Salary Cap Crunch

[DANCRYST]

I was looking at the cap last night and came across this spreadsheet. http://www.ianwhetstone.com/football/cap.html

I took the spreadsheet and expanded on his numbers. The calculations show that almost everyone on the team is cap neutral (which means whether they are on the team or not they will cost about the same)

The only players that would save large money are guys we want to keep i.e romo, witten, ware, etc.

Newman will save 4 million.

The only two that will be a larger cap hit are Roy and Columbo. Together they would raise the cap around 7.5 million if cut compared to both being on the roster.

Barber would be a small savings if cut around 750,000.

I will post the spreadsheet later since I cant open it at work as it was done in a newer version of excel.

If someone wants to redo the calculations and repost then they can do this. (please double check me)

1. I cleaned the list to just players under contract.

2. I filled in the SB (signing bonus column).
SB = 2011 Cap - 2011 Salary (repeated for all years) then totaled the remaining years for bonus remaining.
Some with roster bonuses like barber would save a little more if cut.

3. I then took all the signing bonus columns remaining and added them up.
i.e Roy Williams 3.9+3.9+3.9 = 11.7 remaining signing bonus

4. I then took the Signing bonus total minus 2011 Cap to figure a difference in Cap cost on roster vs Cap cost cut (remaining bonus)
i.e Roy Williams = (3.9*3) - 9.010 = 2.69 million extra to cut him.
Columbo came in at around 4.57 million extra to cut.

i.e. Newman = (2*3) - 10.00 = -4.00 or 4 million savings.

5. Again the majority of the roster came out neutral. Most would only save/cost only a couple hundred thousand if cut or are ones we don't want to cut.

 

[Galian Beast]

I really don't think we adjusted well in the uncapped year at all....

We should have released these top heavy contracts last year...

hopefully the new salary cap will be unaffected by old contracts.. a guy can dream right?

 

[speedkilz88]

The cap stuff out is worthless until a new cba is agreed upon. The Cowboys made up a lot of contracts that are easily adjusted depending on the agreement.

 

[dmq]

Reminds me of the year before the salary cap when the 49ers front loaded a bunch of contracts and we didn't seem to do much of anything.

 

[DANCRYST]

I was thinking it would be great if they just started from scratch on the cap hits.

Zero out every team and let them cut whomever they want this year with no penalty.

Maybe have it where the guys you keep no matter how many or how few would total a certain amount i.e. 90 million and the cap is set at 120 million. This would give every team 30 million to spend and since all teams could cut whomever they wanted a lot of guys would be on the market. This would give all teams an even shot.

One stipulation with this would be the rookie scale so these guys who are bust don't ruin a franchise.

Once this first year is done it would the base guys from the first year would go up each year for 5 years and include the new guys signed. After 5 years most of the old contracts would be fazed out.

This would put a premium on good football mean to work good contracts

So something like this.
Year 1 cap 120 million - base guys 90 million. Cap money to spend 30 million
Year 2 cap 125 million - base guys 100 million. Cap money to spend 25 million
Year 3 cap 127 million - base guys 110 million. Cap money to spend 17 million
Year 4 cap 130 million - base guys 115 million. Cap money to spend 15 million
Year 5 cap 135 million - base guys 120 million. Cap money to spend 10 million

Then after year 5 a set cap limit and goes back to actual contract cost. The base guys are all the guys you have under contract at the beginning of the year.

So after 5 years you will know which teams have good football personnel or who ruined teams. Maybe a 3 year period would work instead. But maybe something like this.

I think though the best thing would be a contract purge clause. If teams could get rid of whomever they wanted regardless of the contract and it would have no effect on the next cap it would be great. Most of the guys would be resigned by other teams but at better contracts and only those guys who do not have anything left to give would be out of the league. It would allow teams to start over. Again this would need to be dependent on a rookie scale so teams dont get in such messes in the future.

 

[Sandyf]

I wouldn't worry much about the cap yet. The 2010 NFL year is not finished yet and clubs can still take advantage of certain things within that scope.

