next year we are a complete team

[xwalker]

Nope. The cap is going to have teeth to it for the Cowboys over the next few years. Watch and see.

Aliens are landing on the Earth next year. Watch and see.

 

[jterrell]

This is true...and the needs for next year are obvious. However, I can't fathom thinking about next year until, ya know, next year.

At this point, I'd rather think about next week. The team has a lot more immediate needs than worrying about next year. Because it seems to me the the Cowboys pressing needs for next year, change weekly.

Yup. This team would be very complete right now if everyone was healthy.
OL play has been a plus.
DL with health would be a top 3 or 4 unit and possibly best overall.

LBs are more than adequate.
CBs solid with Mo settling in as 3rd guy.

Safeties are young but developing.

We don't have major holes now that weren't created through injuries so all the talk of next year is silly because whatever holes we fill will again rely on good health.

 

[LatinMind]

Unlike two years ago I don't think we have the cap space to do it. I don't even think they need to go all out. Might need 2 pass rushers. We can find those in the draft. Tyrone Crawford should also be back.

Other than Carr what expensive FAs have the cowboys brought in? This team is built from within. that whole wont have the cap space is tiring and old.

 

[jterrell]

Your mixing up the current season 2013 with next season 2014. The Cowboys have indeed nearly maxed out the cap for 2013. The Franchise Tag for Spencer cannot be manipulated. It is 10.6M all applied to this season. Also, the "Mara penalty" that took 5M away from 2012 and 2013 will not be an issue in 2014.

Projected NFL payrolls always look huge at this time of year. Like I said, it was projected to be 40M over at this time last year and that did not include the 10.6M for Spencer or a new contract for Romo. Projected payrolls don't account for the restructuring of contracts that occurs every year.

Some people think that restructuring has to eventually catch up to a team because their pushing money into the future; however, with the ability to restructure, a team can continually push money into the future. Pushing money into the future is a Zero interest loan that gets renewed every year.

If an individual could get a zero interest loan, here is an example of what he could do with it:
Initially, you get a 2M loan for 2 years with zero interest to buy a house.
Year 1: You make 1M of payments on the loan.
Beginning of year 2: You get a new 2M loan and payoff the original loan. You have 1M remaining in your bank account.
Year 2: You use the 1M in your bank account to make payments on the new loan.
Beginning of year 3: You get a new 2M loan and pay off the original loan. You have 1M remaining in you bank account.
Year 3: You use the 1M in your bank account to make payments on the new loan.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.

Summary: You get a 2M house but only pay 1M. You always "owe" the other 1M but you never actually pay it back.

In real life, you can't do this because you can't get a Zero interest loan; however, in terms of the NFL salary cap, pushing money into the future is a Zero interest loan.

The NFL salary cap is obviously not as simple as the above example; however, the concept is similar. Some study estimates are that an NFL team can continuously operate with an "effective" salary cap of about 150% of the actual salary cap by continuing to push money into the future.

The final issue is that the salary cap increases most years. It is expected to make a significant jump at some point.

The problem with your example is exactly why businesses fail.
They make those same decisions and it locks them in to specific financial situations in advance... though the financial climate moves in both directions fairly rapidly.
Instead of paying off the 2m house you NEVER own it in your example.
That's TERRIBLE financial planning.

This is what happens with the Cowboys.
I widely advised cutting Miles this year. Advised heartily not to renegotiate Ratliff or Miles this off-season.
Because once you hand them those checks you are locked in for a year with zero options.

At a time when the salary cap was raising MORE than player salaries per year it made more sense to float money into future caps.
That is NO LONGER THE CASE. Rookie contracts rise about 20/25% per year. The Salary Cap has been largely stagnant for 3 years.
So we are essentially pushing off loan debt to when we have LESS money.
And that is financially stupid.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Other than Carr what expensive FAs have the cowboys brought in? This team is built from within. that whole wont have the cap space is tiring and old.

I'm confused to what you're arguing here lol?

 

[jterrell]

Other than Carr what expensive FAs have the cowboys brought in? This team is built from within. that whole wont have the cap space is tiring and old.

Us having cap space has little to do with free agent signings unless we include our own players.
Romo, Ware, Ratliff, Witten, Spencer.
There's your salary cap problems.

 

[LatinMind]

Us having cap space has little to do with free agent signings unless we include our own players.
Romo, Ware, Ratliff, Witten, Spencer.
There's your salary cap problems.

Romo and Witten arent cap problems. they are a necessity. Ware if he can get healthy is needed. This team wins without Romo?

 

[xwalker]

The problem with your example is exactly why businesses fail.
They make those same decisions and it locks them in to specific financial situations in advance... though the financial climate moves in both directions fairly rapidly.
Instead of paying off the 2m house you NEVER own it in your example.
That's TERRIBLE financial planning.

This is what happens with the Cowboys.
I widely advised cutting Miles this year. Advised heartily not to renegotiate Ratliff or Miles this off-season.
Because once you hand them those checks you are locked in for a year with zero options.

