Cowboys have $147M in 2014 cap commitments. At least $20M over projected cap already.

[hornitosmonster]

Seriously? You're worried about the cap. LOL

Cowboys fans...LOL

 

[T-RO]

Seriously? You're worried about the cap. LOL

Cowboys fans...LOL

Running a franchise the right way...All a big joke huh?

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Exactly right. All teams can restructure and shift money to be cap compliant. That's not some shrewd cap management. They have to. It's not an option.

The bottom line is the Cowboys have been a bad to mediocre team for nearly 20 years now and rarely have cap space to make major changes. That's just bad management. Which is why little Stevey gets so testy when you question him on it.

Putting unbased qualifications such as 'have to' etc contributes nothing. They planned for it to be like this and the Cowboys are not in a precarious cap position where they will be unable to sign players or release quality players. Quite the contrary as evidenced by Lee's new deal.

That is the work of Stephen Jones.

And he doesn't get testy. He laughs at you with derision.

That you use not being able to be players in free agency --although they have been in many years-- makes me laugh at you. Draft well and sign your own guys like Lee, Bryant, Smith etc is the way to go in my book. We will be able to do that.

 

[InmanRoshi]

I still can't believe after all these years people still get panties in a wad over these utterly meaningless numbers.

These are probably the same rocket scientists who were wanting to run DeMarco Murray out of town all week and would have spent a 1st round draft pick on Trent Richardson. DeMarco career 4.7 ypc = He sucks!! Get this bum out of here. Trent Richardson career 3.5 ypc = We should have traded a 1st rounder for him !!

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Running a franchise the right way...All a big joke huh?

No, the joke is how you are looking at the numbers with ignorance.

 

[Kaiser]

For the people saying the Cowboys approach to the cap is ruining the team, in order to run the team the "right way" without dead money you would have to have let several veterans walk without resigning them. That overthecap.com article lists the top six "potential dead money" players (meaning they got a signing bonus to stay with Dallas) as Romo, Ware, Witten, Austin, Free and Ratliff. To run the team "correctly" without dead money you would have had to let three of those six walk in free agency without resigning them.

I'll give you Ratliff as a bad contract. Which other two of Romo, Ware, Witten, Austin and Free would you have let walk? And who would you have replaced them with?

 

[Jetsfan]

The article it references at overthecap.com is moronic. It lists the top six Dallas salaries starting with Witten, DWare and Romo and follows it with this sentence:
"The 6 players listed directly above account for 48.3% of all potential dead money on the Cowboys cap in 2014."

In other words, actually paying future Hall of Famers like DeMarcus Ware is "potential dead money". The article starts with this:

"Dead money refers to how much money a player will cost a team on the salary cap if the team cuts ties with that player (or in some cases, trades that player)."

Shortly before saying this:

"Safe to say these players aren’t going anywhere this year, so their dead money totals as of right now are an afterthought."

In other words, they have an axe to grind and are hoping other ax-grinders link to their web site without paying a lot of attention to the numbers.

Since I am the moron who wrote this I'll clarify. The reason I mention dead money in regards to the Cowboys players is because you are looking at the large amount of cap dollars already invested in players who are over 30 years old. These are the players who often fall off a cliff at some time. The lines you are are also discussing are backwards. I mention the totals in 2013 as an afterthought because clearly they were not going anywhere in 2013. In 2014 when the players may or may not be an afterthought, its important to see where the dead money is locked up. The team is overly invested based on age on a handful of players. If they all continue to play well its no problem. If they fail to play well its an issue because the team is stuck. Dead money for Free and Ratliff and potentially Austin is a concern at that point as you can begin to have roster slots decided by cap rather than play.

As for the comment about Free he restructured his contract for 2013 and took a pay cut on the year. That pay cut did nothing to change all the money the Cowboys had previously invested in him in his prorated bonuses. His dead money next season is $7 million. He received a signing bonus in 2011 and they restructured his deal with more bonus money in 2012 for cap relief. His $3.5 million base salary in 2014 fully guarantees at the start of the new League year, IIRC the 5th day.

 

[Kaiser]

The team is overly invested based on age on a handful of players.

You are right, I mixed the years so I apologize for the word moronic though I still completely disagree with the premise. On Free the number I found was 3 MM, I'll stand corrected if that number is wrong.

To your premise, the team has money tied up in those six players. Are they "overly" invested? When those six are three Hall of Fame players, two others that signed long term deals after Pro Bowl seasons and one that played close to that level at a critical position like LOT? Ratliff looks like a bad contract but at the time he signed that deal he was a Pro Bowl player that had always been a model teammate. It doesn't always work out (and in Rat's it obviously didn't) but the alternative is to become what the Cardinals were until a few years ago.

So I'll ask the question I asked above - what are the alternatives? Let three Hall of Fame players in Ware, Witten and Romo leave as Free Agents because someone drew an arbitrary line at the age of 30?

 

[Kaiser]

BTW, another point is that you list Free and Austin as two of the players the team has "overly invested in" because they will be 30 next year. Free will probably be gone next year or have earned his slotted salary by his play this season (which is possible based on the first three games) and Austin will very likely restructure.

So you list 6 players as problems for 2014 - three are Hall of Famers, one is Ratliff and the other two will either be off the team or on a different contract by then.

 

[jrumann59]

For the chicken littles we were over the cap before this year started. Now we are a little over 2 mill under.

 

[Hoofbite]

Romo will definitely restructure.

Ratliff is a goner and Austin may be too.

It would be unwise to restructure Romo next offseason if only because it would mean that Dallas would almost certainly have to do so again the following offseason because 2015 is when his cap hit maxes at $25M. If you restructure 2014, you raise 2015 up and it is already 4M above 2014.

I think 2015 is the year they restructure him just based on his base salary getting cut in half when going from 2015 to 2016.

 

[Cebrin]

They'll restructure and get under the cap. The only way you should ever concern yourself about being excessively under is if your team flat out stinks. The big bucks spent go to veteran, proven free agents. I just don't see enough holes in our team right now to waste big money on a veteran and we rarely do. It's just a better investment to spend it on those who are invested in your franchise and those who are the future of your franchise.

 

[ufcrules1]

My question is why keep restructuring and pushing back money on a 8-8 team that has not won anything... that's throwing good money on bad.

Bingo.. and we keep doing that with a proven group of losers. We will continue to do it until the players are just about worthless. Think Felix, Sensablo, Ogletree, Barber, R. Williams, Spears, Jenkins, and many others. We let them all hand around too long.

 

[Jerryrage]

They will figure something out, they do every year.

 

[Smith22]

2014 base salary:

T. Romo $13.50 million
D. Ware $12.25 million
B. Carr is $ 7.5 million
S. Lee $ 5.5 million
J. Witten $ 5.0 million


They can cut Durant and Costa and save 2.75 million.

You have roughly $36 million you can prorate if you wish by reducing Romo, Ware, Carr, Lee and Witten to $1 million base salaries.

 

[Common Sense]

The ultimate irony is that you all probably think salary caps don't matter, but national deficits do. Math is math, people.

 

[T-RO]

No, the joke is how you are looking at the numbers with ignorance.

You've got a nice little tent there by the river DNile. Let's watch you and your analysis fold up and drift hopelessly down river when we lack the funds to extend our ONLY good d-lineman. Hatcher will be gone this offseason...and we'll be incapacitated to address any roster needs through free agency.

 

[Idgit]

How many players do we have under contract? How does that compare to how many other teams have under contract? How many years of players salaries do we have under contract? How does that compare to how many years of player salaries other teams have under contract? How many club-options are written into existing Cowboys' contracts? Totalling how much? How many key players are potentially exposed to loss via VFA? How does that number compare to other teams?

How much of the total cap do we typically use each year as a percentage of the total available? How much do other teams tend to use? Is some of that 'dead money' just a function of using more of the unused space than other teams use?

There are so many factors that go into managing the cap. There's zero point in looking at a snapshot of what the 2014 season looks like in October of 2013 when there are literally tens of millions of potentially cap-mitigating decisions that have yet to be made and that may or may not ever materialize.

This is nothing more than yet another exercise of people complaining about things they have only a tenuous understanding of to begin with. You don't even know what you don't know. There's little point in being disappointed in what you're guessing might happen.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You've got a nice little tent there by the river DNile. Let's watch you and your analysis fold up and drift hopelessly down river when we lack the funds to extend our ONLY good d-lineman. Hatcher will be gone this offseason...and we'll be incapacitated to address any roster needs through free agency.

The main concern we have going forward is the albatross that is Ware's contract. His cap figure is enormous. Restructuring him is a double edged sword because of how short his deal is now.

Restructuring Carr and Romo I think gets us under the cap and we have made most of our cuts so as to eat the cost quickly. Hatcher would need to be a 3 or 4 year deal and we have bigger priorities like Smith and bryant, but this notion that he is gone being a foregone conclusion is the same nonsense about how we wouldn't be able to make a large offer to anyone and then we signed Carr and Lee.

You don't make a well thought out case here. You call me deluded but offer no reason as to why. It's not as if it is some revelation that Ratliff was a probable cap casualty.

 

[Hoofbite]

2014 base salary:

T. Romo $13.50 million
D. Ware $12.25 million
B. Carr is $ 7.5 million
S. Lee $ 5.5 million
J. Witten $ 5.0 million

They can cut Durant and Costa and save 2.75 million.

You have roughly $36 million you can prorate if you wish by reducing Romo, Ware, Carr, Lee and Witten to $1 million base salaries.

I think it would be unwise to restructure anyone on that list. Before looking at Lee's contract I was thinking he might be the only one simply because he's young, very good, and will likely play up to the level that a restructured contract would put him at. The rest are already being paid a lot, restructuring increases that, and three of them are getting up in age.

Lee:

Having looked at his contract, I wouldn't touch it at all. You'd be foolish to do so because it's set up very nicely. This is what spotract has listed so not sure of all the numbers. I've seen a couple mistakes before, have emailed them about a couple and the guy who replied was really cool and appreciative.​

Cap Hits (Dead Money If Cut Prior To Listed Season)

2014: $7.5M ($13.5M)
2015: $4.5M ($6M)
2016: $5.0M ($4M)
2017: $9.0M ($2M)
2018: $7.0M (None)
2019: $7.0M (None)​

His cap hit peaks at $9.0M in 2017. After that year, his cap hit declines and Dallas would have ZERO dead money if they felt the needed to move on from him. Restructuring down to $1M would spread an additional 900K to each of the 4 seasons following 2014. Pretty sure that you can only spread guarantees across 5 years. Also, you're delaying the time to a break even point in terms of cap relief outweighing the dead money that is generated by cutting him if it were ever to come to that.

As it stands Dallas will be getting a great deal for the years of 2015 and 2016, and we may be able to say the same for the years of 2018 and 2019 by the time they roll around. The high base salary in 2017 when compared to the others looks like they may restructure the contract at that point.​

Romo:

Restructuring Romo in 2014 almost necessitates an additional restructure in 2015 because his 2015 cap hit would be close to 28M after the first restructure. His cap hit for 2014 is going to be like $21M and if the cap situation requires that it be restructured it's pretty unrealistic to think that an additional 6M wouldn't have to be restructured the following year. With some of the contracts that are on the horizon in Tyron and Dez, I'm not sure the team can take that $28M cap figure.

I think 2015 is the year that was slated to be restructured because his total cap figure is the highest of the entire contract. Additionally, his base in 2016 is well lower than the years before and after and they could allocate more to that season than the others.​

Ware:

Right now Dallas can cut him after this season and only have $9.5M in dead money (spotract has $8.5M but that's not what you get when you total the misc. bonuses). Assuming equal proration of the restructured money that it would take to get down to a $1M base, they'd have to hold onto him until after the 2015 season in order to have a similar amount of dead money. Restructuring him for the past 3 seasons is what has put them in the position to likely need to restructure him again after this year. A cap hit equal to his base salary is not that bad for the type of player he is when healthy. A cap hit of $16M is pretty high but would still be acceptable for a healthy Ware. The big problem with Ware's contract is that he has been getting slowed down for the last couple years. A slowed down Ware is not worth $16M.

Furthermore seeing how his 2015 cap hit is higher than his 2014 cap hit, he'd probably have to restructure again in 2015, thus delaying the point in time where they can cut him for the same amount of dead money that they would be responsible for if they were to cut him after this year.

My point isn't that I think they should cut him. That'd be dumb. I think they need to let him play on his current contract because if he continues to decline they will NEED to cut him. Or I guess they could go ask for one of the best players they've ever had to take a pay cut. If he continues to get banged up and is limited by injuries they cannot justify his cap hits after restructuring yet again. Restructuring in 2014 would push his cap hit in 2015 to like $20M. That's just too high.

If Ware restructures after this year and goes down hill, Dallas would have $14.8M in dead space for 2015 (or split it, whatever). If they don't restructure, Dallas would have $5.8M in dead money if they were forced to make a move with Ware after 2014.
​

Witten:

Witten is already one of the highest cap hits for TEs in the NFL. If they restructure him down to $1M in 2014, it will push his cap number up to $9.5M.

(In case anyone has followed along, that would be $28M for Romo, $20M for Ware, and $9.5M for Witten after restructuring. That's almost half the salary cap. Even without restructuring their contracts they are scheduled to account for $51M, which is about $3.5M less than the scheduled 2015 cap numbers for Aaron Rodgers, Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson combined).
​

Carr:

He too is already slotted to have one of the highest Cap numbers for DBs. 3rd highest for 2014, 2nd highest for 2015, and 2nd highest for 2016. As it currently stands it doesn't look like Dallas can cut him before 2016 to get any sort of cap space. In 2016, they'll simply break even. If they restructure him in 2014 it likely creates a scenario where they'd get minimal cap space by cutting him even after 2016. He also has a "player option" listed on spotrac and I don't know how that works out. If you spread cap money to that year and he opts out, I guess you still take the hit? That would suck.


​