset and it needs to be ours.


This feels weird.

When I started this, I was in my feelings of resentment toward Jerry for all the failure of the past thirty years, but here I am at the end, scratching my head and wondering if maybe things are changing. I haven't been a “this is our year” guy since 1995.

But over the past year or so, the Cowboys have actually become aggressive and are showing signs of operating like those teams I’ve been envious of for years.

I’m pessimistic about our chances this year due to a really tough schedule and what is still a talent gap on defense, but I am finding hopeful signs of change.

Shifting to a risk-embracing strategy doesn’t guarantee success, just ask the Saints, but at least we’re not acting scared.

That’s hard for a die-hard Jerry hater to admit.

Good stuff!

Thank you for your time and effort!

 

[Kwyn]

In some ways I agree - Dallas should be a lot more aggressive in spending cash in the short-term.

But I don't think Philly and LAR are really a gold standard. They're basically just doing what Dallas did in the early 2000s. There's lots and lots of examples of big spending teams who don't go anywhere too.

Personally, I'd rather have a lot of kicks at the can than just hope that your one shot pays off.

That said, when you have an older QB like Dak, the window is going to close soon anyway and you're going to have to rebuild, so you might as well think in the short term.

The Jones are just cheap. They have a cash budget and that's all they're going to spend on players.

Good counters. A few thoughts back:

The cap itself was a different animal back then. When the Cowboys were failing, the cap had just crossed $100M and was growing slowly. Today’s cap jumps $30M+ in a single year. A 40% increase in the last half-dozen year because the media deals have been colossal.

Void years didn’t exist as a lever yet. Tacking on years nobody intended to reach, just to spread a signing bonus, wasn’t something teams did.

Combine an exploding cap, void years, and a shift in team loyalty, and some owners changed strategy while others wouldn’t take the risk. Jerry tried, but with cruder tools and he kept falling in love with his players. The Saints tried something similar with their “Voodoo Cap” and mostly failed, because they lacked a skyrocketing cap to pair with the void years.

Talent matters too. The Cowboys’ core grew decrepit with nobody ready to replace it.

And it’s about consistency. The Eagles treat every contract the same way, which has racked up enormous future debt, but Lurie believes in it and backs Howie completely. The Rams do it differently: less void-years, but even more ruthless cutting (Snead’s “*** them picks” shirt is real. He wore it in public). Same idea thugh. An owner that is all-in on the strategy.

Jerry’s never been willing to go all-in. He spent heavily post-Super Bowl but couldn’t cut his guys loose. Once it blew up, he learned the stove was hot and stayed out of the kitchen for two decades.

There’s a reason he recently said he’s studying teams like the Rams (he can’t exactly praise Howie by name). I think he’s realizing this might be his last shot to reshape his legacy post Jimmy, and he’s finally waking up to it. There’s also the rumored health scare a year ago but there’s no confirmation of that.

Anyone who knows my post history knows I’ve been as hard on Jerry as anyone. I was the guy saying “you’re suckers if you think that old man can change.” But I’ve got a sliver of hope now.

 

[LouBrown]

Good counters. A few thoughts back:

The cap itself was a different animal back then. When the Cowboys were failing, the cap had just crossed $100M and was growing slowly. Today’s cap jumps $30M+ in a single year. A 40% increase in the last half-dozen year because the media deals have been colossal.

Void years didn’t exist as a lever yet. Tacking on years nobody intended to reach, just to spread a signing bonus, wasn’t something teams did.

Combine an exploding cap, void years, and a shift in team loyalty, and some owners changed strategy while others wouldn’t take the risk. Jerry tried, but with cruder tools and he kept falling in love with his players. The Saints tried something similar with their “Voodoo Cap” and mostly failed, because they lacked a skyrocketing cap to pair with the void years.

Talent matters too. The Cowboys’ core grew decrepit with nobody ready to replace it.

And it’s about consistency. The Eagles treat every contract the same way, which has racked up enormous future debt, but Lurie believes in it and backs Howie completely. The Rams do it differently: less void-years, but even more ruthless cutting (Snead’s “*** them picks” shirt is real. He wore it in public). Same idea thugh. An owner that is all-in on the strategy.

Jerry’s never been willing to go all-in. He spent heavily post-Super Bowl but couldn’t cut his guys loose. Once it blew up, he learned the stove was hot and stayed out of the kitchen for two decades.

There’s a reason he recently said he’s studying teams like the Rams (he can’t exactly praise Howie by name). I think he’s realizing this might be his last shot to reshape his legacy post Jimmy, and he’s finally waking up to it. There’s also the rumored health scare a year ago but there’s no confirmation of that.

Anyone who knows my post history knows I’ve been as hard on Jerry as anyone. I was the guy saying “you’re suckers if you think that old man can change.” But I’ve got a sliver of hope now.

True, about the cap changing. Certainly $20m in a void year 5 years down the road is a far less significant part of the cap than it would have been then.

I guess fundamentally I don't like the Rams model because it depends so much on luck and really has no durability. Nothing they've done worked if they didn't luck into Stafford, and they are done for probably a decade after 1- or 2-year window. The Eagles built a much more durable roster, but even they have depended on anomalies. I'd argue that the Dolphins have followed the same path as these two teams, and we see where they are at.

I think I'm probably in the minority that I'd rather be in the playoffs every year than mortgage the future too much for a one or two year chance before a rebuild. Anything can happen in the playoffs, and in the abstract, I'd rather have something to root for every year. I don't really get the appeal of winning a Super Bowl and rebuilding for the next 20 years lol.

All that said, Jerry has to be more aggressive with cash, he just isn't. This year's cash spend isn't going to be any different than previous. But he can spend a lot more cash without pulling as much from the future as the Eagles.

 

[fivetwos]

How many higher priced free agents have they whiffed on other than Carr….and he wasn’t that bad?

Glover worked well, as did Leonard Davis. Don’t understand why they are so spooked by it.

I recall when they signed Davis. At the PC, Stephen said….”this is the price for missing on a draft pick.”

What happened? Maybe that’s when Jerry’s philosophy was taking precedence, but after the Manziel thing, power seemed to have shifted. The team is run much differently. Not sure if related but it’d be a helluva coincidence.

 

[Flamma]

How many higher priced free agents have they whiffed on other than Carr….and he wasn’t that bad?

I don't think it was just Carr. Carr changed their team building philosophy. Before that, Jerry would go out and get the best players available. That all changed. Carr was not the only mistake. Some trades were disasters.

 

[zrinkill]

 

[John813]

I'd argue that the Dolphins have followed the same path as these two teams, and we see where they are at.

If I may offer my insight on the Dolphins.

Dolphins were open about tanking for the 2020 QB draft class.
Traded away Tunsil, Fitzpatrick(FS) and made moves to suck.
Unfortunately, they also signed Ryan Fitzpatrick who pulled wins out of a hat and cost them the 1st overall.

In my opinion, what the Dolphins did wrong, was count their eggs before they hatched.
After all those trades to tank, they had tons of first round picks to keep building around Tua.
They had three 1st rounders in 2020. Took Tua, Austin Jackson(raw tackle) and then Noah Igbobusta at corner,

They then traded 1st to move around the 2021 draft, taking Waddle over guys like Sewell, Horn, Surtain Parsons Slater etc.
The following year they trade a first for Tyreek Hill.
Then trade a first for Bradley Chubb etc...
All three were good players, but Waddle over keeping Tua alive hurt. Hill was a dangerous WR, but also made Tua force feed him a lot.
Chubb was a good edge, but they had to pay him right away.

For a stretch Tua looked good, but had no offensive line, which lead to him getting his brain rocked and hip tweaked again. Which he missed at least two playoff runs due to injuries
They also had some talent on defense like Wilkins, but also had declined in the secondary, linebackers were JAGs etc.