At a time when the salary cap was raising MORE than player salaries per year it made more sense to float money into future caps.
That is NO LONGER THE CASE. Rookie contracts rise about 20/25% per year. The Salary Cap has been largely stagnant for 3 years.
So we are essentially pushing off loan debt to when we have LESS money.
And that is financially stupid.

No, if my example was applied to a business, it would be stupid not to take advantage of a Zero interest loan. You would never be able to compete with other businesses that were getting the loans.

Businesses don't fail because they get Zero interest loans. Those don't exist in the real world.

Businesses do get loans. Most businesses wouldn't exist if they had to pay cash for everything and loans didn't exist.

Rookie contracts took a huge decrease after the new CBA.

The salary cap has been stagnant because the formula was changed after the new CBA. It will start increasing the further we get from the time the new CBA was implemented.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Your mixing up the current season 2013 with next season 2014. The Cowboys have indeed nearly maxed out the cap for 2013. The Franchise Tag for Spencer cannot be manipulated. It is 10.6M all applied to this season. Also, the "Mara penalty" that took 5M away from 2012 and 2013 will not be an issue in 2014.

Projected NFL payrolls always look huge at this time of year. Like I said, it was projected to be 40M over at this time last year and that did not include the 10.6M for Spencer or a new contract for Romo. Projected payrolls don't account for the restructuring of contracts that occurs every year.

Some people think that restructuring has to eventually catch up to a team because their pushing money into the future; however, with the ability to restructure, a team can continually push money into the future. Pushing money into the future is a Zero interest loan that gets renewed every year.

If an individual could get a zero interest loan, here is an example of what he could do with it:
Initially, you get a 2M loan for 2 years with zero interest to buy a house.
Year 1: You make 1M of payments on the loan.
Beginning of year 2: You get a new 2M loan and payoff the original loan. You have 1M remaining in your bank account.
Year 2: You use the 1M in your bank account to make payments on the new loan.
Beginning of year 3: You get a new 2M loan and pay off the original loan. You have 1M remaining in you bank account.
Year 3: You use the 1M in your bank account to make payments on the new loan.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.

Summary: You get a 2M house but only pay 1M. You always "owe" the other 1M but you never actually pay it back.

In real life, you can't do this because you can't get a Zero interest loan; however, in terms of the NFL salary cap, pushing money into the future is a Zero interest loan.

The NFL salary cap is obviously not as simple as the above example; however, the concept is similar. Some study estimates are that an NFL team can continuously operate with an "effective" salary cap of about 150% of the actual salary cap by continuing to push money into the future.

The final issue is that the salary cap increases most years. It is expected to make a significant jump at some point.

No, I don't think so. I am looking at the entire situation as a whole. Earlier this year, I was told that the current contract situations with Spencer and Romo would not be problematic. It appears as if they are, in fact going to present problems for us.

I do not believe that the practice of pushing money into the future is going to be viable. Eventually, the money has to hit. The players we are most concerned with, Romo and Spencer are two players that will probably force the cap hit sooner rather then later. Spencer, because he's one and done and the injury makes it problematic to even consider a long term deal. He is going to get his 10 and then hit FA. Romo because he is already in his 11th season, will likely be a cap issue. Even if you plan on his salary being spread over 5 years, That's still 5 million a year in just Bonus and then you have escalating numbers on base salary of 13.5 in 2014 for a total of 18.5. 17 million in 2015 for a total of 22 Million and so on. I think 40 Million is Guaranteed so it's unlikely that we will avoid those large salary years with Romo. That's one player out of an entire roster with several younger players coming into their second contracts. Yes, the cap will eventually expand but I have not heard that it will expand greatly in the next few years. In fact, Robert Kraft, in an interview given about a week ago,(Washington Post I believe?) stated just the opposite. He said that he doesn't see the cap expanding quickly or in any large way.

All of this leads me to believe that we will be very busy simply trying to sign what we have and not going out and landing a lot of new talent.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Yup. This team would be very complete right now if everyone was healthy.
OL play has been a plus.
DL with health would be a top 3 or 4 unit and possibly best overall.

LBs are more than adequate.
CBs solid with Mo settling in as 3rd guy.

Safeties are young but developing.

We don't have major holes now that weren't created through injuries so all the talk of next year is silly because whatever holes we fill will again rely on good health.

I don't really agree here JT. I think our starters are solid, with the exception of our DL, for the most part. However, I don't see a huge amount of depth on this team. We are thin in a lot of areas IMO.

 

[Longboysfan]

Maybe.

The biggest questions are:

1. Is Ware done? His base salary is 12.2M for 2014. Would that money be better spent on a healthy Free Agent? They regain all of the 12.2M in cap space but the gains are spread over 3 years. Only about 3.2M is gained in 2014 vs restructuring his contract.

2. Do they try to re-sign the 36/37 year old Waters or draft a Guard early or sign a Free Agent?

3. Can they get immediate contributors on the DLine in the draft?

I'll go the Dline 1st as that seems to have the most problems right now. What the play the rest of the year brings will tell better.
Then Oline to keep getting better.
Then find an RB somewhere..

 

[jterrell]

Romo and Witten arent cap problems. they are a necessity. Ware if he can get healthy is needed. This team wins without Romo?

Good teams have cap problems.

I am going to at some point how hard it is in the new era to win with a franchise QB.
They eat too much cap space.

Last year the kids met at the Super Bowl.
Flacco walked out with a big new deal and now the Ravens aren't close to returning.

 

[jterrell]

No, if my example was applied to a business, it would be stupid not to take advantage of a Zero interest loan. You would never be able to compete with other businesses that were getting the loans.

Businesses don't fail because they get Zero interest loans. Those don't exist in the real world.

Businesses do get loans. Most businesses wouldn't exist if they had to pay cash for everything and loans didn't exist.

Rookie contracts took a huge decrease after the new CBA.

The salary cap has been stagnant because the formula was changed after the new CBA. It will start increasing the further we get from the time the new CBA was implemented.

Businesses absolutely carry loans and balance them versus the particular financial climate at the time. They also focus on CapEx, assets and overall Capital in doing so.
In your scenario they'd never have any assets whatsoever which offsets any gain in saved interest. There is a zero % growth ratio to your scenario.

The rookie salary structure went down but the year salaries for said rookies rise 20/25% per year. That growth is quite costly and mirrors actual overall NFL contracts.
So while the amount paid to particular players (on an absurdly high percentage of players) increases per year the cap has remained the same. There is no denying that. And it makes the entire basis for your argument false.

At some point in said future when the cap rises substantially (i.e. more than yearly player costs) then and only then will it be correct accounting to push off cap hits.

 

[BotchedLobotomy]

"Wait til next year" the perfect Cowboys fan in Jerry's mind. He's been counting on the "wait til next year" crowd since the mid 90's to fill his big pockets with cash.

 

[jterrell]

Businesses absolutely carry loans and balance them versus the particular financial climate at the time. They also focus on CapEx, assets and overall Capital in doing so.
In your scenario they'd never have any assets whatsoever which offsets any gain in saved interest. There is a zero % growth ratio to your scenario.

The rookie salary structure went down but the year salaries for said rookies rise 20/25% per year. That growth is quite costly and mirrors actual overall NFL contracts.
So while the amount paid to particular players (on an absurdly high percentage of players) increases per year the cap has remained the same. There is no denying that. And it makes the entire basis for your argument false.

At some point in said future when the cap rises substantially (i.e. more than yearly player costs) then and only then will it be correct accounting to push off cap hits.

also from a strictly logical football scenario it is all kinds of stupid to push off cap hits when you are at best a .500 ball club.
the model of pushing off cap hits should be reserved for good teams because it is a tool best used to win a Super Bowl.
pushing off cap hits merely slows rebuilding for another win or two now.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

also from a strictly logical football scenario it is all kinds of stupid to push off cap hits when you are at best a .500 ball club.
the model of pushing off cap hits should be reserved for good teams because it is a tool best used to win a Super Bowl.
pushing off cap hits merely slows rebuilding for another win or two now.

This, from a fan perspective, should be the ultimate concern. Excellent point JT.

 

[iceman117]

There are players who will get worse next year which is the part you can't ignore. It's unrealistic to expect Hatcher, Scandrick, Free, and our LG to play as well as they/Waters have in 2013.

Hatcher is the only player on their of elevated age, so why can't you expect the others to play like this or even better?

 

[jterrell]

I don't really agree here JT. I think our starters are solid, with the exception of our DL, for the most part. However, I don't see a huge amount of depth on this team. We are thin in a lot of areas IMO.

Given the current CBA we are about as deep as anyone this season if you take the IL guys and plug them in.
2 legit QBs, 7-8 legit DL, OL is thin agreed but a pretty salty group overall now, LB/RB has real NFL depth.
Safety is unknown really to be sure because its all kids everywhere.

But again when we talk about holes it's hard to look at a 3rd guy at a position. A guy you end up having to get off the street.
We are a good special teams club and we are already playing back ups at 5 or 6 positions. That's pretty darn good depth by today's standards imho.

But obviously when you look behind George Selvie and Wilber the DE depth looks bad. Same behind Hayden and Hatcher who were supposed to be rotational guys not revery down players.

Teams like Seattle are really deep because they drafted well and have the benefit of a lot of really cheap players.
As those guys get paid they won't be so deep anymore.

 

[jterrell]

Hatcher is the only player on their of elevated age, so why can't you expect the others to play like this or even better?

More importantly there are a ton of young players who will in fact likely play better.
You have to judge each guy and position on its own.
But there is plenty of time to worry about next year and right now would be much more wisely spent on the Eagles and winning this division.

 

[iceman117]

More importantly there are a ton of young players who will in fact likely play better.
You have to judge each guy and position on its own.
But there is plenty of time to worry about next year and right now would be much more wisely spent on the Eagles and winning this division.

Agree