Bob Sturm: Four things Cowboys should NOT do this offseason

[Zimmy Lives]

Yes, I agree that the Cowboys should go into FA looking for a replacement for Carr. They could cut Carr and get someone who has proven himself because it is always guaranteed that the FA will perform up to his contract. Oh, wait...isn't that how Carr became a Cowboy?

WE can argue that cutting Carr and finding a suitable replacement is easy. Maybe, but the key would be to focus on a replacement who can play the scheme. In addition, it would also help if that said player, or a draft pick, was secured before letting Carr go.

 

[Crown Royal]

We should absolutely cut Terrence Newman. The fact is he is not performing up to his contract and is a liability. Sorry - he has to go. He can be replaced by a free agent DB that actually knows how to play the pass and isn't soft. I'd recommend two guys - Brandon Carr is part of a great passing defense in Kansas City and wants out - I think he can become a number one and fits well in a man scheme. There is also Cortland Finnegan from Tennessee, but he may just be too expensive.




-Sound familiar?

 

[xwalker]

I don't disagree that Carr is just a guy, but what is the point of cutting him when his cap hit remains relatively the same whether he is on the roster or not (due to past restructures). Unless, of course, you believe we can upgrade the position and to do so we need his roster spot.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/dallas-cowboys/

By the way: The Carr contract is a good example of the real world consequences of restructuring players because of past cap mismanagement.

The dead money (12M) is money that hits the cap with or without him on the roster.

I just posted the details about it.

You owe 12K on a car and it needs an 8K motor and the total value with the new motor is 4K.

Would you spend the 8K if you could just trade it in and get a similar car for 4K?

You owe 20k total if you keep the car or you owe 16K if you get the similar car.

 

[Cas2800]

Give Carr a break. You cant forget the guy lost his mother at the beginning of the year. Losing a parent is huge! He played alot better towards the end of the year. Does he need to take a paycut to help the team? Probably so. But we have bigger holes to fill then adding another hole at CB.

 

[Crown Royal]

Give Carr a break. You cant forget the guy lost his mother at the beginning of the year. Losing a parent is huge! He played alot better towards the end of the year. Does he need to take a paycut to help the team? Probably so. But we have bigger holes to fill then adding another hole at CB.

The only game he was truly horrible in was the first Eagles game.

 

[daveferr33]

The dead money (12M) is money that hits the cap with or without him on the roster.

If he's on the roster the 12 million is not dead money, its a pro-rated bonus (but spread over the next three seasons). "Dead Money" is a term of art that specifically refers to money the counts against the cap for a player no longer on the Roster.

It becomes dead money when he's cut because the pro-rated bonus accelerates against the cap this season (assuming its a pre-June 1 cut).

Now if Carr does not take a paycut, then he makes about 12 million this season (8 million salary + 4 million prorated bonus).

If he is cut this season (again assuming pre-June 1 cut) his prorated bonus accelerates and hits the books as dead money and its a 12 million cap hit.

So as it stands right now, if you keep him, he's a 12 million cap hit and if you release him, he's a 12 million cap hit.

The only thing to gain by cutting Carr this season is we can get rid of the dead money now and free up space for 2016 going forward.

The problem with your example, is you don't get to trade Carr in (pardon the pun). You have to simply junk it, but you still owe the bank the 12 million you paid for it.

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

 

[ufcrules1]

Give Carr a break. You cant forget the guy lost his mother at the beginning of the year. Losing a parent is huge! He played alot better towards the end of the year. Does he need to take a paycut to help the team? Probably so. But we have bigger holes to fill then adding another hole at CB.

Not to mention our dline is not that great which makes his job a hell of a lot harder. For the most part Carr plays with a lot of passion out there and is scrappy. I like him and would be ok with keeping him if he is willing to take a cut.

 

[jterrell]

If you are going to attempt to insult someone, you should at the very least double check what you are typing.

what would you like me to double check exactly?

That is nothing more than an assumption.

Wrong. It is very simple because they have these amazing things called stats and game logs. Ware was phenomenal the first half of the season.
Mincey and DLaw were not. Mincey and DLaw played much better late, Ware much better early.
The fact you believe that is an assumption means you should study more and post less which is why you were insulted in the first place.

Wow he really tore it up out there. Much in the same way he did for us in "win and in" games and playoff games.

Actually he did... on the season, which is what matters. 10 more regular season sacks and this team is a different defense and perhaps not playing road games all playoffs.

Listen, your opinion on Ware is in the vast minority. Letting he and Hatcher go instead of signing them to huge contracts was a terrific decision and will help our team
in the long run. I understand you were emotionally attached to Ware but our team is in a better place for letting him walk.

Who is assuming things?? Cutting Ware was widely accepted then dreaded by week 8 as he piled up sacks and we got zero pressure on QBs.
Hatcher was his own deal and the guy had 1 great season in a career year. That is totally different than Ware who is an all-time great and future Hall of Famer that would have retired a Cowboys for about half of what Denver paid him.

Anyone arguing cutting Ware last year was a good move is either a) in denial and defendintg a position they took last year or b) not very smart.

Our sack leader had 6. Ware had 10 by himself. We spent more in cap hits to cut him than to restructure and keep him.
DE has been our top target each of the last two drafts.
End of discussion.

 

[Crown Royal]

Even if Ware were here DE would be a target in this draft.

 

[Crown Royal]

I'm also not sure Ware would have been an x factor for the 49ers, Washington or Cards game. It's possible that he would have affected the Philly game positively. It's also possible that he would have affected the Packers game, but that discussion is as good as talking about the 4th down catch. Ifs and buts.

 

[jterrell]

The dead money (12M) is money that hits the cap with or without him on the roster.

I just posted the details about it.

You owe 12K on a car and it needs an 8K motor and the total value with the new motor is 4K.

Would you spend the 8K if you could just trade it in and get a similar car for 4K?

You owe 20k total if you keep the car or you owe 16K if you get the similar car.

look man i love you to death as a die-hard poster and fan who cares to break things down... but this logic is definitely cardboard house financial logic.

if you are upside down on a vehicle (just about everyone is until it is paid nearly off) and you go to trade that car in you will eat the difference in the new vehicle loan.
you may get another vehicle worth 4k but you'll pay the 4k plus the 12k so you'll be at 16K and the interest starts today... meaning you pay heck of lot more than 20k for the 16k you are borrowing.

that is actually a worse financial decision than paying for the motor.
and fwiw... if it costs 8k to put a motor in a car the car value will be more than 4k if only because it has a new 8k motor.

your hypothetical was absurd and you make the wrong financial decision anyways.

any number of posters are trying to explain to you the difference between 4m per year prorated as a portion of a salary and 4 or 12m escalated to hit the cap right now with no player and no rule of 53 value.

you do great things over the off-season but you've got to come to grips with this piece of it for the stuff you do to ever look anything like what the cowboys actually do.

Carr IF he stays likely hits the cap for 7.5M or so(that mean paying him 3 to 3.5m in base the next two seasons). If he is cut he eats over 4M even if we designate him a June 1st release. So we'd basically need to spend 3.5m or less on a replacement just to break even THIS YEAR.
Knowing next year is another 8m we eat plus the remainder of any contract. So for a 3.5m guy other than Carr we pay out 11.5m next year for that slot.

So keeping Carr and paying him 3.5m x 2 years costs us 7.5 m each year or 15m over 2.
Cutting him and signing a 2 year 7m total deal costs us 19m over 2.
It is REALLY SIMPLE.

To do that we'd need the player to be worth a heck of a lot more than Carr is because sometimes it is cheaper to keep her (or him in this case).

Carr is a good team guy and he plays through injuries and has been tough versus the run. He isn't a plus starter and he is declining but he is the right kind of guy and we have every reason to keep him if he wants to stay at his adjusted market value.

