Kaiser Rolls out his 12 Step Program

[Kaiser]

My 12 Step Program for the first three months of this offseason:


1. Do the automatic restructures in the contracts of Frederick and Tyron Smith – Creates 17 Million in cap room

2. Extend Witten and convert Sean Lee’s salary to a signing bonus – Creates 10 Million in cap room

3. Trade Romo for a 2017 Pick and a conditional 2018 Pick (Yes, the return will be higher than most people here expect) – Creates 5 Million in cap room

4. Cut Doug Free and Alfred Morris – Creates 7 Million in cap room

5. With 30 Million in Cap Room, go hard after a top CB in FA like Trumaine Johnson (yes, it will be an overpay)

6. Sign a good #2 WR like Alshon Jeffrey. I would be fine with Pierre Garcon if that is who the coaches recommend.

7. Sign the situational pass rusher that Will McClay recommends – Melvin Ingram, Nick Perry, DeMarcus Ware, etc (Another will be added high in the draft). This may be a starter but might also be a rotational guy like Ware or others.

8. Offer Ron Leary a four year deal that averages 7 Million per season but with a cap hit of 5 Million in 2017.
9. Offer Brandon Carr about the same salary as last year (4.25 Million)

10. Resign McFadden, Kellen Moore, Terrell McClain, and Jack Crawford.

11. Make medium to low salary offers to Barry Church, JJ Wilcox, Mark Sanchez, Lance Dunbar, Terrence Williams, Brice Butler, and Justin Durant. See who bites or has not been overpaid already.

12. Draft DE, CB, OL high, with the lower picks BPA.

 

[Sydla]

My 12 Step Program for the first three months of this offseason:


1. Do the automatic restructures in the contracts of Frederick and Tyron Smith – Creates 17 Million in cap room

2. Extend Witten and convert Sean Lee’s salary to a signing bonus – Creates 10 Million in cap room

3. Trade Romo for a 2017 Pick and a conditional 2018 Pick (Yes, the return will be higher than most people here expect) – Creates 5 Million in cap room

4. Cut Doug Free and Alfred Morris – Creates 7 Million in cap room

5. With 30 Million in Cap Room, go hard after a top CB in FA like Trumaine Johnson (yes, it will be an overpay)

6. Sign a good #2 WR like Alshon Jeffrey. I would be fine with Pierre Garcon if that is who the coaches recommend.

7. Sign the situational pass rusher that Will McClay recommends – Melvin Ingram, Nick Perry, DeMarcus Ware, etc (Another will be added high in the draft). This may be a starter but might also be a rotational guy like Ware or others.

8. Offer Ron Leary a four year deal that averages 7 Million per season but with a cap hit of 5 Million in 2017.
9. Offer Brandon Carr about the same salary as last year (4.25 Million)

10. Resign McFadden, Kellen Moore, Terrell McClain, and Jack Crawford.

11. Make medium to low salary offers to Barry Church, JJ Wilcox, Mark Sanchez, Lance Dunbar, Terrence Williams, Brice Butler, and Justin Durant. See who bites or has not been overpaid already.

12. Draft DE, CB, OL high, with the lower picks BPA.

You seem to be spending more cap than you created.

Jeffrey isn't getting #2 money. He's getting legit #1 money in the $13MM a year range. Johnson alone will also be in that $13MM a year range on average, so you'd have to frontload the hell out of their deals to then go and sign Leary and someone like Perry or Ingram.

 

[CowboyDan]

Not bad. Who's our starting right tackle?

 

[John813]

Lots of money at receiver and offensive line.

Jeffrey had a bad year, but I still expect him to get lower #1 money, especially with desperate teams that have no #1(Eagles). We have Dez at a 17m cap hit for '17 and Bease at 4.5m. Adding another receiver, even if backloaded deal, seems top heavy for us.

I like Leary, hell argued his worth when he was a backup, but it's not like we have an unknown behind him or Robert Brewster. His backup needs some fine tuning but is signed for cheap and is a RFA at the end of the year. Say thank you to Leary and go with Collins and maybe retain Cooper for competition.

Rest of the ideas I don't mind. Can always find a #2 WR in this draft.

 

[ThreeandOut]

I could use a 12 step program. I'm having serious football withdrawals right now.

