Cowboys defense for 2015

[big dog cowboy]

we are over the cap already.

Where did you come up with this information?

 

[Bluefin]

we have a boat load of our own veterans and current players to sign as well.

I'd say it's more like a dinghy for the unrestricted free agents.

Dez Bryant - long term deal or Franchise tag.
Rolando McClain - for the right price.
Doug Free or Jermey Parnell.
Dwayne Harris - for the right price.
Justin Durant - for the right price.

Any of the other UFAs should be allowed to walk.

The restricted free agents, Chris Jones (Right of first refusal $1.455M), Sterling Moore (2nd rd $2.405M), Cole Beasley (2nd rd $2.405M)and Lance Dunbar (2nd rd $2.405M) should cost $8.67M (the above tenders reflect the maximum possible 10% increase).

The exclusive rights free agents, Ronald Leary ($0.585K) and Darrion Weems ($0.585K) should cost $1.17M.

The team may try to sign some of these players to multi-year deals instead. Doing so, will keep them around longer and typically lower the 2015 cap hit.

we are over the cap already.

The 2015 salary cap hasn't been established yet.

The top 51 contracts count against the salary cap during the off-season.

The cap commitment shown for 2015 on overthecap.com only shows our cap number next season for players under contract and dead money that will take away cap space.

It doesn't take into account that 51 players aren't under contract yet next year, nor does it count RFAs and EFAs. who will get tendered.

Once you tender the RFAs and EFAs and add some futures contracts to reach 51 players, the Cowboys' initial 2015 cap commitment starts out at $148.5798M.

Don't panic.

The players with the five highest cap numbers next year, Tony Romo ($27.773M, Tyron Smith ($13.039M), Brandon Carr (12.717M), Doug Free ($11.02M) and Henry Melton ($925025M), will all have their numbers adjusted.

Romo and Smith will restructure, creating over $20.235M in cap space.

Carr will be released with the June designation, opening up $7.49M on June 2nd, or forced to take a massive pay cut in order to stay.

Free's contract is set to void automatically, making him a free agent and opening $6.53M on the cap. The team can attempt to re-write Free's deal before it voids but he would have to agree to the terms.

Dallas has a three year option on Henry Melton, he will become a free agent if it isn't exercised prior to the first day of the 2015 league year. Losing Melton will create $7.989M, his contract can also be addressed prior to the void date.

With the 2 restructures and Free and Melton becoming free agents, it would lower the 2015 cap commitment to $113.8258M.

I expect the Cowboys' adjusted 2015 salary cap to exceed $150M, that would mean over $36M in cap space to use on our guys (Dez, Rolando, RT, etc) and in free agency.

And this doesn't include Carr's money ($7.49M) if released, it isn't available until June 2nd. If Carr is offered and accepts a pay cut, the saving would take effect immediately.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Where did you come up with this information?

http://www.spotrac.com/cap-tracker/nfl/2015/

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

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Where did you get the idea that they are currently over the cap? They get an extra 9M from the current projections if they don't pick up Melton's 9M option for 2015. They will have 25M in cap space if they don't keep Melton, Free and Carr. If they restructure 7 contracts that total goes to 50M of cap space and that's simple restructures without adding years to contracts that would further lower the 2015 cap hit.

Only 1 of these will be re-signed. Parnell can get a starting job and doesn't need to sign to be a backup again:
Doug Free
Jeremy Parnell

Hopefully these player are replaced:
- Bruce Carter
- Nick Hayden
- George Selvie
- Anthony Spencer

Only if they are very cheap:
- Justin Durant
- Tyler Clutts

Probably Restricted:
- Sterling Moore
- Cole Beasley
- Lance Dunbar
- Ron Leary
- Lance Dunbar
- Chris Jones

Already signed for 2015:
- Josh Brent

That leaves these players:
- Dez Bryant: Franchise if needed
- Demarco Murray: Probably not huge money if he is re-signed. Probably 5M per max.
- Ronaldo McClain: Probably not going to give him a mega-contract regardless of cap space. Risk of quitting is too high.
- Dwyane Harris: Maybe 2M per.

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

http://www.spotrac.com/cap-tracker/nfl/2015/

 

[xwalker]

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

http://www.spotrac.com/cap-tracker/nfl/2015/

Neither of those show them as over the cap. The conservative estimate for the 2015 cap is 140M. Both of those links show them at around 138M for 2015 and that includes the 9M option for Melton that they probably won't pick up and 8M for Brandon Carr that they won't pay.

