Boys 2014 cap situation is a trainwreck

[MichaelWinicki]

Bluefin made an awesome post and I am just paste it for the next 6 or so months while we have to hear this asinine argument over and again. This is not the entirety of his post it has much more to it and if you have not read it, you should.

+1 for any post that uses the word "asinine" in it.

 

[Common Sense]

That was a once in a lifetime event of Aikman getting hurt and then forcing his release. For the other 19 years its just been reading 2000 posts about the sky falling.

Too much guaranteed money for a contract that wasn't played out until the end? That's hardly a once in a lifetime event. You just see what happens when the dead money reaches a critical mass. We'll probably see it again with Romo. Every single year we restructure him, we're creating new guaranteed money to be realized at the end of the contract. Do you really think he's going to last until he's 40? We're talking about creating an extra $10 million guaranteed for the guy just this next year alone. What about the year after that? Another $10 million to sign Dez and Tyron, or to maneuver that year's portion of the extra $28 million created in 2013 on top of the extra $40 million that needs to be created in 2014? It only works until you have to cut these guys, then it's Aikman all over again. Borrowing against Ratliff's contract created a $7 million cap hit for a player whose production still has to be replaced. Then there's going to be Austin's cap hit. Eventually you have to cut ties with Witten and Ware also.

The Cowboys created about $28 million in borrowed money this year, and only $7 million of it hits the cap in 2014. Think about that -- $7 million down, $21 million to go. And we're talking about creating an extra $40 million on top of that! That money doesn't just go away if you love your team enough.

 

[Kaiser]

The Cowboys created about $28 million in borrowed money this year, and only $7 million of it hits the cap in 2014. Think about that -- $7 million down, $21 million to go. And we're talking about creating an extra $40 million on top of that! That money doesn't just go away if you love your team enough.

Aikman was a once in a lifetime event because our highest paid player got hurt in the middle of a big contract, then forced his release to accelerate all the dead money hit into one year. Its only happened once, but sure - if Romo, Ware and Sean Lee all suffer career ending injuries we will take a big cap hit. Not exactly news there.

The reality is that if you want to keep veteran players you have to give them signing bonus money and take the risk of dead money like Ratliff. The alternative to that is letting your veterans leave in FA like some teams do. That is the alternative that the critics never mentioned.

Yes, we will take some cap hit from Miles Austin. We will have dead money from Ratliff. But if you took your previous post word for word three years and substituted the names "WR Roy Williams" and "Marc Columbo" and "Andre Gurode" and "Flozell Adams", it would look exactly like the posts we have seen since the cap was instituted. And three years ago Williams, Columbo, Gurode and Flozell were all moved off the roster and we didn't hit the "Cap Hell" that some posters predict every day.

 

[coult44]

And you couldn't be more wrong. I'll put our guy against anyone at ESPN in a heartbeat. Ask around and anyone will tell you the same thing.

Ok, then ask "your guy" how close to 31million are we over, and if there are any teams as far over as we are?

 

[Zordon]

Broaddus is on twitter claiming it's actually more than 31 million while Mike Fisher seems to have made it his calling to prove that its a non-issue.

 

[big dog cowboy]

Ok, then ask "your guy" how close to 31million are we over, and if there are any teams as far over as we are?

When he chooses to post everyone will know. Until then we wait.

 

[Oh_Canada]

Cowboys over the cap, Cowboys brutal cap management, Cowboys train wreck of an organization...blah....blah..blah...

Every year it's the same story, every year they figure a way to be well below. Maybe not enough to sign any key free agents, but enough to fill a few depth spots.

2015-TV money kicks in, many contracts go away. They'll be fine, free agency is vastly overrated anyhow.

Slowly walk away from the cliff, everything will be alright.

 

[StarBoyz83]

Doesnt look good at all. Well austin will be gone and ratliff is gone and ware needs a huge pay cut. But I dont know how much those 3 will help.

 

[erod]

@AdamSchefter: Dallas now projected to be NFL-high $31 million over salary cap next year. One NFL exec called Dallas' cap situation in 2014 "a train wreck"

There are really people here who think we are fine cap wise....

This is the 10th year in a row they've said this.

Read Mike Fisher. He explains how they can get under the cap very easily.

 

[coult44]

When he chooses to post everyone will know. Until then we wait.

And when he affirms we are close to what was reported, what will a lot around here say???

