Twitter: Good article breaking down the Cowboys 2021 cap issues

[jterrell]

Kyle misses the obvious....
Dallas will restructure vets with large base salaries to free up massive amounts of cap space.
.
2021 Cap hits:
DLaw 25M : after restructure: 15M MAX more likely ~12M
Amaro Cooper 20M : after restructure 8.5M

So with 2 moves you have freed up 25M.
AND all this money was ALREADY Guaranteed. --meaning this costs you zero in additional money.

Can save about 8M on Zack Martin, 5-6M on Zeke.
So near 40M on 4 players with their own already guaranteed money.

Then you get into stickier areas like Tyron Smith. Or Jaylon Smith.
Guys who have seemingly shorter shelf lives.
But again quite easy to drop their cap hit.

Dallas can free up 75M in cap space in restructures.
They won't but they could and it is very likely they free up 40-55M.
And they can simply pay a larger yearly hit on Dak even after restructure if so desired to balance this money versus future caps.

Dallas was way ahead of the game in cap mgmt.
They had been cheap as dirt and paid as they went.
Now they can pull those levers and use the rainy day money during a pandemic cap.

Bottom line: Dallas does NOT have any real cap issues.
They won't be blowing and going in free agency but they NEVER do.

 

[Typhus]

I said this in another thread and Rockport yelled at me

ya that happens a lot in this forum, and the sad thing is that its supported by popular opinion.
Cattle that follow the bull.

 

[MaineBoy]

What a loser front office; they cheap out on free agency every year because they can’t afford the good ones and now the cap is still screwed because of overpaying on the big contracts to the wrong players. You almost have to work at being that incompetent.

 

[Sydla]

Kyle misses the obvious....
Dallas will restructure vets with large base salaries to free up massive amounts of cap space.
.
2021 Cap hits:
DLaw 25M : after restructure: 15M MAX more likely ~12M
Amaro Cooper 20M : after restructure 8.5M

So with 2 moves you have freed up 25M.
AND all this money was ALREADY Guaranteed. --meaning this costs you zero in additional money.

Can save about 8M on Zack Martin, 5-6M on Zeke.
So near 40M on 4 players with their own already guaranteed money.

Then you get into stickier areas like Tyron Smith. Or Jaylon Smith.
Guys who have seemingly shorter shelf lives.
But again quite easy to drop their cap hit.

Dallas can free up 75M in cap space in restructures.
They won't but they could and it is very likely they free up 40-55M.
And they can simply pay a larger yearly hit on Dak even after restructure if so desired to balance this money versus future caps.

Dallas was way ahead of the game in cap mgmt.
They had been cheap as dirt and paid as they went.
Now they can pull those levers and use the rainy day money during a pandemic cap.

Bottom line: Dallas does NOT have any real cap issues.
They won't be blowing and going in free agency but they NEVER do.

And if they do that, they kill their cap down the road most likely.

Which is why most teams don't go on flurries of restructuring contracts. Despite what people keep saying, yes, eventually when you restructure the bill comes due. The one reason we even had decent cap space the last couple of years was because we tried to stay away from restructures.

Again, look at Philly. They played the restructure game for a few years and now they are in a real bind.

 

[JeffInDC]

Kyle misses the obvious....
Dallas will restructure vets with large base salaries to free up massive amounts of cap space.
.
2021 Cap hits:
DLaw 25M : after restructure: 15M MAX more likely ~12M
Amaro Cooper 20M : after restructure 8.5M

So with 2 moves you have freed up 25M.
AND all this money was ALREADY Guaranteed. --meaning this costs you zero in additional money.

Can save about 8M on Zack Martin, 5-6M on Zeke.
So near 40M on 4 players with their own already guaranteed money.

Then you get into stickier areas like Tyron Smith. Or Jaylon Smith.
Guys who have seemingly shorter shelf lives.
But again quite easy to drop their cap hit.

Dallas can free up 75M in cap space in restructures.
They won't but they could and it is very likely they free up 40-55M.
And they can simply pay a larger yearly hit on Dak even after restructure if so desired to balance this money versus future caps.