 

[Kaiser]

Not bad. Who's our starting right tackle?

Chaz Green, a draft pick and a Veteran signed later in FA all compete for the job in Training Camp.

In a perfect world La'el Collins is the RT and Leary is the LG but there have been a thousand threads on that already.

 

[Daillest88]

My 12 Step Program for the first three months of this offseason:


1. Do the automatic restructures in the contracts of Frederick and Tyron Smith – Creates 17 Million in cap room

2. Extend Witten and convert Sean Lee’s salary to a signing bonus – Creates 10 Million in cap room

3. Trade Romo for a 2017 Pick and a conditional 2018 Pick (Yes, the return will be higher than most people here expect) – Creates 5 Million in cap room

4. Cut Doug Free and Alfred Morris – Creates 7 Million in cap room

5. With 30 Million in Cap Room, go hard after a top CB in FA like Trumaine Johnson (yes, it will be an overpay)

6. Sign a good #2 WR like Alshon Jeffrey. I would be fine with Pierre Garcon if that is who the coaches recommend.

7. Sign the situational pass rusher that Will McClay recommends – Melvin Ingram, Nick Perry, DeMarcus Ware, etc (Another will be added high in the draft). This may be a starter but might also be a rotational guy like Ware or others.

8. Offer Ron Leary a four year deal that averages 7 Million per season but with a cap hit of 5 Million in 2017.
9. Offer Brandon Carr about the same salary as last year (4.25 Million)

10. Resign McFadden, Kellen Moore, Terrell McClain, and Jack Crawford.

11. Make medium to low salary offers to Barry Church, JJ Wilcox, Mark Sanchez, Lance Dunbar, Terrence Williams, Brice Butler, and Justin Durant. See who bites or has not been overpaid already.

12. Draft DE, CB, OL high, with the lower picks BPA.

I agree with everything but signing a receiver and signing Leary. That's 20 million in cap space. We can get a good receiver in the draft

 

[Sydla]

Let's look at some comps based on Spotrac:

- Trumaine Johnson's most recent comp is Janoris Jenkins. Jenkins carried an $8MM cap hit in his first year for the Giants.

- Jeffrey's most recent comps are Thomas and Bryant. Bryant carried a $13MM cap hit last year but let's be a bit aggressive and state you could get Jeffrey for say a $10MM cap hit in 2017.

- Leary for a $5MM cap hit in 2017 as you stated.

- Most recent comp for Ingram is Vernon. Vernon carried a $13MM cap hit in 2016. So let's be aggressive and say Ingram only carries a $9-10MM cap hit for 2017.

Those four players alone total $33MM in cap hits for 2017 and you only said you created $30MM in new space. And that's before you factor in the draft pool cost and then resigning some of your existing guys.

You woefully underestimated the value of some of these guys.

 

[Kaiser]

Jeffrey had a bad year, but I still expect him to get lower #1 money, especially with desperate teams that have no #1(Eagles). We have Dez at a 17m cap hit for '17 and Bease at 4.5m. Adding another receiver, even if backloaded deal, seems top heavy for us.

IMO #2 WR is the move that can put this team over the top, Dak never really developed chemistry with TWill and look how productive that connection was. Give him another top target at WR and you have an unstoppable offense.

Also people here have mentioned that Dez is friends with Alshon Jeffrey, if he can help recruit him we can likely get him for a reasonable cap hit in the first few years of the contract. And starting 2018 we have a huge amount of cap room, 2017 is the only year we really need to worry about.

 

[CowboyDan]

Chaz Green, a draft pick and a Veteran signed later in FA all compete for the job in Training Camp.

In a perfect world La'el Collins is the RT and Leary is the LG but there have been a thousand threads on that already.

Yikes....even as bad as Free can be, I don't see it from Green.

 

[Kaiser]

I agree with everything but signing a receiver and signing Leary. That's 20 million in cap space. We can get a good receiver in the draft

Most FA contracts are backloaded so that the first year or two are a much smaller cap hit. Even in the ugly Brandon Carr contract for 50 Million over five years he only had a cap hit of 3 Million in the first year.

A WR and Leary could easily be done so the 2017 cap hit is only 5 MM each.

 

[TheCount]

Extending Witten is probably a bad idea, especially if he's already thinking about retiring. We'd have to pay him his bonus regardless.