 

[Cowboys22]

Here's a thought for all the gloom and doomers. Please explain how Dallas would have kept all their free agents and signed Carr without working the cap the way they do? Who should have been let go? Ware, Witten, Romo, Lee, Free, Scandrick, Austin, Hatcher, Church? You can't have them all and stick to the strict cap limit. Who should we not sign going forward? Bryant, Carter, Mo, Smith, Harris, Hatcher, Bailey? What free agents should they not have signed? Carr, Durant, Sims, Waters? Sure there have been some misses in free agency but no team can hit on 100% of anything. You simply cannot have all the players listed above without manipulating the cap the way Dallas has done. The key is managing how many players that you have been restructuring leave the team in a given year. They can easily absorb the dead money from 2 or 3 players each year. How? Because they are basically creating an additional 50%+/- in cap space every year and only 20-25% is used for the dead money situations. Basic math tells us they are coming out way ahead and all it takes to do it is Jerry's money. Then there's another aspect that the gloom and doomers leave out. Every 7 or 8 years, new TV contracts are done and the cap jumps up. When that happens, much of what Dallas is doing can be reset back to near zero. With the latest contract, the jump is supposed to happen in 2015, meaning they only need to get by for one more year and they can reset a lot of this. It is not that hard to do what they are doing and stay ahead of it until the next TV deal comes down the line and lets them reset. The reason other teams are not operating in this fashion is because their owners don't have or are unwilling to fork out the sacks and sacks of cash it takes to do it and many of them let their star players leave in free agency. Dallas' current roster is remarkably free of high priced free agents from other teams. Go look at the roster. Its amazing how many players were drafted by Dallas or signed as rookie/street free agents. To keep them all, you have to do what Dallas has done with the cap. There simply is no other way except letting good players walk.

 

[xwalker]

Meh. Dallas is often projected above the cap but rarely 30 to 40 million above the cap. Just last year it was like $20M, wasn't it? I can't recall many years where they were needing to free up $30M to $40M. They did free a bunch up in 2012 but they also went after Carr and a handful of scrubs.


I disagree. First and foremost, whether or not a team takes advantage of the virtual cap means nothing. You could be borrowing from future years to sign a couple of top free agents and improve your team or you could be borrowing from future years simply so you don't have to cut plays from your team. Some teams may be able to sign top free agents without utilizing the virtual cap. Simply utilizing the virtual cap doesn't say anything other than the team borrowed from the future. Why they utilized the virtual cap is where operating at a disadvantage may come into play.

Of the three, which one is lacking a distinct advantage that the other two are not?

Secondly, I'm having a little difficulty reconciling the differences between the quote above and this quote here:



Above you state that teams who do not borrow from the future are operating at a disadvantage. In the second quote you state that being active in free agency doesn't guarantee anything. I guess I don't see where the disadvantage comes in. You're at a disadvantage if you don't spend future "fake money", but at the same time if you do spend present real money you aren't guaranteed anything at all.

If real money utilization in the form of free agent acquisition cannot give you any sort of decent assurance of improvement, how is there an advantage in spending future fake dollars when you may not even be getting the free agents in the process?

If Dan Snyder proved anything it would be that paying players like they are really good doesn't actually make them really good. He spent a lot of money but only because he highly overpaid guys like Laveraneus Coles, Mark Brunell, Adam Archuletta, etc, etc. Of course if you pay an 18 TD and 11 INT QB $50M in 2004 you're going to be disappointed.

Ultimately Dan Snyder proved that if you suck as a GM, your team will suck too.



I'm not sure why this is an issue. None of the teams are unable to make such moves. It isn't because of a lack of free cash that not all teams restructure to the same extent as Dallas. Can't think of a single team that has been too low on free cash to partake in free agency. Pretty much the same thing except Dallas is partaking by constantly repurchasing the same guys while other teams are bringing players in. Just not really sure where this comes into the equation. If the only money that is paid at the time of the signing is bonus money, there's no difference at all between paying out a signing bonus to a free agent or converting a base salary and paying a similar amount.



There's no interest but there are factors that lead to the accumulation of money that needs to shaved off the cap to get compliant. If there wasn't Dallas wouldn't be at $30 to $40M next year or whatever it is. You certainly don't go from very little restructuring to restructuring 20% of your salary cap. I don't recall a lot of restructuring under Parcells, likely because when he first got here the roster was so deplete of talent worth keeping around longterm but that's a whole other topic. No matter the reason, Dallas started well under $30M and where they are at next year is $30M to $40M.

The very fact that most contracts have increasing cap figures over time kind of necessitates that you have to restructure more with each successive year. If you don't receive significant relief from expiring contracts or by making cuts, what's the alternative. Dallas hasn't had a lot of large contracts expire and most of the significant cuts they have had have carried a bit of dead weight.

I guess Spencer could be considered an expiring contract. Hatcher as well although I'd like the team to bring him back. Even still, $30M to $40M to go?