Try looking at this page:
http://overthecap.com/calculator/dallas-cowboys/

 

[jterrell]

Neither of those show them as over the cap. The conservative estimate for the 2015 cap is 140M. Both of those links show them at around 138M for 2015 and that includes the 9M option for Melton that they probably won't pick up and 8M for Brandon Carr that they won't pay.

Try looking at this page:
http://overthecap.com/calculator/dallas-cowboys/

While you are technically correct you are neglecting to add any of the guys they'll tender and keep much less the draft class. Those would theoretically push them over.

Dez will be tagged (short term if not all season) if they can't extend him sooner than that. That's the big block of money to deal with.

The Boys will obviously get under the cap with moves but YES they do have a lot of free agents to take care of.
They'll follow the pattern of the last 3-4 years and move money around then take care of their own guys and then have room for a couple of free agents but not a shopping spree.
Anyone who suspects they care going to shop is simply full of wishful thinking.

That calculator is a great tool. Just remind folks that it doesn't handle the concept of time well. --when you tender people, when you restructure, when you tag all matter.

 

[xwalker]

While you are technically correct you are neglecting to add any of the guys they'll tender and keep much less the draft class. Those would theoretically push them over.

Dez will be tagged (short term if not all season) if they can't extend him sooner than that. That's the big block of money to deal with.

The Boys will obviously get under the cap with moves but YES they do have a lot of free agents to take care of.
They'll follow the pattern of the last 3-4 years and move money around then take care of their own guys and then have room for a couple of free agents but not a shopping spree.
Anyone who suspects they care going to shop is simply full of wishful thinking.

That calculator is a great tool. Just remind folks that it doesn't handle the concept of time well. --when you tender people, when you restructure, when you tag all matter.

If Free and Melton are not retained, Carr is a June 1st cut and the top 7 contracts are restructured, they will have 50M of cap space.

 

[jterrell]

I'd say it's more like a dinghy for the unrestricted free agents.

Dez Bryant - long term deal or Franchise tag.
Rolando McClain - for the right price.
Doug Free or Jermey Parnell.
Dwayne Harris - for the right price.
Justin Durant - for the right price.

Any of the other UFAs should be allowed to walk.

The restricted free agents, Chris Jones (Right of first refusal $1.455M), Sterling Moore (2nd rd $2.405M), Cole Beasley (2nd rd $2.405M)and Lance Dunbar (2nd rd $2.405M) should cost $8.67M (the above tenders reflect the maximum possible 10% increase).

The exclusive rights free agents, Ronald Leary ($0.585K) and Darrion Weems ($0.585K) should cost $1.17M.

The team may try to sign some of these players to multi-year deals instead. Doing so, will keep them around longer and typically lower the 2015 cap hit.




The 2015 salary cap hasn't been established yet.

The top 51 contracts count against the salary cap during the off-season.

The cap commitment shown for 2015 on overthecap.com only shows our cap number next season for players under contract and dead money that will take away cap space.

It doesn't take into account that 51 players aren't under contract yet next year, nor does it count RFAs and EFAs. who will get tendered.

Once you tender the RFAs and EFAs and add some futures contracts to reach 51 players, the Cowboys' initial 2015 cap commitment starts out at $148.5798M.

Don't panic.

The players with the five highest cap numbers next year, Tony Romo ($27.773M, Tyron Smith ($13.039M), Brandon Carr (12.717M), Doug Free ($11.02M) and Henry Melton ($925025M), will all have their numbers adjusted.

Romo and Smith will restructure, creating over $20.235M in cap space.

Carr will be released with the June designation, opening up $7.49M on June 2nd, or forced to take a massive pay cut in order to stay.

Free's contract is set to void automatically, making him a free agent and opening $6.53M on the cap. The team can attempt to re-write Free's deal before it voids but he would have to agree to the terms.

Dallas has a three year option on Henry Melton, he will become a free agent if it isn't exercised prior to the first day of the 2015 league year. Losing Melton will create $7.989M, his contract can also be addressed prior to the void date.

With the 2 restructures and Free and Melton becoming free agents, it would lower the 2015 cap commitment to $113.8258M.

I expect the Cowboys' adjusted 2015 salary cap to exceed $150M, that would mean over $36M in cap space to use on our guys (Dez, Rolando, RT, etc) and in free agency.

And this doesn't include Carr's money ($7.49M) if released, it isn't available until June 2nd. If Carr is offered and accepts a pay cut, the saving would take effect immediately.

good post but a few notes.

a better estimate for the cap is 145m.
conservative is 140.
150 is considered possible but the very high end.

Tyron Smith may not not get his contract altered in any way. They do not want to create a situation where he costs 25m later in his career.
I agree with all the other top end restructures however.

I wouldn't be certain of Carr's deal.
Dallas took the hit with Ware last pre-June 1st.
Something will happen with Carr for sure but it's not certain what they'll do.
IF they will guarantee him a couple years at 3m I think he'd take that and stay on a good team.
Hopefully he'd play less snaps but he'd probably earn that 6m over those two seasons.

Your math looks correct but is largely meaningless due to timing.
Dallas will not get down to 113M. Too many guys to tender or tag or re-sign.
They move down then up and maybe down again before up again.
They are in no real threat of being over when it matters, but they will have to work out Dez, Free, Ro and Murray before they even think of looking ta other teams free agents.
It's extremely likely Dez gets tagged at least short term while they negotiate.

The team is pretty well committed to playing young guys and building internally.
FA adds will probably be value looks as they dig out from past over-reliance on yearly restructures.

Sterling Moore can't be tendered like a draft pick. They have to extend him or tag him. He's totally free.
Same with Clutts and Parnell.

Dallas absolutely has a boatload of free agents. They've got 18 guys who've been active for games and played real roles that are free agents. That's 1/3 of the roster.

 

[jterrell]

If Free and Melton are not retained, Carr is a June 1st cut and the top 7 contracts are restructured, they will have 50M of cap space.

except that won't happen so it's pointless.
in that scenario you also lose rights to Dez, Beasley, Leary, Murray.

 

[xwalker]

except that won't happen so it's pointless.
in that scenario you also lose rights to Dez, Beasley, Leary, Murray.

No, part of the 50M is to re-sign those players.

 

[Crown Royal]

good post but a few notes.

a better estimate for the cap is 145m.
conservative is 140.
150 is considered possible but the very high end.

Tyron Smith may not not get his contract altered in any way. They do not want to create a situation where he costs 25m later in his career.
I agree with all the other top end restructures however.

I wouldn't be certain of Carr's deal.
Dallas took the hit with Ware last pre-June 1st.
Something will happen with Carr for sure but it's not certain what they'll do.
IF they will guarantee him a couple years at 3m I think he'd take that and stay on a good team.
Hopefully he'd play less snaps but he'd probably earn that 6m over those two seasons.

Your math looks correct but is largely meaningless due to timing.
Dallas will not get down to 113M. Too many guys to tender or tag or re-sign.
They move down then up and maybe down again before up again.
They are in no real threat of being over when it matters, but they will have to work out Dez, Free, Ro and Murray before they even think of looking ta other teams free agents.
It's extremely likely Dez gets tagged at least short term while they negotiate.

The team is pretty well committed to playing young guys and building internally.
FA adds will probably be value looks as they dig out from past over-reliance on yearly restructures.

Sterling Moore can't be tendered like a draft pick. They have to extend him or tag him. He's totally free.
Same with Clutts and Parnell.

Dallas absolutely has a boatload of free agents. They've got 18 guys who've been active for games and played real roles that are free agents. That's 1/3 of the roster.

I remain concerned that we will finish well this season, Jerry thinks we are close, and goes on a spending spree in the offseason in an attempt to get a superbowl in 2015.

if he does that, our 2016-2018 will be uuuuuugly.

 

[jterrell]

No, part of the 50M is to re-sign those players.

No, it's not. Not unless you made up numbers.
Restructuring those guys and cutting Melton, Carr(June 1st) still puts you over 100M BEFORE tenders.

 

[jterrell]

I remain concerned that we will finish well this season, Jerry thinks we are close, and goes on a spending spree in the offseason in an attempt to get a superbowl in 2015.

if he does that, our 2016-2018 will be uuuuuugly.

Jerry doesn't run the team in that vein anymore. Stephen runs the cap stuff and McClay runs the personnel side.
Jerry breaks ties and has final say.
He doesn't develop our targets or our budget.

End of the day the way to shoot for the moon is to pay Dez and Murray gazlllions and I am not even sure they do that, much less pay other teams guys big money.

The biggest ticket items I could see us getting is Greg Hardy or AP. And those are discount deals based upon serious character risk.

 

[jterrell]

No, part of the 50M is to re-sign those players.

btw, we have this same argument every year. --and three years running they've signed next to no one in free agency.

it is a pet peeve of mine because it makes the board dumber to look at the cap in that light.
those are unrealistic scenarios that do not exist in reality.
it's why we end up with a gazillion posts with 10 top 100 free agent signings to go with the 15 new draft picks we've accumulated through draft trades.

my math is always intentionally conservative because that is how adults deal with budgets.

dallas was more conservative than EITHER of us last year.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Neither of those show them as over the cap. The conservative estimate for the 2015 cap is 140M. Both of those links show them at around 138M for 2015 and that includes the 9M option for Melton that they probably won't pick up and 8M for Brandon Carr that they won't pay.

Try looking at this page:
http://overthecap.com/calculator/dallas-cowboys/

ok. thanks. but still with free, murray, dez, all due for new contracts. and trying to sign another cb ( if carr is let go) and adding another DT....its a tall order. lots of redoing of existing contracts.

 

[xwalker]

No, it's not. Not unless you made up numbers.
Restructuring those guys and cutting Melton, Carr(June 1st) still puts you over 100M BEFORE tenders.

The 2015 Cap Room should show $53,158,678 is you go here and choose these options:
Note: This is based on an NFL cap of 140M which is probably low. The actual cap space will be more with a higher cap limit.

http://overthecap.com/calculator/dallas-cowboys/

Choose restructure for:
Romo
Tyron
Witten
Lee
Scandrick
Bailey
Church

Chose June 1st cut for:
Carr
Free
Melton

 

[jterrell]

ok. thanks. but still with free, murray, dez, all due for new contracts. and trying to sign another cb ( if carr is let go) and adding another DT....its a tall order. lots of redoing of existing contracts.

yes, that is correct.
the off-season will be a challenge.
the better we play the more appealing our guys will be to the rest of the league as well.

dallas will have tough decisions to make on murray and dez and ro mcclain.
they'll have to do something at CB. carr is vastly overrpaid, moore is a FA and they have one year of mo already guaranteed.
free has to be altered in some fashion and he has been playing well enough to draw interest elsewhere.
with the OL as our best group continuity there is desirable.
losing murray plus the RT is rather scary.
our best DE if not DL overall might well be Melton at this point.
durant is a FA and has been lauded at times as being our best backer. he's definitely the most versatile.
bruce carter is often described as our best overall athlete and he looks to be gone by default. but that could hurt as his best football looks to be in front of him.
ron leary almost certainly gets the 2m tender unless they can work out a longer term deal that prevents a full free agency in 2016.
he's been really good and works well with tyron and tfred.
beasley is playing well of late and he's flashed enough to insure he can get work. 2m is a lot for a part-time 3rd WR w/o ST plays but beasley is proving a match up bonanza.

in short, yes, there are a lot of guys we'd like to have back that will cost us money.

 

[xwalker]

btw, we have this same argument every year. --and three years running they've signed next to no one in free agency.

it is a pet peeve of mine because it makes the board dumber to look at the cap in that light.
those are unrealistic scenarios that do not exist in reality.
it's why we end up with a gazillion posts with 10 top 100 free agent signings to go with the 15 new draft picks we've accumulated through draft trades.

my math is always intentionally conservative because that is how adults deal with budgets.

dallas was more conservative than EITHER of us last year.

I didn't say they would sign anybody, just that they could and probably should sign a couple of free agents.

 

[jterrell]

The 2015 Cap Room should show $53,158,678 is you go here and choose these options:
Note: This is based on an NFL cap of 140M which is probably low. The actual cap space will be more with a higher cap limit.

http://overthecap.com/calculator/dallas-cowboys/

Choose restructure for:
Romo
Tyron
Witten
Lee
Scandrick
Bailey
Church

Chose June 1st cut for:
Carr
Free
Melton

that's like saying you'll have a lot of money if you don't make the house payment. please just stop.

 

[jterrell]

I didn't say they would sign anybody, just that they could and probably should sign a couple of free agents.

they can and will sign a couple free agents but they will NEVER make the moves you've described nor ever be 50M under the cap.
in fact they've never been under the cap by 50m in the history of the franchise.

tenders and tags happen on certain days(PRIOR to the season starting) that prevent Dallas from ever hitting huge cap availability.

they will restructure a few vets but likely not down to the vet minimum. Romo was restructured last year down to 1m and he is the one guy they will do for sure.
they could add a couple guys but it won't be all of them.

if they do anything with Scandrick it will involve paying him more money. Not handing him 600K to lower the cap hit....