Salary cap adjustments

[Galian Beast]

Don't most big money contracts contain unrealistic back end salaries?

All players and agents are concerned with is how much up front guaranteed money is on the table.

Miami signed Mike Wallace last year to a 5 year, $60M deal with $27M guaranteed, including an $11M signing bonus.

His 2013 cap hit was only $3.25M.

The biggest initial signing bonus I've seen to a WR was the $16M Detroit paid to Calvin Johnson.

Dez Bryant, who dropped a team leading 12 passes last year, isn't Megatron.

I expect Dallas will sign Dez to a 7 year extension to enable future restructures or they will add years in the future to allow it (the player doesn't care).

How about $35M guaranteed? It would include the new signing bonus and the base salaries in '14, '15 and '16.

Let's say Bryant receives a $12M signing bonus (that's $1M more than Wallace), it will prorate $2.4M per season whether the deal is 5 years or 7 years.

When Dez signs, his 2014 base salary ($1.78M) will be lowed to the fourth year minimum ($0.73K) with the difference ($1.05M) being included in the new signing bonus.

Bryant's new 2014 cap number would be $4.2485M.

That would represent an increase of only $1.1M over his current '14 cap number ($3.1485M).

The Cowboys would be able to do the same thing in 2015 and 2016 to keep Bryant's contract cap friendly.

Even if you want to give Bryant a bigger initial signing bonus, it will not be a huge increase versus his current cap number.

He just doesn't get it...

 

[jterrell]

He just doesn't get it...

Not sure you get it any more than him....

You are describing the lowest possible cap hit.
And what would be stupid cap management.
It is the model that got us into this crap.

Bryant is only 24 years old. We aren't signing him to a 3 year deal with two fake years for cap purposes.
Bryant is ALMOST CERTAINLY going to be EVEN BETTER in 3 years time. He'll be 27 and at or near his peak in football performance.
He's just now learned the full offense.

You don't Demarcus Ware him and owe 15-20m because you were cheap earlier.

Bryant's deal should be balanced to actually keep him a Cowboy not force him out of our town after a release that we eat dead money for in his prime.
That would be absurd.

A big part of fixing the cap is to stop making stupid deals going forward.
Stop liking like a freshman with a new credit card and maxing it out then ordering a new one to do the same with.

If Dallas would pay guys what they are actually worth per year we'd have all these tricky means to lower cap hits when we were on the verge if a Super Bowl not to merely go 8-8.

 

[AbeBeta]

Don't most big money contracts contain unrealistic back end salaries?

All players and agents are concerned with is how much up front guaranteed money is on the table.

Miami signed Mike Wallace last year to a 5 year, $60M deal with $27M guaranteed, including an $11M signing bonus.

His 2013 cap hit was only $3.25M.

The biggest initial signing bonus I've seen to a WR was the $16M Detroit paid to Calvin Johnson.

Dez Bryant, who dropped a team leading 12 passes last year, isn't Megatron.

I expect Dallas will sign Dez to a 7 year extension to enable future restructures or they will add years in the future to allow it (the player doesn't care).

How about $35M guaranteed? It would include the new signing bonus and the base salaries in '14, '15 and '16.

Let's say Bryant receives a $12M signing bonus (that's $1M more than Wallace), it will prorate $2.4M per season whether the deal is 5 years or 7 years.

When Dez signs, his 2014 base salary ($1.78M) will be lowed to the fourth year minimum ($0.73K) with the difference ($1.05M) being included in the new signing bonus.

Bryant's new 2014 cap number would be $4.2485M.

That would represent an increase of only $1.1M over his current '14 cap number ($3.1485M).

The Cowboys would be able to do the same thing in 2015 and 2016 to keep Bryant's contract cap friendly.

Even if you want to give Bryant a bigger initial signing bonus, it will not be a huge increase versus his current cap number.

Lotta work there. Sadly does not address 2015 cap. You'd get around a 2.5 mill additional hit on converting salary to bonus in 2015. Closing in on 7-8 mill in cap charges for 2015 there...just as I suggested

 

[AbeBeta]

Miami signed Mike Wallace last year to a 5 year, $60M deal with $27M guaranteed, including an $11M signing bonus.

His 2013 cap hit was only $3.25M.

Oh yeah. Stop with the Mike Wallace comparisons

Wallace over his first 4 years. Average 59 catches, 1010 yards, 8 tds. Good numbers

Dez. 73 catches, 1026 yards, 10 TD.

Wallace also didn't have the misfortune of breaking his leg playing special teams, so he's had four more games to put up those #s.

Breaking it down by game Dez gives you 5 catches, 70 yards, and 2/3s of a TD. Wallace yields 3.7 catches, 64 yards, and 1/2 a TD

I don't think his agent is going to miss these things like you have.

 

[AbeBeta]

Not sure you get it any more than him....

You are describing the lowest possible cap hit.
And what would be stupid cap management.
It is the model that got us into this crap.