I have seen a number of "cap projections" for 2011 and how much teams have "committed" in salary in 2011. They are not set in stone numbers simply because there was no cap in 2010 so technically according to the NFL a club with say a Roy Williams contract could restructure and put quite a bit into the 2010 salary year. Also one of the points of the CBA is that the players do not want a salary cap. It is a negotiating point where when it comes down to it we will probably see a structure similar to that of the NBA with rookies and salary cap.

Lots to play out on the franchise and transition tags also that will effect the cap. But to the credit of all, I have found one source that says Dallas has $136 million committed to players in 2011 and another that says Dallas only has $96 million committed in 2011. That my friends is a wide range.

One just has to look at two contracts to know what is going on. Austin contract last year called for some $18 million of which all was salary but some sources list most of it as bonus, it wasn't. Roy Williams received a large $9.5 million bonus last March which many believe was to be prorated on the term of the contract although Stephen Jones said some 3 months ago that it was put all into 2010 dollars. Not what is true and not true remains to be seen.

Fact is until we get a new CBA nothing is set in stone on a salary cap.

 

[Cowboys22]

I think Jerry and Stephen did a great job with the cap and how they did things, it was the coaches and players that didn't cooperate. I think Jerry and Stephen felt they would have been in serious contention for the past 3 years but it didn't work out that way. No way they could have seen players like Barber, Newman, Jenkins, and others drop off in level of play the way they did. Fans expecting some big spending spree are in for a long off season. When a new CBA is in place, it will almost assuradly include a salary cap and if it does not reset all teams, Dallas is in very bad shape. It will be up to the players currently on the team to make improvements because there will not be very many or any significant additions. This team was put together and financed in a way that was expected to have already produced a superbowl win. It will now have to be redone.

 

[DANCRYST]

Cowboys22

I agree totally. That is why all the contracts are neutral. If will be very small upgrades if any. Though I think this is all it will take with better coaching. I personally hope that the minor upgrades come through the draft.

 

[Nightman]

I know it won't happen, but I would love to see them get rid of the salary cap during these talks. Do revenue sharing on the big stuff, like TV and big sponsors, but let the teams keep their local media, tickets and sponsors. All the cap rules have made things overly complicated and teams with money still get around it rather easily.

 

[Temo]

Reminds me of the year before the salary cap when the 49ers front loaded a bunch of contracts and we didn't seem to do much of anything.

The niners actually got in a bunch of trouble for that.

 

[Temo]

Here's how the Cowboys could create more cap room:

1. Restructure Austin's huge base salaries-- could save as much as $6M on next year's cap.

2. Marion Barber and Roy Williams got huge bonuses last year that might not be included in the new cap, since they were received in a no-cap environment. That's a savings of $4M for Roy Williams and $2M for Barber... plus more if they just cut them.

 

[speedkilz88]

The niners actually got in a bunch of trouble for that.

49ers got in trouble for paying under the table.

 

[AdamJT13]

It's pointless to try to figure out our salary cap situation until we know whether there will be a cap in 2011; what the 2011 cap will be, if there is one; what the new salary cap rules are; and what will be done with dead money from players released in 2010 (contrary to popular belief, there was no acceleration of dead money into 2010 under the old CBA).

Also, keep in mind that we have the second-fewest unsigned players in the league right now -- 10. Some teams have more than 20, and the Saints have 30. And we have plenty of contracts that can undergo typical restructuring to drastically reduce cap numbers, if necessary.

 

[big dog cowboy]

It's pointless to try to figure out our salary cap situation until we know whether there will be a cap in 2011; what the 2011 cap will be, if there is one; what the new salary cap rules are; and what will be done with dead money from players released in 2010 (contrary to popular belief, there was no acceleration of dead money into 2010 under the old CBA).

Also, keep in mind that we have the second-fewest unsigned players in the league right now -- 10. Some teams have more than 20, and the Saints have 30. And we have plenty of contracts that can undergo typical restructuring to drastically reduce cap numbers, if necessary.

:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: