The act of restructuring does not prevent you from cutting a player (as if that's ever actually true).
Restructuring absolutely increases the dead money total that comes due if the player isn't living up to expectations and is cut early. There's a point in the contract where cutting a guy yields benefit, restructuring delays that point.
If we're going to speak in absolute terms then no you could always find a way to cut someone if you wanted. Going that route though you might as well say that no amount of dead money is too high. That's ridiculous.
As I've been saying, any money you pay a player will be charged against the cap, it's just a question of when.
I realize that. In fact I have been bringing up that very point. When do you want to take a huge cap hit for a player? When he's 26 and in likely in his prime or when he's 30 and age is starting to catch up?
When would you rather take $16M in cap charges for DeMarcus Ware? 2014 after coming off a down season or any year prior to 2013, and particularly prior to 2012? 19.5 sacks in 2011 is a lot closer to being worth $16M than what you would expect his production to be next year but in 2011 his cap charge was under $7M. Now Dallas is in a position where they have to make a decision on the guy because they cannot justify his cap number if he isn't going to give you awesome numbers.
Had we not restructured Carr last year, his cap number for 2013 would have been $16.3 million -- almost $11 million more than what it was after restructuring. And had we'd still have $6 million in dead money for 2014 by cutting him now. So our total charges for 2013-2014 would be $22.3 million. Instead, we restructured him and took a hit of $5.432 million last year and would have $16.868 million in dead money if we cut him right now. That's a total of $22.3 million -- the same amount, with the only difference being when it gets charged against the cap.
Brandon Carr's contract was written with intent to restructure so you can't reasonably use an example that includes "had we not".
Secondly, of course it's going to be the same amount because the structure of it doesn't change. Beyond that, they guaranteed those first 2 years which means its guaranteed no matter what you do with it and you actually have to get beyond the guaranteed portion to see any sort of difference. FWIW, I believe the number would be $25.5M but it doesn't really matter.
But had they not planned to restructure they could have given him base salaries of $7.5M, $8M, $5M, $9M, $10M. He gets the same amount guaranteed and if he's cut the season after the guarantees run out, Dallas comes out with less cap charges than he's currently slotted for. If he plays 1 more season without restructuring and is cut, total cap charge is $33M. That's $2.5M more than had they structured it as I had.
Furthermore, his current cap charge for 2014 is $12.2M whereas not planning on restructuring in the example above is $7M and his cap hit would remain lower through the rest of the contract which means that even if his performance were to slide a bit because of age the team isn't in a DeMarcus Ware situation with Brandon Carr.
So the question is, would you rather have cap room sooner or later (in this case, 2013 or 2014)? I'd always rather have it sooner because then I can use it if I need it, and it represents a larger percentage of the cap (for example, Carr's $22.3 million in total charges for 2013-14 if cut now would represent an average of 9 percent of the cap with no restructuring but only 8.89 percent of the cap with restructuring). If I don't end up using that cap room, I can push it forward.
In an ideal world you may have the cap space but that's not the position Dallas has been in. They've been making room out of necessity.
Also, having the space "now" doesn't just carry on forever. If you pull $3M from the next 4 seasons, you're short of the set cap $3M for the next 4 seasons. In order to always have more "now" you have to constantly keep creating more room with each subsequent year.
Year 1: Free up $8M by converting $10M in base salaries. $2M deducted from next 4 years.
Year 2: Now what? Free up how much? Anything less than $2M means "less now" at this point in time.
Even in an ideal world what's the advantage? Just to have it? Even if you rolled it over you're gambling. You're betting that age and injury won't impact performance. You're assuming that your player will be worth that inflated cap figure. Brandon Carr is currently slotted as #3 highest cap hit for CBs for 2014 and #2 for 2015. Does his current play justify that? Will his play justify that in 2 years?
That's what it comes down to. You can take bigger caps hits when players are younger and more likely to justify them, or you can take bigger cap hits when players are older and have accumulated wear, tear, and time.
Throw in the fact that many older players who are still productive sign for a hell of a lot less than what a younger and equally productive player would sign for and you're basically just watching the value of your cap dollar plummet.
There's no reason to add cap dollars to future years if you aren't actually spending it and there's rarely enough talent in the free agent pool to even acquire.
That in itself leads into a another discussion all together that people have had on this very forum. The general opinion, IIRC, is that you can't buy a championship. Is that not what you would be trying to do by restructuring to "use" the money now?