And we only used that model because Spencer's tag and the slow pace of Romo negotiations forced our hand

It is clearly not Stephen's preferred approach

 

[jterrell]

And we only used that model because Spencer's tag and the slow pace of Romo negotiations forced our hand

It is clearly not Stephen's preferred approach

I hope you are correct.
Stephen has a salesman's way of making it sound like all part of a beautiful dream.

We need to stop doing it that is for sure.

The only thing worse than paying Ware 12.5m this year is eating 8.5 m to watch him get paid reasonably and sunset elsewhere.
Guy is a friggin hall of famer and half the fan base wants to cut him after 17.5 sacks the previous 2 years.

 

[AbeBeta]

I hope you are correct.
Stephen has a salesman's way of making it sound like all part of a beautiful dream.

We need to stop doing it that is for sure.

The only thing worse than paying Ware 12.5m this year is eating 8.5 m to watch him get paid reasonably and sunset elsewhere.
Guy is a friggin hall of famer and half the fan base wants to cut him after 17.5 sacks the previous 2 years.

If you look at other deals -- Witten for example, we certainly had the choice to go with a low base salary in 2012 - instead we paid him 3.6 mill and avoided a restructure that would cut about 2 mill out of that year's cap hit. Why? To freaking pay some of that money off as we go. Ware's first two years saw large base salaries -- we only did restructure bonuses later in the deal as it allowed for spreading over the final years of the contract which were clear of the SB.

So it is clear we aren't into doing every deal as we did Carr - I suggested earlier that we only did so because of the combined handcuffs of cap penalty, franchise tag, and standoff over Romo's deal.

 

[SkinsFan28]

What AbeBeta is saying, is that right now, Bryant and Smith combined currently reflect $0 against the 2015 salary cap, because they have no contract dollars assigned. Clearly, whatever contracts they sign, is going to be additional numbers against the 2015 salary cap. If it's low end and ends up being 9Mill for the two of them (or two other equally expensive WR/LT's) or the upper end of 16Mill for them both is irrelevant to the main point that that final amount is not reflected by the 2015 cap space as it is shown now.

 

[AbeBeta]

What AbeBeta is saying, is that right now, Bryant and Smith combined currently reflect $0 against the 2015 salary cap, because they have no contract dollars assigned. Clearly, whatever contracts they sign, is going to be additional numbers against the 2015 salary cap. If it's low end and ends up being 9Mill for the two of them (or two other equally expensive WR/LT's) or the upper end of 16Mill for them both is irrelevant to the main point that that final amount is not reflected by the 2015 cap space as it is shown now.

Wait? I thought AbeBeta just didn't get it?

 

[AdamJT13]

If you look at other deals -- Witten for example, we certainly had the choice to go with a low base salary in 2012 - instead we paid him 3.6 mill and avoided a restructure that would cut about 2 mill out of that year's cap hit.

Witten's base salary in 2012 was only $2 million. Restructuring would have saved less than $1 million, and we finished that season with more than $2 million in cap room that we never used.

 

[AbeBeta]

Witten's base salary in 2012 was only $2 million. Restructuring would have saved less than $1 million, and we finished that season with more than $2 million in cap room that we never used.

Yes -- but it shows that we aren't always structuring every contract with an eye toward paying the minimum in various years

 

[Corso]

We really need a FAQ stickied here about using this tool.

The way to use the tool is simple.
Get UNDER the cap WITHOUT June 1st restructures. (Because the tool doesn't handle dates at all just total dollars).

Make any moves you want... such as tender Bailey at 2m, keep RFA guys, offer extensions et al...

THEN you make June 1st moves to free up further cap space.

When you follow the dates it becomes far more obvious.

Dallas will almost certainly release Miles June 2nd because he has lost his starting job and any further money down that drain is likely a waste.

Also the 5.5m he frees up just happens to be about perfect for signing rookies and keeping 3-4m in emergency cap cash. Any unused portion of which gets rolled over.

Dallas may be forced to release Ware if only option is taking a terrible contract forward but ideally they'd get his relief NOW not June 2nd.
And ideally it would be more than the 7.5M for cutting him before June 1st.

OR you can add a year to Ware's deal (hand him 8M right now. Plus 1M in base for 9 m of his 12.2 this year. for a smallish meet in the middle pay cut)
Guarantee 5m of next years deal but also lower that base to 5M. Add the 5th year at 12m base.. zero chance of ever seeing that of course.

Ware's cap his becomes 6.23 M for about 10M is savings March 11th.

You actually save 2.5m MORE than by simply cutting him.
And you have pushed off only 6.4M to future cap hits.

His 2015 cap hit becomes ~9.9M and he is set to be released in 2016.

Like always- you bring the goods. I have learned so much about the inner workings of football strategy and economics from reading your (and a few others) posts.

I don't get how some here can still be so ignorant of the simplest football and economic concepts with such great posters like you bringing these terrific, informative posts day after day.
Great show, chap.