Plan that shows how they could keep Dak, CD and Micah for the next 4 years if they wanted

[jujoboys]

Nice write-up but there is just one problem.................THEY DON'T WANT TO KEEP DAK ANY LONGER!!!!

I hope you are right but I have a feeling that they end up overpaying all 3 and keeping all 3. I have a bad feeling that Dak's contract gets done sometime during training camp.

 

[Creeper]

Of course they can sign all 3 guys if they want to, and they can make the CAP work to fit them. But it might be at the expense of some other players, like Osa Odighizuwa. Or Bland, or other players like that. Even a guy like Jake Ferguson might have to be allowed to go to free agency.

Is there a team today with 3 players at the top of the pay scale for their positions?

 

[John813]

Of course they can sign all 3 guys if they want to, and they can make the CAP work to fit them. But it might be at the expense of some other players, like Osa Odighizuwa. Or Bland, or other players like that. Even a guy like Jake Ferguson might have to be allowed to go to free agency.

Is there a team today with 3 players at the top of the pay scale for their positions?

49ers.

Bosa, CMC, Warner(#2 1 mil AAV), Williams (#4 LT by 2mil AAV)

Dolphins
Have 2 #1 receivers at 30mil + 28.xx AAV
Also have Ramsey at # 3 for corners
And looking to re-sign Tua this offseason.

 

[Hawkeye0202]

1. Zero chance Parsons plays on his 5th year option without an extension, let alone the FT. The Cowboys should actually extend him now, to have those two extra years to spread out his cap hits

This 1000%
I would def extend him before the start of this season for cap reasons as mentioned AND the sooner you get him signed while he is healthy the better. In other words, I don't trust his body to hold up much longer ( 3-4 years at the most ). The last we want is to hold a $30-35M contract for a player/LBer/DE we can't trust to play a full season ( see Sean Lee ). His position(s) and size are screaming serious wear and tear/injuries within the next 3-4 years. Maybe this is why he is saying he may only play until he's 30.

 

[Flamma]

This 1000%
I would def extend him before the start of this season for cap reasons as mentioned AND the sooner you get him signed while he is healthy the better. In other words, I don't trust his body to hold up much longer ( 3-4 years at the most ). The last we want is to hold a $30-35M contract for a player/LBer/DE we can't trust to play a full season ( see Sean Lee ). His position(s) and size are screaming serious wear and tear/injuries within the next 3-4 years. Maybe this is why he is saying he may only play until he's 30.

Cowboys are nuts if they don't sign him right now. He's going to be getting 35M a year. That's 140 in 4 years. You want to spread that out in 6 years. Sign him now.

 

[Hawkeye0202]

Cowboys are nuts if they don't sign him right now. He's going to be getting 35M a year. That's 140 in 4 years. You want to spread that out in 6 years. Sign him now.

Hell, Stephen once said himself that LBer positions have more injuries than any others. It's a short window before his body starts breaking down...like you said, get him signed NOW

 

[baltcowboy]

Let Dak and CD play out this year with the cap hits they have right now 55 and 18 million respectively.

Give Dak an extension with a option signing bonus that gives him his bonus on the first day of the new league year 2025.

Dak contract
4yr 240mil- 60mil/yr on average... 200mil in Guaranteed money... Signing Bonus 75 million dollars(Highest ever beats Goff's 73 million.
He doesn't sign a no trade clause, potential out 2028. He already has 3 void years just use these again.
With the 75m signing bonus you can take 240m-75m=165m... Divide 165m by the 4yrs in his contract to get 41.25m per year base salary.

The signing bonus is like a loan and takes off 18.75m in base salary per year. It is stored in the Void years until his contract is up or he is traded. Then it hits the cap all at once. His dead cap would be 75m+54m that he already has in dead cap. 129m in dead cap total yr 2028. Dead cap can be split in half and paid over 2years. 64.5/yr.

Yearly it looks like this
2024 base salary 55mil
2025 base salary 41.25m
2026 base salary 41.25m
2027 base salary 42.50m
2028 base salary 40m
add all those base salaries together and you get 165m in base salary. Then add the signing bonus of 75m to it, and you get 240m.
add the first 3yrs of his extension together and the signing bonus and it comes to 200m dollars.
Dak's 200 million in guaranteed money would be paid by the end of 2027 and If they wanted to they could trade him.

CD contract
4yr 140m- 35m/yr on average... 115m in Guaranteed money(Jefferson got 110m)... Signing Bonus of 40m(Jefferson got 37m)
He doesn't sign a no trade clause, potential out 2028. Add void years to accommodate the 40 million in signing bonus.
140m-40m Bonus=100m... Divide 100m by the 4yrs in his contract to get 25m per year base salary.

This time it saves 10m per year and after the contract expires you would owe 40m in dead money and split it over two years 20m per year.

Yearly it looks like this
2024 base salary 18m
2025 base salary 25m
2026 base salary 25m
2027 base salary 25m
2028 base salary 25m
add all those base salaries together and you get 100m in base salary. Then add the signing bonus of 40m to it, and you get 140m.
add the first 3yrs of his extension together and the signing bonus and it comes to 115m.
CD's 115m in Guaranteed money would be paid by the end of 2027, and if they wanted to they could trade him.

Parsons
2024 makes 5.3m
2025 he makes 21.3m on his 5th year option
2026 two options
Place the exclusive franchise tag on him(protects from other teams trying to sign him). It would be 120% of 2025 salary coming to about 25 million dollars.
or
Place the Non-exclusive franchise tag on him. A team would offer him a contract if they wanted him. If he accepted, Dallas would then be able to keep him by matching the teams offer or let him go to the other team and get 2 first round picks in return.
2027 same scenario unless he was traded the year before. The only difference is he would cost around 30m if they used the Franchise Tag two years in a row.

If they did all this and traded Dak and CD in 2028 they would have 129m dead cap from Dak and 40m for CD. Pay that over two years a total of 84.5 per year.
It sounds like a lot but by then Parsons should be off the books to with no dead money.
If you add up what you would have been paying them on average Dak 42m + CD 25m + Parsons 25m It would be 92m per year.

So for two years it would be like you were paying the 3 players even though they aren't on the team. In a rebuild scenario who cares. You would be breaking in a new QB anyway and by the time you figure out if he can play and you want to add pieces around him, all the dead cap will have been paid in full. Then you would have the cap space to add in FA.

If they did this the 2025 cap space would be
Dead money from
FA Tank 4.4m 2025 and 2026
FA Cooks 3m 2025 and 2026
Retired Martin 12.25m 2025 and 2026
around 20m/yr in dead money 2025 and 2026

Steele's pay increases by 6m
Parsons pay increases by 16m

but you save by not paying the players their big salaries anymore
saved cap space
Tank 16m less than he made last year salary was 20.4m-4.4m in dead money.
Cooks 7m less than he made last year salary was 10m-3m in dead money.
Martin 3.25m less than he made last year salary was 15.5m-12.25m in dead money.
Dak and CD old contracts combined 18+55=73 vs 25+42=67 saves about 6m/yr.

Basically you save around 30m dollars by not resigning/extending these players.
The cap is also projected to raise another 18-20m dollars
Plus what ever you carry over from 2024.

Dead money and pay increases total is about 42 million

Savings 50-60 million plus whatever you save from other FA on the team that you decide not to resign like Osa, Kendricks, Zeke.

Depending on how they play it they could have 20-30 million dollars to spend in FA next season and have their 3 best players to boot.

So it is possible. These void years and stuff can be confusing.

The Cowboys have already made a plan to sign all three to extensions. It’s just not happening fast enough for the masses. Relax. The Cowboys have 100 million in cap space next season, no matter what happens with the contracts this season.

 

[Hawkeye0202]

Lots of work on this ....thanks
One problem I can tell you now that this is the final year Parsons is playing his current contract. He WILL not play on the 5th year option or tag without holding out. Listen to his recent comments.......he makes it quite clear, he's expected to get paid right after CeeDee. No way he is going to play on the 5th year option AND tag w/o hell breaking loose.

Now a smart GM would use this year to decide........ are you going to pay him in 2025 or prepare to trade him. His personality and mouth can and will make things really ugly if you try and force him into a corner of the 5th year option and/or tag.

 

[JW82]

Of course they can.

 

[Hawkeye0202]

Burrow, the highest paid QB, makes 62.9 per year,

It's my understanding that NO NFL QB has signed for $60M or more yet......unless I missed something


$275,000,000

Joe Burrow signed a 5 year , $275,000,000 contract with the Cincinnati Bengals, including $40,000,000 signing bonus, $219,010,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $55,000,000.


https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/...gned a 5,average annual salary of $55,000,000.

 

[bleachedwheat]

Explain this to me, as I'm not following.

The day Dak signs his deal, the signing bonus is prorated over 5 years max, including the current year he's in. If Dallas lets his contract void, they get hit with 40mil dead no matter if they sign him a week into Free agency.

If Dallas signs him in February/prior to contract termination, his prorated signing bonus cap hit for 2025 becomes 26.132 existing bonus from restructuring the 2021 contract + 15mil signing bonus from new deal.
Right off the bat, his signing bonus cap hit is 41mil in 2025. Prorated signing bonus cap hits can't be modified.
Now, they can make his base salary near minimum, say 1mil for an example by restructuring right away, for a total cap hit of ~42mil
If you gave Dak a base salary of 41mil in 2025, his total cap hit would be ~82mil.

Signing bonus isn't stored in the void years unless it's part of a restructure or within the 5 year max spread for signing bonus. If you did a 4+3 void year deal, only 1 void year gets filled with the prorated signing bonus intitally, as it's a max of 5 years that signing bonus can be spread out.

75mil signing bonus:
25 = 15, 26=15, 27=15, 28 =15 29(void)=15
The benefit to having 3 void years is the next three years of his deal they can restructure the contract and gain 1 year to maximize the spread of the restructured signing bonus.
In 2026 when they restructure his deal, now the 2nd void year gets used for spreading cap purposes(5 year max).

Dead cap in the void years is purely based off how many times and the amount that was restructured.

There's no benefit to having an equal split base salary. The cap will rise as it has and 40mil now is worth a lot more than 40 mil in 2028. It's better to push more base towards the end.

Right I see what your saying about the 40m in dead cap. If they sign him to a 5 year contract including this years, but just leave the money as is. Then they could use the option signing bonus which lets you pick a date for the bonus to go through. In this case it would be the first day of the league year. The dead money would be pushed back because he is still under contract. Its a way to get around the dead money problem and just keep pushing it back.

Now as far as the void money having to be pro-rated over the length of the contract. I have looked and most teams do the pro-rata so they don't end up in cap purgatory when the contract is up. I don't think there is an actual rule saying you can't place the entirety of the signing bonus into the void years. I tried to find that out. If it is a rule that you can't do it this way, I wasted my time putting this together. In this scenario, it works out best to do it this way; if allowed. You would then have 4yrs of win now mode, before having to blow it all up.

These questions your posing were some of my main concerns about this scenario also. If you can find a set in stone rule I would love to see it. Thanks.

 

[jazzcat22]

It's my understanding that NO NFL QB has signed for $60M or more yet......unless I missed something


$275,000,000

Joe Burrow signed a 5 year , $275,000,000 contract with the Cincinnati Bengals, including $40,000,000 signing bonus, $219,010,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $55,000,000.


https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/47594/joe-burrow#:~:text=Joe Burrow signed a 5,average annual salary of $55,000,000.

And he took less than he could have got, so they could sign / keep other players.

 

[jazzcat22]

What happens if Zeke takes all 3 to Cabo?

 

[John813]

Right I see what your saying about the 40m in dead cap. If they sign him to a 5 year contract including this years, but just leave the money as is. Then they could use the option signing bonus which lets you pick a date for the bonus to go through. In this case it would be the first day of the league year. The dead money would be pushed back because he is still under contract. Its a way to get around the dead money problem and just keep pushing it back.

Now as far as the void money having to be pro-rated over the length of the contract. I have looked and most teams do the pro-rata so they don't end up in cap purgatory when the contract is up. I don't think there is an actual rule saying you can't place the entirety of the signing bonus into the void years. I tried to find that out. If it is a rule that you can't do it this way, I wasted my time putting this together. In this scenario, it works out best to do it this way; if allowed. You would then have 4yrs of win now mode, before having to blow it all up.

These questions your posing were some of my main concerns about this scenario also. If you can find a set in stone rule I would love to see it. Thanks.

https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/13/section/6
)Signing Bonuses.
(b)(i)Proration.

The total amount of any signing bonus shall be prorated over the term of the Player Contract (on a straight-line basis, unless subject to acceleration or some other treatment as provided in this Agreement), with a maximum proration of five years, in determining Team Salary and Salary, except that:


b)(ii)Acceleration.
(b)(ii)(1)
For any player removed from the Team’s roster, or whose Contract is assigned to another Club via waivers or trade, on or before June 1 in any League Year prior to the Final League Year, or at any time during the Final League Year, any unamortized signing bonus amounts will be included in Team Salary for such League Year, except that for each League Year preceding the Final League Year, each Club may designate up to two Player Contracts that, if terminated (i) on or after the first day of that League Year; and (ii) on or prior to June 1 and if not renegotiated after the last regular season game of the prior League Year, shall be treated (except to the extent prescribed by Section 6(d)(iv) below) as if terminated on June 2, i.e., the Salary Cap charge for each such contract will remain in the Club’s Team Salary until June 2, at which time its Paragraph 5 Salary and any unearned LTBE incentives will no longer be counted and any unamortized signing bonus will be treated as set forth in Subsection (2) below. If acceleration puts a Team over the Salary Cap, the Team will have seven days to conform with the Salary Cap, but may not sign any players until there is Room to do so under the Salary Cap.

Basically acceleration of the signing bonus is when the player is cut and future prorated signing bonus is now accelerated as dead cap. Can be eaten all at once or if designated/after June 1st can be split in two years.

Now, some teams do the roster option bonus which acts as a guaranteed future payday while not paying a lot up front like a standard signing bonus. Justin Herbert got a relatively low signing bonus, but the team made up for it using option bonuses that essentially act as a way to keep the first half of the contract low cap hit wise while Herbert still gets large chunks of cash this and next year. He also had a lot of provisions such as if he's on the roster on March XX date then a future base salary is fully guaranteed.

Dallas I haven't seen do a lot of option bonuses, at least yet. It's usually guaranteed base + standard signing bonuses.

 

[Creeper]

49ers.

Bosa, CMC, Warner(#2 1 mil AAV), Williams (#4 LT by 2mil AAV)

Dolphins
Have 2 #1 receivers at 30mil + 28.xx AAV
Also have Ramsey at # 3 for corners
And looking to re-sign Tua this offseason.

These are good examples, but when you look at the details of their contracts you will notice neither team has backload these contracts with prorated bonus money. The contracts tend to be high salary in the last couple of years which boosts the value of the contract, but allows the team to trade or cut the players involved with minimal CP damage. Neither of these teams has a contract like Dak's, or Zack Martin's that pushes tens of millions into voidable years. Kittle has about $14 million in voidable years but the rest are under that.

The Dolphins pushed about $17 million into voidable years on Jalen Ramsey's contract but no other player appear to have that much. Perhaps this will change as the Dolphins near the end of these contracts, but right now they appear to be more responsible with future spending.

 

[Cowboys5217]

Great, just one problem - you need other players, good players on your team. If the goal is just to pay star athletes record breaking contracts who haven't contended for a title in their NFL careers, then fine. If the goal is to field a contender, then we got big problems.

 

[John813]

These are good examples, but when you look at the details of their contracts you will notice neither team has backload these contracts with prorated bonus money. The contracts tend to be high salary in the last couple of years which boosts the value of the contract, but allows the team to trade or cut the players involved with minimal CP damage. Neither of these teams has a contract like Dak's, or Zack Martin's that pushes tens of millions into voidable years. Kittle has about $14 million in voidable years but the rest are under that.

The Dolphins pushed about $17 million into voidable years on Jalen Ramsey's contract but no other player appear to have that much. Perhaps this will change as the Dolphins near the end of these contracts, but right now they appear to be more responsible with future spending.

To be fair, the 49ers just re-signed Bosa and CMC so need need to push just yet. They are riding the rookie cap hits for Purdy which helps big time.

IMO once you get to year 3 and Bosa cap hits explode that's when they'll restructure and push prorated to future years as long as he's still playing well.

Dolphins restructured Hill's contract last year but held off this offseason.

 

[bleachedwheat]

Great, just one problem - you need other players, good players on your team. If the goal is just to pay star athletes record breaking contracts who haven't contended for a title in their NFL careers, then fine. If the goal is to field a contender, then we got big problems.

If you pay these guys it actually opens up more cap space for the next few years. If Dak isn't paid, you're on the hook for 54m in dead money the next few years. It's just about when you want to be broke, now or 3-4 years from now. Either way, it will catch up to you.

 

[Flamma]

Hell, Stephen once said himself that LBer positions have more injuries than any others. It's a short window before his body starts breaking down...like you said, get him signed NOW

Good point. Remember how quick Khalil Mack went south? But my main reasoning is for cap purposes. He wouldn't have a high cap hit until 2027. By that time, it might not be considered high. And they probably wouldn't need void years. But they're going to do what the usually do.

 

[john van brocklin]

Let Dak and CD play out this year with the cap hits they have right now 55 and 18 million respectively.

Give Dak an extension with a option signing bonus that gives him his bonus on the first day of the new league year 2025.

Dak contract
4yr 240mil- 60mil/yr on average... 200mil in Guaranteed money... Signing Bonus 75 million dollars(Highest ever beats Goff's 73 million.
He doesn't sign a no trade clause, potential out 2028. He already has 3 void years just use these again.
With the 75m signing bonus you can take 240m-75m=165m... Divide 165m by the 4yrs in his contract to get 41.25m per year base salary.

The signing bonus is like a loan and takes off 18.75m in base salary per year. It is stored in the Void years until his contract is up or he is traded. Then it hits the cap all at once. His dead cap would be 75m+54m that he already has in dead cap. 129m in dead cap total yr 2028. Dead cap can be split in half and paid over 2years. 64.5/yr.

Yearly it looks like this
2024 base salary 55mil
2025 base salary 41.25m
2026 base salary 41.25m
2027 base salary 42.50m
2028 base salary 40m
add all those base salaries together and you get 165m in base salary. Then add the signing bonus of 75m to it, and you get 240m.
add the first 3yrs of his extension together and the signing bonus and it comes to 200m dollars.
Dak's 200 million in guaranteed money would be paid by the end of 2027 and If they wanted to they could trade him.

CD contract
4yr 140m- 35m/yr on average... 115m in Guaranteed money(Jefferson got 110m)... Signing Bonus of 40m(Jefferson got 37m)
He doesn't sign a no trade clause, potential out 2028. Add void years to accommodate the 40 million in signing bonus.
140m-40m Bonus=100m... Divide 100m by the 4yrs in his contract to get 25m per year base salary.

This time it saves 10m per year and after the contract expires you would owe 40m in dead money and split it over two years 20m per year.

Yearly it looks like this
2024 base salary 18m
2025 base salary 25m
2026 base salary 25m
2027 base salary 25m
2028 base salary 25m
add all those base salaries together and you get 100m in base salary. Then add the signing bonus of 40m to it, and you get 140m.
add the first 3yrs of his extension together and the signing bonus and it comes to 115m.
CD's 115m in Guaranteed money would be paid by the end of 2027, and if they wanted to they could trade him.

Parsons
2024 makes 5.3m
2025 he makes 21.3m on his 5th year option
2026 two options
Place the exclusive franchise tag on him(protects from other teams trying to sign him). It would be 120% of 2025 salary coming to about 25 million dollars.
or
Place the Non-exclusive franchise tag on him. A team would offer him a contract if they wanted him. If he accepted, Dallas would then be able to keep him by matching the teams offer or let him go to the other team and get 2 first round picks in return.
2027 same scenario unless he was traded the year before. The only difference is he would cost around 30m if they used the Franchise Tag two years in a row.

If they did all this and traded Dak and CD in 2028 they would have 129m dead cap from Dak and 40m for CD. Pay that over two years a total of 84.5 per year.
It sounds like a lot but by then Parsons should be off the books to with no dead money.
If you add up what you would have been paying them on average Dak 42m + CD 25m + Parsons 25m It would be 92m per year.

So for two years it would be like you were paying the 3 players even though they aren't on the team. In a rebuild scenario who cares. You would be breaking in a new QB anyway and by the time you figure out if he can play and you want to add pieces around him, all the dead cap will have been paid in full. Then you would have the cap space to add in FA.

If they did this the 2025 cap space would be
Dead money from
FA Tank 4.4m 2025 and 2026
FA Cooks 3m 2025 and 2026
Retired Martin 12.25m 2025 and 2026
around 20m/yr in dead money 2025 and 2026

Steele's pay increases by 6m
Parsons pay increases by 16m

but you save by not paying the players their big salaries anymore
saved cap space
Tank 16m less than he made last year salary was 20.4m-4.4m in dead money.
Cooks 7m less than he made last year salary was 10m-3m in dead money.
Martin 3.25m less than he made last year salary was 15.5m-12.25m in dead money.
Dak and CD old contracts combined 18+55=73 vs 25+42=67 saves about 6m/yr.

Basically you save around 30m dollars by not resigning/extending these players.
The cap is also projected to raise another 18-20m dollars
Plus what ever you carry over from 2024.

Dead money and pay increases total is about 42 million

Savings 50-60 million plus whatever you save from other FA on the team that you decide not to resign like Osa, Kendricks, Zeke.

Depending on how they play it they could have 20-30 million dollars to spend in FA next season and have their 3 best players to boot.

So it is possible. These void years and stuff can be confusing.

You get a like , just for the hard work!!!!!