 

[jterrell]

I'm also not sure Ware would have been an x factor for the 49ers, Washington or Cards game. It's possible that he would have affected the Philly game positively. It's also possible that he would have affected the Packers game, but that discussion is as good as talking about the 4th down catch. Ifs and buts.

Ware had 1.5 sacks week 1. He also played Arizona later and had .5 sacks in a 21 point win.
We can argue specific games but what we can't argue is that he would have easily been our best pass rusher.
That is not even debatable.

And if Ware was signed for this year coming off 10 sacks as our best pass rusher... no we wouldn't have DE as our top priority.
We'd be looking to see if DeMarcus Lawrence could step up and start or if he was just growing into Ware's replacement as the 3rd DE.
We wouldn't go get another highly drafted pass rusher unless it fell to us.

Again only really illogical people are going to take the idea cutting Ware was good.
He is the best pass rusher in our history and should have retired as a Cowboy.
We let him leave and didn't replace him on the field.
Where he left is considered the biggest hole on the team.
So from a fan standpoint and organization stand point and play on the field stand point and cap management stand point ALL things slant to him being better or us here than as dead cap weight.

Put another way, if we had cut Romo and he lead another team to the playoffs but flaked in round 1 after a top 10 QB Rating season we'd be sitting here with Brandon Weeden and a bottom 5 passing game saying we made the smart move?

 

[Nightman]

this time last year they had the same decision to make with Ware.
they sucked it up and paid to release him.
it was the single biggest mistake of the off-season for a team that came up aces everywhere else and the reality is it may have cost them a super bowl shot.

His 10 sacks would have been about 2 shy of all our DE's combined and significantly more than our top end Mincey had with his 6.
In fact the team had 28.

Ware had all of 2 sacks in the 10 weeks of the season and playoffs. That is exactly why he was released.

Paying 12m for 2 sacks after October isn't a great decision

 

[coult44]

I don't know the cap ramifications with Carr but I do know he is easy replaceable. He's just a guy. He makes nobody better.

I wouldn't go any years with Murray. Too fragile in the past. Too much of a workload this past year. Too short of a shelf life at the position. Are they planning on giving him another 350 plus carries next year? It's highly unlikely that he's capable of it.

People are scared to say it. I'll say it. There was not a better QB in 2014 than Tony Romo. He played on par with Rodgers. He was better than Manning. Better than Brady. Certainly better than Luck. People are just conditioned to discredit Romo.

The problem is we have nobody right now better than Carr. OS is #1, then who???

 

[Nightman]

look man i love you to death as a die-hard poster and fan who cares to break things down... but this logic is definitely cardboard house financial logic.

if you are upside down on a vehicle (just about everyone is until it is paid nearly off) and you go to trade that car in you will eat the difference in the new vehicle loan.
you may get another vehicle worth 4k but you'll pay the 4k plus the 12k so you'll be at 16K and the interest starts today... meaning you pay heck of lot more than 20k for the 16k you are borrowing.

that is actually a worse financial decision than paying for the motor.
and fwiw... if it costs 8k to put a motor in a car the car value will be more than 4k if only because it has a new 8k motor.

your hypothetical was absurd and you make the wrong financial decision anyways.

any number of posters are trying to explain to you the difference between 4m per year prorated as a portion of a salary and 4 or 12m escalated to hit the cap right now with no player and no rule of 53 value.

you do great things over the off-season but you've got to come to grips with this piece of it for the stuff you do to ever look anything like what the cowboys actually do.

Carr IF he stays likely hits the cap for 7.5M or so(that mean paying him 3 to 3.5m in base the next two seasons). If he is cut he eats over 4M even if we designate him a June 1st release. So we'd basically need to spend 3.5m or less on a replacement just to break even THIS YEAR.
Knowing next year is another 8m we eat plus the remainder of any contract. So for a 3.5m guy other than Carr we pay out 11.5m next year for that slot.

So keeping Carr and paying him 3.5m x 2 years costs us 7.5 m each year or 15m over 2.
Cutting him and signing a 2 year 7m total deal costs us 19m over 2.
It is REALLY SIMPLE.

To do that we'd need the player to be worth a heck of a lot more than Carr is because sometimes it is cheaper to keep her (or him in this case).

Carr is a good team guy and he plays through injuries and has been tough versus the run. He isn't a plus starter and he is declining but he is the right kind of guy and we have every reason to keep him if he wants to stay at his adjusted market value.

It's not about breaking even. It's about putting the best team on the field.

Carr's dead money is a sunk cost. It's hit no matter what happens. Dallas already reaped the benefits of his contact strucuture.

Spending another 4m on Carr just because of his dead money is bad business. For his production, Claiborne and Moore can handle it.

 

[Nightman]

If he's on the roster the 12 million is not dead money, its a pro-rated bonus (but spread over the next three seasons). "Dead Money" is a term of art that specifically refers to money the counts against the cap for a player no longer on the Roster.

It becomes dead money when he's cut because the pro-rated bonus accelerates against the cap this season (assuming its a pre-June 1 cut).

Now if Carr does not take a paycut, then he makes about 12 million this season (8 million salary + 4 million prorated bonus).

If he is cut this season (again assuming pre-June 1 cut) his prorated bonus accelerates and hits the books as dead money and its a 12 million cap hit.

So as it stands right now, if you keep him, he's a 12 million cap hit and if you release him, he's a 12 million cap hit.

The only thing to gain by cutting Carr this season is we can get rid of the dead money now and free up space for 2016 going forward.

The problem with your example, is you don't get to trade Carr in (pardon the pun). You have to simply junk it, but you still owe the bank the 12 million you paid for it.

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

If Carr is a June 1st cut his cap hit is only the 4.7m pro-rated bonus. They save 8m against the cap this year.

They would have an 8m hit next year.

Getting him to take a 50% pay cut is just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It makes you feel better for getting something out of the dead money, but those benefits have already been accrued the last 3 years.

Spending another 4m on Carr when he is owed ZERO guaranteed dollars, should only be about is he worth 4m for 2015 or not.

 

[xwalker]

look man i love you to death as a die-hard poster and fan who cares to break things down... but this logic is definitely cardboard house financial logic.

if you are upside down on a vehicle (just about everyone is until it is paid nearly off) and you go to trade that car in you will eat the difference in the new vehicle loan.
you may get another vehicle worth 4k but you'll pay the 4k plus the 12k so you'll be at 16K and the interest starts today... meaning you pay heck of lot more than 20k for the 16k you are borrowing.

that is actually a worse financial decision than paying for the motor.
and fwiw... if it costs 8k to put a motor in a car the car value will be more than 4k if only because it has a new 8k motor.

your hypothetical was absurd and you make the wrong financial decision anyways.

any number of posters are trying to explain to you the difference between 4m per year prorated as a portion of a salary and 4 or 12m escalated to hit the cap right now with no player and no rule of 53 value.

you do great things over the off-season but you've got to come to grips with this piece of it for the stuff you do to ever look anything like what the cowboys actually do.

Carr IF he stays likely hits the cap for 7.5M or so(that mean paying him 3 to 3.5m in base the next two seasons). If he is cut he eats over 4M even if we designate him a June 1st release. So we'd basically need to spend 3.5m or less on a replacement just to break even THIS YEAR.
Knowing next year is another 8m we eat plus the remainder of any contract. So for a 3.5m guy other than Carr we pay out 11.5m next year for that slot.

So keeping Carr and paying him 3.5m x 2 years costs us 7.5 m each year or 15m over 2.
Cutting him and signing a 2 year 7m total deal costs us 19m over 2.
It is REALLY SIMPLE.

To do that we'd need the player to be worth a heck of a lot more than Carr is because sometimes it is cheaper to keep her (or him in this case).

Carr is a good team guy and he plays through injuries and has been tough versus the run. He isn't a plus starter and he is declining but he is the right kind of guy and we have every reason to keep him if he wants to stay at his adjusted market value.

No, you are wrong about Carr. Several years ago my understanding of the cap was similar to your understanding of it now so I know why you think what you think.

You didn't address the 3 scenarios that I gave you. The car example was not for you; hopefully your understanding of the cap is beyond needing a real world example for comparison regardless of the accuracy of that example.

You are getting bogged down by when money hits the cap instead of focusing on the total multiple year cap total. NFL teams manage the cap based on a multiple year model.

When a team has plenty of room to operate under the cap then the current year's cap is not a big issue.

From a cap perspective there is no reason to be concerned about the 12M because that money has already been spent. It's the 8M base salary that matters.

If the Cowboys were super tight against the cap like they were in 2013 when they had franchised Spencer the 2nd time, then the current years cap would be a bigger issue; however, the Cowboys have the ability to create 50M in cap space before re-signing anybody. With that type of flexibility they will focus on multiple year cap management.

Anybody that wants to keep Carr at 8M but not restructure Romo has it backwards. Restructuring Romo does not add to the multiple year cap total. Paying Carr 8M if you could get a replacement for 4M is not good for the multiple year cap management strategy.

I'm not against keeping Carr with a paycut, but the 12M number is not relevant to the decision because that money hits the cap at some point with or without him on the roster.

I'm not concerned if you believe it or not, but I post to give other posters a reference and an alternate to the misinformation that gets spread around.

 

[Nightman]

No, you are wrong about Carr. Several years ago my understanding of the cap was similar to your understanding of it now so I know why you think what you think.

You didn't address the 3 scenarios that I gave you. The car example was not for you; hopefully your understanding of the cap is beyond needing a real world example for comparison regardless of the accuracy of that example.

You are getting bogged down by when money hits the cap instead of focusing on the total multiple year cap total. NFL teams manage the cap based on a multiple year model.

When a team has plenty of room to operate under the cap then the current year's cap is not a big issue.

From a cap perspective there is no reason to be concerned about the 12M because that money has already been spent. It's the 8M base salary that matters.

If the Cowboys were super tight against the cap like they were in 2013 when they had franchised Spencer the 2nd time, then the current years cap would be a bigger issue; however, the Cowboys have the ability to create 50M in cap space before re-signing anybody. With that type of flexibility they will focus on multiple year cap management.

Anybody that wants to keep Carr at 8M but not restructure Romo has it backwards. Restructuring Romo does not add to the multiple year cap total. Paying Carr 8M if you could get a replacement for 4M is not good for the multiple year cap management strategy.

I'm not against keeping Carr with a paycut, but the 12M number is not relevant to the decision because that money hits the cap at some point with or without him on the roster.

I'm not concerned if you believe it or not, but I post to give other posters a reference and an alternate to the misinformation that gets spread around.

Great analysis as usual, but let me add the cap will rise dramatically in the next few years. The owners kept if artificially low with the lockout and new CBA, but the new TV deals are signed, sealed and delivered. It's just simple math that cap has to keep going up as League revenues keep going up.

Even Romo's dead money will be swallowed up by increases in the next couple years. Carr had cap hits of 3m and 5m his first 2 years instead of 10m and 10m, that's the 12m in dead money. In 2012 the cap was 120m and it will probably be 150m+ in 2016 when the last 8m on Carr's contract will hit. Pushing the hits into the future just makes sense.

 

[Risen Star]

I've personally scouted the cap on YouTube.

 

[xwalker]

Great analysis as usual, but let me add the cap will rise dramatically in the next few years. The owners kept if artificially low with the lockout and new CBA, but the new TV deals are signed, sealed and delivered. It's just simple math that cap has to keep going up as League revenues keep going up.

Even Romo's dead money will be swallowed up by increases in the next couple years. Carr had cap hits of 3m and 5m his first 2 years instead of 10m and 10m, that's the 12m in dead money. In 2012 the cap was 120m and it will probably be 150m+ in 2016 when the last 8m on Carr's contract will hit. Pushing the hits into the future just makes sense.

Yes, pushing money forward is not a big problem for a number of reasons.

With Carr the issue is that for 8M they could get a better player, IMO. They might even get a better player for less than 8M.