So, they had talent in certain areas, but then just meh in others. No team can be truly loaded in every spot, but Miami tried to jump the gun in rebuilding, but doomed themselves in getting the splash pieces too soon.

Chris Grier was a bad GM. He somehow failed up to GM

 

[gimmesix]

Dr. Cap-love, Part 4: How I Stopped Worrying and Found a Sliver of Hope

The Now: Maybe Jerry had a revelation, or maybe it’s looming specter of death, but the last year has shown a fundamental shift in how this team approaches financial risk and roster management.

Giving up on the homegrown crown jewel of the past ten drafts by trading him for picks and Clark was shocking. To then trade those picks for a big-time player from another team is the opposite of the draft and develop strategy of prior years. Not only that, they promptly gave him a mega-contract.

They also restructured their three biggest contracts this offseason to free up cap while shoving an enormous pile of debt into the future. Jerry maxed out his credit cards.

The massive roster turnover and treating players as disposable pieces. Dumping Osa one year into his deal and taking on the dead cap hit is new behavior.

Players are assets, not family. Max out the card, eat the dead money and move on. Thats the Howie mindset and it needs to be ours.


This feels weird.

When I started this, I was in my feelings of resentment toward Jerry for all the failure of the past thirty years, but here I am at the end, scratching my head and wondering if maybe things are changing. I haven't been a “this is our year” guy since 1995.

But over the past year or so, the Cowboys have actually become aggressive and are showing signs of operating like those teams I’ve been envious of for years.

I’m pessimistic about our chances this year due to a really tough schedule and what is still a talent gap on defense, but I am finding hopeful signs of change.

Shifting to a risk-embracing strategy doesn’t guarantee success, just ask the Saints, but at least we’re not acting scared.

That’s hard for a die-hard Jerry hater to admit.

I think your conclusion is overreaching.

First, Jerry didn't want to trade Micah Parsons. Evidence is clear that he tried to reach a deal, thought he had, wouldn't budge when Parsons' agent said he wouldn't even look at it and then everything went south.

Trading Parsons was reactionary, which dominoed into getting Clark and Quinnen. That isn't a planned strategy, that's Jerry being backed into a trade and trying to make something out of it.

It's not the first big trade we've seen the Joneses make since beginning their cheap FA philosophy, so it doesn't signal a change in philosophy.

What would signal that is how they approach free agency. We saw a slight change last year from the norm when they went after outside free agents from the start of the FA period rather than waiting until weeks into it and the prices settled. They still went after the same caliber of players as normal, staying cheap; they just actually got to pick from the cheap players instead of picking from whatever was left. That's how you end up with a Javonte Williams. He wasn't going to cost much because he was coming off two years of lower production, but he probably was going to be signed fairly quickly.

Last year, the Joneses also threw in trading for some first-round players who didn't live up to it, but that backfired so they didn't go back to that well again. Instead, they stuck with signing cheap players early in free agency (all but one player for $4 million or lower) and then surprisingly threw in one outlier (Jalen Thompson for three years, $33 million). That should be the one move that gives us some hope, because it is against the grain of the philosophy they adopted after 2012.

Outside of that, I don't see any risk embracing or aggressiveness. I see business as usual with a twist because of the relationship with Parsons souring. The Joneses have never been afraid of trades.

 

[LouBrown]

So, they had talent in certain areas, but then just meh in others. No team can be truly loaded in every spot, but Miami tried to jump the gun in rebuilding, but doomed themselves in getting the splash pieces too soon.

I agree with most of what you said, but I think this is the point. Maybe they jumped the gun, but it's more that they bet on Tua and were wrong. You can go back and forth quibbling about players compared to what the Rams did and that sort of thing, but I think it's pretty clear that the Dolphins were all in, and are basically paying the bill this year.

The Dolphins were wrong about Tua, the Rams were right about Stafford. Switch those two and who knows how the story plays out. The Dolphins really wanted Brady too, for that short-term window.