 

[Sydla]

Most FA contracts are backloaded so that the first year or two are a much smaller cap hit. Even in the ugly Brandon Carr contract for 50 Million over five years he only had a cap hit of 3 Million in the first year.

A WR and Leary could easily be done so the 2017 cap hit is only 5 MM each.

Jeffrey isn't going to be a $5MM cap hit in 2017. With the deal he's going to get, his first year cap hit is going to be much higher than that.

 

[Kaiser]

Extending Witten is probably a bad idea, especially if he's already thinking about retiring. We'd have to pay him his bonus regardless.

Next year Witten is due 7.4 Million in Salary and has 4.8 Million hitting the cap from previous bonuses. Extending him would only push a part of the 7.4 Million into future years, if he retires or is cut the bonuses accelerate into that year.

Its a very standard procedure to move 5 Million or so from this year into a future year.

 

[SDCowboy]

I like the list, Kaiser, except for extending Witten.

 

[irishline]

You seem to be spending more cap than you created.

Jeffrey isn't getting #2 money. He's getting legit #1 money in the $13MM a year range. Johnson alone will also be in that $13MM a year range on average, so you'd have to frontload the hell out of their deals to then go and sign Leary and someone like Perry or Ingram.

Agree with you that he is not going to get #2 money. However, that 4 game suspension for a failed performance enhancing drug test at the end of last season might push that number down a bit. You said his comps are Thomas and Bryant but neither of them have a failed drug test, nor are they one test away from a 10 game or year long ban. He will get paid more than we should pay him, and I agree all it takes is one team to drive up the cost, but I am not sure how much that failed test will drive the price down (of course it might not at all).

 

[Toruk_Makto]

My 12 Step Program for the first three months of this offseason:


1. Do the automatic restructures in the contracts of Frederick and Tyron Smith – Creates 17 Million in cap room

2. Extend Witten and convert Sean Lee’s salary to a signing bonus – Creates 10 Million in cap room

3. Trade Romo for a 2017 Pick and a conditional 2018 Pick (Yes, the return will be higher than most people here expect) – Creates 5 Million in cap room

4. Cut Doug Free and Alfred Morris – Creates 7 Million in cap room

5. With 30 Million in Cap Room, go hard after a top CB in FA like Trumaine Johnson (yes, it will be an overpay)

6. Sign a good #2 WR like Alshon Jeffrey. I would be fine with Pierre Garcon if that is who the coaches recommend.

7. Sign the situational pass rusher that Will McClay recommends – Melvin Ingram, Nick Perry, DeMarcus Ware, etc (Another will be added high in the draft). This may be a starter but might also be a rotational guy like Ware or others.

8. Offer Ron Leary a four year deal that averages 7 Million per season but with a cap hit of 5 Million in 2017.
9. Offer Brandon Carr about the same salary as last year (4.25 Million)

10. Resign McFadden, Kellen Moore, Terrell McClain, and Jack Crawford.

11. Make medium to low salary offers to Barry Church, JJ Wilcox, Mark Sanchez, Lance Dunbar, Terrence Williams, Brice Butler, and Justin Durant. See who bites or has not been overpaid already.

12. Draft DE, CB, OL high, with the lower picks BPA.

Appreciate the effort taken in posts like these... But you're playing fantasy football.

 

[TNCowboy]

When you consider the massive amounts of cap space some teams have, I think that what we consider overpaying right now will be the norm for the next few years.

But that trend may not continue if NFL ratings continue to decline.

 

[Verdict]

Extending Witten is probably a bad idea, especially if he's already thinking about retiring. We'd have to pay him his bonus regardless.

We should probably offer to extend Witten for one year and one year only. Pay him $5 million this year and $5 million next year and guarantee it. If he won't take that, then suggest he take a slight pay cut for this year to equal what his production likely will be. If not, cut him and move on.

 

[Verdict]

When you consider the massive amounts of cap space some teams have, I think that what we consider overpaying right now will be the norm for the next few years.

But that trend may not continue if NFL ratings continue to decline.

That is going to be a real problem going forward. I think we are going to see artificially inflated contracts for the next two or three years. Smart teams will avoid that pitfall and draft well. It might dictate trading back a little bit, or dumpster diving for low level free agents with upside.