Dallas was way ahead of the game in cap mgmt.
They had been cheap as dirt and paid as they went.
Now they can pull those levers and use the rainy day money during a pandemic cap.

Bottom line: Dallas does NOT have any real cap issues.
They won't be blowing and going in free agency but they NEVER do.

Are you including the carryover remaining from THIS year? According to Over The Cap, they have $27M+ right now that would go towards next year's Cap.

 

[Sydla]

The Chiefs have given how many Max contacts this offseason? The NFL is becoming more like the NBA. IF (big IF) your stars stay healthy and at peak performance you’re fine.

Some offseasons will be leaner than others. No you can’t just add anyone you want to. But you can field competitive teams, you just lose a margin of error by not having great depth and are relying on the stars to carry you through.

Because the Chiefs see their window right now. It's a risk reward situation.

Philly did the same thing and now have to pay the bill. The Chiefs are eventually going to have to pay the bill for their restructures. Cap hits don't magically disappear into thin air. They get moved to future but always come due at some point.

Look, I am not saying we should stay away from all restructures. But if people think it's OK we are going to be tight up against the cap in 2021 because we can just start restructuring, they should note that there is a clear downside to this.

This team simply will not be active in FA, in part, because they won't have the space and know the downside to touching a bunch of contracts.

 

[Creeper]

I am not blaming Jerry for not signing Dak to a long term contract after the 2019 season. While Dak looked great early, he did not look like a $35 million QB for a bunch of games the second half of the season, especially the Eagles game for the division title. I also understand the Cowboys reluctance to sign Dak to a 4 year deal. Why would they want to come back to this problem again in 3 or 4 years? I think they would rather sign Dak long term.

I would hate to let Dak go, but I would hate to forego rebuilding this defense because they have no CAP space left to pay defensive players. If they have to franchise him again, it destroys their CAP structure. This is the only reason I would think about letting Dak go to free agency and drafting a QB. But beating Minnesota means they probably will not be in the running for a QB. If they are going to tank, then the Bengals game would be the time to do it. Giving Zeke $90 million, Lawrence $105 million and Jaylon Smith $68 million was a big mistake. Before signing any of those guys they should have locked up their QB. Guys like Zeke and Jaylon are expendable. Jerry mistook Zeke for Emmitt and himself for a good judge of talent.

I will say this about Lawrence. He has come on in recent games and he suffers from a severe lack of talent inside. If the Cowboys had a legit inside pass rushing threat, Lawrence would get more sacks and pressures. But even so, he is not worth $21 million a year and he never should have gotten that kind of gift from Jerry.

They can avoid the big problem by signing Dak to a long term deal, making it CAP friendly for 2021. Then they can dump Zeke in 2021 and Jaylon Smith in 2022. They have the picks to draft replacement for both of these guys in the 2021 draft.

 

[jterrell]

Are you including the carryover remaining from THIS year? According to Over The Cap, they have $27M+ right now that would go towards next year's Cap.

Nope. Didn't even need to.
New projected cap of 190M makes this all easy for Dallas.
They'd obviously prefer to extend Dak and not have to eat a cap tag of 37.7M but it isn't dire straits.
But the flips for Cooper and DLaw were built-in.
That was already GTD money they just need to move to bonus to free up 25M.
They show to be 25M or so under right now and in 8th best cap situation for4 2021. Add 25M and you have 50M. That's enough to do what you need to.
If you do extend Dak you become flush with cap cash and able to cherry pick the market place.
If not you'll reply on some draftees but you were going to do that anyway in all likelihood.
The only person who might "get away" is XWoods.

Reality is Dallas enters in the 4th or 5th cap space if you count only the super obvious already scheduled restructures.
After Dak tag and restructures they are more like mid-league.

But media people don't get clicks/retweets telling you this is all fairly boring normal stuff.

 

[jterrell]

I am not blaming Jerry for not signing Dak to a long term contract after the 2019 season. While Dak looked great early, he did not look like a $35 million QB for a bunch of games the second half of the season, especially the Eagles game for the division title. I also understand the Cowboys reluctance to sign Dak to a 4 year deal. Why would they want to come back to this problem again in 3 or 4 years? I think they would rather sign Dak long term.

I would hate to let Dak go, but I would hate to forego rebuilding this defense because they have no CAP space left to pay defensive players. If they have to franchise him again, it destroys their CAP structure. This is the only reason I would think about letting Dak go to free agency and drafting a QB. But beating Minnesota means they probably will not be in the running for a QB. If they are going to tank, then the Bengals game would be the time to do it. Giving Zeke $90 million, Lawrence $105 million and Jaylon Smith $68 million was a big mistake. Before signing any of those guys they should have locked up their QB. Guys like Zeke and Jaylon are expendable. Jerry mistook Zeke for Emmitt and himself for a good judge of talent.

I will say this about Lawrence. He has come on in recent games and he suffers from a severe lack of talent inside. If the Cowboys had a legit inside pass rushing threat, Lawrence would get more sacks and pressures. But even so, he is not worth $21 million a year and he never should have gotten that kind of gift from Jerry.

They can avoid the big problem by signing Dak to a long term deal, making it CAP friendly for 2021. Then they can dump Zeke in 2021 and Jaylon Smith in 2022. They have the picks to draft replacement for both of these guys in the 2021 draft.

Dak was injured in that 2nd Eagles game.
Everyone should blame Stephen because it was very bad business to wait.
After a couple games with Cooper it was clear.
A couple after Kitna was brought in, it was uber clear.
If you did want to defend him, using Dak's play isn't the answer because that makes him look stupid.
You could point to how bad the Goff and Wentz contracts look in hindsight.
Unfortunately, Dallas won't get off that cheaply now.
It was a massive mistake not to extend him and that's been the consensus opinion around the league outside of Dallas.

Even if YOU don't wanna pay him YOU sign him and then trade him later.
You don't burn all your leverage then be forced to eat massive salaries while gaining zero control.

 

[CowboysRule]

It all comes down to Dak. If you go into negotiate and he is still wanting +$35M/yr on a now 3 year deal then we can slap the non-exclusive tag on him, let him test the market, see the offers he comes back with and if someone wants to overpay him I'll take the picks. If we don't wind up with a top 2 pick in the draft (which it is looking like we won't) then we can trade back, acquire tons o' picks and rebuild the defense. Sure, we'd have a bunch of rookies but they'd be high pedigree rookies and probably better than a lot of the crap we have out there now.

 

[Kingofholland]

I'm not as worried as some other teams should be with the cap situation. Less money in 2021 means less money for players so contract values should theoretically go down. Regardless the Cowboys will have cap flexibility and can restruture some contracts. I just wouldn't expect them to be active outside of resigning a player or two and some depth guys.

In regards to Dak they would carry a big contract no matter if he signed last year or this off season. The Cowboys would likely be above the cap and need to restructure contracts if he already signed anyway. The question I have is if Dak's value actually went up considering the injury? Would any team hand over a huge contract with guaranteed money to a player coming off a major injury? Regardless there are many ways to structure a contract, Dak may have a lower 2021 cap figure with accelerators in future years.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Most teams will

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/dallas-cowboys-cap-space-issues-2021-dak

LACK OF CAP FLEXIBILITY A MAJOR DILEMMA FOR COWBOYS
BY: KYLE CRABBS DECEMBER 8TH, 2020 THE DRAFT NETWORK

Couple of things.

First there is no context. We're trying be $20m under the projected lower cap. I'm betting that we will have amongst the highest available space. I keep on saying this but we don't have to beat mythical ideal we only have to do better than our opponents.

second $20 million in space should be more than enough to sign him to a long-term deal. Further because every team is going to be dealing with the restricted cap and have less cap space than us then there is not going to be that much demand meaning that DAC is not likely going to be able to leverage the market for a huge deal.

Now this is not to say that he's going to sign for peanuts but we should be able to sign him to a reasonable deal given the market conditions and I don't need to explain how the first year in deals isn't the full amount so we should be able to fit him easily.

Then of course there's this assumption that the NFL is going to allow the reduced cap. of course these are ultra competitive owners and none of them are going to want to have to have a fire sale because of forces outside of their control with this virus.

If the cap isn't reduced or is at allowed to scale borrowing from future years then this whole article is assumptions are completely off.

it's typical Doom casting assuming the worst and not comparing it to anyone else seeing that they are just as bad as situation is us.

it gets old but what gets even older is watching so many people eat up the same narrative over and over and over again.

 

[G2]

I'll wait until the cap isn't projected.

 

[Hawkeye0202]

Most teams will


Couple of things.

First there is no context. We're trying be $20m under the projected lower cap. I'm betting that we will have amongst the highest available space. I keep on saying this but we don't have to beat mythical ideal we only have to do better than our opponents.

second $20 million in space should be more than enough to sign him to a long-term deal. Further because every team is going to be dealing with the restricted cap and have less cap space than us then there is not going to be that much demand meaning that DAC is not likely going to be able to leverage the market for a huge deal.

Now this is not to say that he's going to sign for peanuts but we should be able to sign him to a reasonable deal given the market conditions and I don't need to explain how the first year in deals isn't the full amount so we should be able to fit him easily.

Then of course there's this assumption that the NFL is going to allow the reduced cap. of course these are ultra competitive owners and none of them are going to want to have to have a fire sale because of forces outside of their control with this virus.

If the cap isn't reduced or is at allowed to scale borrowing from future years then this whole article is assumptions are completely off.

it's typical Doom casting assuming the worst and not comparing it to anyone else seeing that they are just as bad as situation is us.

it gets old but what gets even older is watching so many people eat up the same narrative over and over and over again.

This is one of two options I've heard/read and the other one, just recently, is that the league may the current cap amount ($190M ) intact with no reductions.

 

[kumizi]

cliffs: they better get 3 defensive starters in the draft or they're screwed

That's why everyone that wants to draft Penei Sewell needs to be put in timeout.

 

[Cowboyny]

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/dallas-cowboys-cap-space-issues-2021-dak

LACK OF CAP FLEXIBILITY A MAJOR DILEMMA FOR COWBOYS
BY: KYLE CRABBS DECEMBER 8TH, 2020 THE DRAFT NETWORK

When you have a chance, look at all the money they can create after next season. This tells me they are fine with the cap. They can backload deals or restructure contracts to have necessary room.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/dallas-cowboys-cap-space-issues-2021-dak

LACK OF CAP FLEXIBILITY A MAJOR DILEMMA FOR COWBOYS
BY: KYLE CRABBS DECEMBER 8TH, 2020 THE DRAFT NETWORK

this is on jones and jones. they screwed up.

and I would assume dallas is not the only team in this perdicament. there maybe plenty of good veterans on the street come 2021 offseason.....

how does the cowboys cap and situation rank compare to other teams.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Unfortunately, the best strategy for the Boys is to let Dak play elsewhere. They have too many bad contracts and restructuring will continue to hamper them.

Both Jerry and Dak blew it in not agreeing to terms in the past.

You mean the dumbest strategy.

Dak will be signed long term this offseason and you can cry yourself to sleep every night when it happens.

 

[leeblair]

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/dallas-cowboys-cap-space-issues-2021-dak

LACK OF CAP FLEXIBILITY A MAJOR DILEMMA FOR COWBOYS
BY: KYLE CRABBS DECEMBER 8TH, 2020 THE DRAFT NETWORK

The Cowboys cannot afford to bet the farm on Dak.
You cannot blow out the salary cap ceiling unless you know it will yield results.
Dak hasn't shown that he can lead the Cowboys anywhere past being the best .500 team in the NFL.
It's time to move on.

 

[Sydla]

When you have a chance, look at all the money they can create after next season. This tells me they are fine with the cap. They can backload deals or restructure contracts to have necessary room.

No one says they can't. The problem is that people act like restructures and backloaded contracts make cap hits just disappear. They don't. At some point, you have to pay the piper for those kinds of moves. It's why the Eagles are FUBAR'd this offseason. They banked on a few years of a run here from 2017 until now, backloaded and restructured a bunch of guys and now they are staring at maybe being anywhere from $45 to $65 million over the cap next year. The Saints? They could be as much as $95 million over the cap in 2021.