What's to prevent salary cap circumvention?

Reverend Conehead · Jun 18, 2019

I'm guessing the league has already put in safeguards against this, but hear me out. Jerry Jones calls a player into his office and say that the salary cap makes it difficult to pay him what he's worth. So he offers a lowball amount of money to play football, but also offers him a post-football/non-football job after he retires, and it's for an obscene amount of money that more than makes up for the lowball football salary. Upon retirement, the player will be Director of Concession Sales or Promotion Manager, or Artificial Turf Inspector -- doesn't much matter which as long as it's a non-football job. Since it's a non-football job, it's not part of the salary cap. And the league doesn't prohibit a player from going to work for his old team after retirement.

I would guess the league has already thought of this and has had their lawyers somehow enact rules against it, but I don't know for sure. Anyone know?

LACowboysFan1 · Jun 18, 2019

Reverend Conehead said:
I'm guessing the league has already put in safeguards against this, but hear me out. Jerry Jones calls a player into his office and say that the salary cap makes it difficult to pay him what he's worth. So he offers a lowball amount of money to play football, but also offers him a post-football/non-football job after he retires, and it's for an obscene amount of money that more than makes up for the lowball football salary. Upon retirement, the player will be Director of Concession Sales or Promotion Manager, or Artificial Turf Inspector -- doesn't much matter which as long as it's a non-football job. Since it's a non-football job, it's not part of the salary cap. And the league doesn't prohibit a player from going to work for his old team after retirement.

I would guess the league has already thought of this and has had their lawyers somehow enact rules against it, but I don't know for sure. Anyone know?

Well I think such things are self-limiting, there are lots of good players, can't stay rich paying dozens and dozens of ex-players.

And I suspect the league has made it well known that if some owner does that and is caught, the penalties would be severe - like expulsion from the league, e.g. Just not worth the risk. And the more ex-players you pay, the more chance it would become obvious that's what was going on....

atlantacowboy · Jun 18, 2019

The league has to approve all contracts. They don't approve a contract unless it fits under the salary cap.

JD_KaPow · Jun 18, 2019

Reverend Conehead said:
I'm guessing the league has already put in safeguards against this, but hear me out. Jerry Jones calls a player into his office and say that the salary cap makes it difficult to pay him what he's worth. So he offers a lowball amount of money to play football, but also offers him a post-football/non-football job after he retires, and it's for an obscene amount of money that more than makes up for the lowball football salary. Upon retirement, the player will be Director of Concession Sales or Promotion Manager, or Artificial Turf Inspector -- doesn't much matter which as long as it's a non-football job. Since it's a non-football job, it's not part of the salary cap. And the league doesn't prohibit a player from going to work for his old team after retirement.

I would guess the league has already thought of this and has had their lawyers somehow enact rules against it, but I don't know for sure. Anyone know?

The collective bargaining agreement bans undisclosed agreements, promises or understandings of any kind involving salary that are not disclosed to the league.

The 49ers were caught cheating on the salary cap in the '90s: among other things, Steve Young agreed to take a lower salary with an undisclosed side agreement that the team would pay it back to him the next year. Brent Jones was promised a payment after he retired for "other services," but it was really just cover to circumvent the cap. It's against the rules and the team (and player) can be penalized for it, but they do have to get caught.

atlantacowboy · Jun 19, 2019

JD_KaPow said:
The collective bargaining agreement bans undisclosed agreements, promises or understandings of any kind involving salary that are not disclosed to the league.

The 49ers were caught cheating on the salary cap in the '90s: among other things, Steve Young agreed to take a lower salary with an undisclosed side agreement that the team would pay it back to him the next year. Brent Jones was promised a payment after he retired for "other services," but it was really just cover to circumvent the cap. It's against the rules and the team (and player) can be penalized for it, but they do have to get caught.

The Commanders and us also tried to do it during the uncapped 2010 season by front loading contracts. The league simply took away cap space in future seasons.

Reverend Conehead · Jun 19, 2019

Okay, thanks, guys. I figured it had to be something like that. Looks like teams had better be very up front with the league if they plan to have an ex player do something legitimate, like come on staff as a coach.

dreghorn2 · Jun 19, 2019

JD_KaPow said:
The collective bargaining agreement bans undisclosed agreements, promises or understandings of any kind involving salary that are not disclosed to the league.

The 49ers were caught cheating on the salary cap in the '90s: among other things, Steve Young agreed to take a lower salary with an undisclosed side agreement that the team would pay it back to him the next year. Brent Jones was promised a payment after he retired for "other services," but it was really just cover to circumvent the cap. It's against the rules and the team (and player) can be penalized for it, but they do have to get caught.

As were the Broncos.

Bowlen cheated his fellow owners for a couple of Super Bowls.

Pape · Jun 19, 2019

dreghorn2 said:
As were the Broncos.

Bowlen cheated his fellow owners for a couple of Super Bowls.

Broncos did it multiple times.

Deferred payments, non-disclosed interest payments applied to the deferred payments, promises not to cut by a certain date, ad nauseum.

Fined twice to the tune of nearly 2 million dollars, and lost 2 3rd round draft picks.

Blatant salary cap cheaters the Broncos.

Flamma · Jun 20, 2019

Reverend Conehead said:
I'm guessing the league has already put in safeguards against this, but hear me out. Jerry Jones calls a player into his office and say that the salary cap makes it difficult to pay him what he's worth. So he offers a lowball amount of money to play football, but also offers him a post-football/non-football job after he retires, and it's for an obscene amount of money that more than makes up for the lowball football salary. Upon retirement, the player will be Director of Concession Sales or Promotion Manager, or Artificial Turf Inspector -- doesn't much matter which as long as it's a non-football job. Since it's a non-football job, it's not part of the salary cap. And the league doesn't prohibit a player from going to work for his old team after retirement.

I would guess the league has already thought of this and has had their lawyers somehow enact rules against it, but I don't know for sure. Anyone know?

In theory this could be done. But it would have to be a verbal agreement with nothing in writing. Both parties would have to keep their mouths shut indefinitely. Then consider how many players can you do this with? Is it worth the risk? Not a good idea for either party. What's in it for the player other than being paid retroactively?

Reverend Conehead · Jun 20, 2019

Flamma said:
In theory this could be done. But it would have to be a verbal agreement with nothing in writing. Both parties would have to keep their mouths shut indefinitely. Then consider how many players can you do this with? Is it worth the risk? Not a good idea for either party. What's in it for the player other than being paid retroactively?

Being a verbal agreement only would be a big negative for this. It would require a huge level of trust. The player would have to be really sure that the owner or GM won't just bail on the agreement.

jrumann59 · Jun 20, 2019

JD_KaPow said:
The collective bargaining agreement bans undisclosed agreements, promises or understandings of any kind involving salary that are not disclosed to the league.

The 49ers were caught cheating on the salary cap in the '90s: among other things, Steve Young agreed to take a lower salary with an undisclosed side agreement that the team would pay it back to him the next year. Brent Jones was promised a payment after he retired for "other services," but it was really just cover to circumvent the cap. It's against the rules and the team (and player) can be penalized for it, but they do have to get caught.

this . First the NFL gets to look at the guts of the contract, and so does the NFLPA. The NFLPA really hates when players do thing below market value, they were upset with T. Smith when he gave Dallas a discount when he signed his extension. And that contract was not egregiously below market now lets say Dak takes a meager 100% raise of his current contract there would be some full blown investigations of course the NFL and NFLPA would need to find evidence that something was amiss but it would be pretty much in your face, a Qb take a 10million AAV salary over what the market says should be in the 30 million AAV

What's to prevent salary cap circumvention?

Reverend Conehead

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LACowboysFan1

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atlantacowboy

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JD_KaPow

jimnabby

atlantacowboy

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Reverend Conehead

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dreghorn2

Original Zoner (he's a good boy!)

Pape

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Flamma

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Reverend Conehead

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jrumann59

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