Tack on to that you'll eventually have a total of 4 restructures added to a single year. Restructures from 2014 will add money to the next four years so if you are restructuring every year, you'll eventually have cap money from 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 added to the 2018 cap.

Given that 80% of the restructured total is spread to the follow following years, if Dallas was restructuring $30-$40M every year they'd eventually have $24M to $32M of restructured money belonging to previous seasons that is added to their current year's cap. They'd be restructuring $30M just to cover the $30M in previously restructured money, leaving no money to sign their own players or sign free agents and they'd need contracts to expire or cut players just to keep their own guys.

Even if Dallas was minimally restructuring, the stagnant cap over the last couple years would allow small additions to accumulate to an amount greater than the cumulative cap increase. From 2012 to 2015 the projected cap was supposed to only increase by a total of $5M. They restructured a bit in 2012, not even sure how much but Brandon Carr's restructure this year would more than double the $1.25M average increase in cap total. Witten restructured to add 900K so between just these two restructuring in 2013, Dallas has all but erased any added cap space for 3 of the 4 seasons in that span.

Not interest but perhaps inflation paired with a near fixed income. Natural inflation in the form of how contracts are generally structured with regard to increasing base salaries over time, and artificial inflation in the form of money added to future years; taken for the wants, and perhaps more appropriately in this team's case, needs of right now.

Thanks for reading the entire post.

You provide some logical questions.

1. Forty million is a number that some message board people were throwing around last season.

2. Having more cap space is an advantage if used properly. Yes, it's always possible that a team could have access to an advantage and not use it properly; however, if you have team X that is a well managed team and generally makes good decisions, then that team has an advantage when it has access to 150% of the salary cap compared to when it only has access to 100% of the salary cap.

3. The point about Free Agents and the Commanders is that the Cowboys are keeping the players that they developed as opposed to trying to sign an excessive number of Free Agents. The Cowboys have been projected to be over the cap for many years, yet they have not lost any of the players that they really wanted to keep. They had cap space to sign a guy like Stephen Bowen, but didn't see him as worth the salary that he received in Free Agency.

4. Dead-money and contracts come off the books every year. Dead-money does not to continue accumulate. There will be new dead-money but old dead-money goes away.

5. The point of my original post is that the projected numbers for 2014 are meaningless. Different teams have different numbers of players under contract for 2014. Some teams have top players that are not under contract and don't show up in the projected numbers. If Romo was a Free Agent, the Cowboys projected salary cap would appear much lower.

6. The 2nd point of my original post is the concept of a virtual salary cap. Teams can operate a rate where the average paid out to players over the years is over 100% of the cap. Yes, there is a limit to this concept; however, what people can't understand is that it never all comes due if they stay within the limit. They can always push money out. Part of the "borrowed" money each year is used to pay dead-money that comes off the cap.

7. There is danger with guaranteed money; however, teams give out guaranteed money now even if they're not trying to max out the cap. Players and agents expect signing bonuses and guarantees. All teams have to deal with this issue. Any team that gives the QB a big contract is probably going to have problems if that QB gets injured. Restructure bonuses appear to be a danger; however, the player was going to have that money guaranteed on game 1 of the season anyway. The team is just giving it to him in the Spring. The only danger is that he has a career ending injury in OTAs or Training Camp.

8. If the Cowboys were really worried about the 2014 cap, they would have kept Ratliff and made him a June 1st cut. They could have deferred over 3M to 2015 if he were a June 1st cut.

Summary: Yes, it's always possible that the Cowboys could have future cap problems; however, it has been predicted for years now and has yet to materialize. It's fairly easy to see that they are not going to have problems in 2014.

I calculated the numbers last year around this time. The actual (not message board) projection was about 24M over the cap based on existing contracts. My spreadsheet showed that they could get far enough under the cap to give Spencer the Franchise Tag and still have money remaining. They did Franchise Spencer and signed Will Allen, Justin Durant and Brian Waters. They also signed all of their draft picks. Kept Free Agents like Costa and Ladouceur.

I think my calculations turned out to be fairly accurate. The primary difference is that I had them cutting Doug Free. Since they kept him at 3.5M, that would come off of my projected number.
http://www.walker-texas.com/old_files/2013-salary-cap-estimate-1.jpg

 

[CyberB0b]

The reality is that if you want to keep veteran players you have to give them signing bonus money and take the risk of dead money like Ratliff. The alternative to that is letting your veterans leave in FA like some teams do. That is the alternative that the critics never mentioned.

Ratliff had 2 more years remaining until we gave him that ridiculous extension. We weren't forced into that one.

 

[Zordon]

@AdamJT13 where are you??? i'm standing on the edge of a cliff b/c of this news. i'll jump if i dont see you post soon.