Salary Cap estimate

[Nightman]

I keep hearing we are either just under the cap or 6.8m over. The numbers reported so far suggest it is the 6.8m over. They started around 23m over, but that was based on a 121m cap. It is now 123m so they started at 21m over. Add up the cuts and restructures and here's what I have.

Start at 21m over the cap.
Redo Carr 10.6m, Ware 4m, Witten 4m, Austin 3m, Ratliff 4m, Bern/Livings 1.5= 27.1m= 6.1m under
Cut Sensabaugh 1.5m saved= 7.6m under
Sign Costa 1.3 and Ladoceur 1m= 5.4m under
Tag Spencer 10.6m= 5.3m over
Add for rookies 1.5m= 6.8m over

They can still redo/cut Connor 3m, Spears 2m, Scandrick 2m and Free 2.85m(7m after June 1st)= 9.85m(14m)
Resign Romo 6m and resign Spencer 5m= 11m


Still some work to do to get under by the 12th and even more to make a couple moves in FA, but the money is there if they need it.

 

[Fla Cowpoke]

You don't have to account for the rookies now.

I know we had a carry over of money as well.

 

[TheFinisher]

I keep hearing we are either just under the cap or 6.8m over. The numbers reported so far suggest it is the 6.8m over. They started around 23m over, but that was based on a 121m cap. It is now 123m so they started at 21m over. Add up the cuts and restructures and here's what I have.

Start at 21m over the cap.
Redo Carr 10.6m, Ware 4m, Witten 4m, Austin 3m, Ratliff 4m, Bern/Livings 1.5= 27.1m= 6.1m under
Cut Sensabaugh 1.5m saved= 7.6m under
Sign Costa 1.3 and Ladoceur 1m= 5.4m under
Tag Spencer 10.6m= 5.3m over
Add for rookies 1.5m= 6.8m over

They can still redo/cut Connor 3m, Spears 2m, Scandrick 2m and Free 2.85m(7m after June 1st)= 9.85m(14m)
Resign Romo 6m and resign Spencer 5m= 11m


Still some work to do to get under by the 12th and even more to make a couple moves in FA, but the money is there if they need it.

Cutting Scandrick would cost us an additional 2.7MM to cut
Cutting Spears saves us 600K

Cutting Free saves us nothing until after June 1st. When you designate a player a June 1st cut his contract stays on the books until June 1st. It's not designed to free up money for FA in March, it was made to help teams sign their rookies in the summer.


Connor ($3MM) and Vickers($1.2MM) could free up some money if we choose to axe them.

We could drop Ratliff's base salary of $5MM down, but that would mean adding more dead money to a declining player who already has huge guaranteed cash numbers for the next few seasons.

Re-signing Romo needs to be priority #1 for the FO over the next 40 hours.

 

[TheCount]

I'm still a bit curious to see how we keep all the young, good players with all this money we are guaranteeing to older guys.

At some point, Miles is going to count 13m+ against the cap, all of it guaranteed. Ratliff will count 10. Witten another 8m. Etc. If Dez signs a new contract in the 10-15m per year range, that's almost 25 to 30m on #1 and #2 receivers alone. Throw Witten in, and you've got 35m just on two receivers and one tight end.

Maybe that's normal, I don't feel like doing that research right now, but that sounds like an awful lot before you've even looked at paying a hopefully improved oline, running back and QB.

 

[Fla Cowpoke]

Basically in a year or two at most you could completely fix your cap...should coincide with going 3-13 and getting your new franchise QB.

 

[Hoofbite]

I'm still a bit curious to see how we keep all the young, good players with all this money we are guaranteeing to older guys.

At some point, Miles is going to count 13m+ against the cap, all of it guaranteed. Ratliff will count 10. Witten another 8m. Etc. If Dez signs a new contract in the 10-15m per year range, that's almost 25 to 30m on #1 and #2 receivers alone. Throw Witten in, and you've got 35m just on two receivers and one tight end.

Maybe that's normal, I don't feel like doing that research right now, but that sounds like an awful lot before you've even looked at paying a hopefully improved oline, running back and QB.

Things aren't trending in the right direction, that's for sure.

If they have to make moves right now, and lots of them, in order to just get under the cap I don't think it's unforeseeable that some players will leave in the future.

 

[Nightman]

I'm still a bit curious to see how we keep all the young, good players with all this money we are guaranteeing to older guys.

At some point, Miles is going to count 13m+ against the cap, all of it guaranteed. Ratliff will count 10. Witten another 8m. Etc. If Dez signs a new contract in the 10-15m per year range, that's almost 25 to 30m on #1 and #2 receivers alone. Throw Witten in, and you've got 35m just on two receivers and one tight end.

Maybe that's normal, I don't feel like doing that research right now, but that sounds like an awful lot before you've even looked at paying a hopefully improved oline, running back and QB.

I don't think the money is guaranteed. All they do is take this year's salary and convert it to a lump sum payment. The cap hit is spread over the remaining years, but no more money is guaranteed. And the cap hits for the young guys are very low for the first couple years, after that the old guys will be off the books. It's a cycle.

 

[TheCount]

I don't think the money is guaranteed. All they do is take this year's salary and convert it to a lump sum payment. The cap hit is spread over the remaining years, but no more money is guaranteed. And the cap hits for the young guys are very low for the first couple years, after that the old guys will be off the books. It's a cycle.

Base salary isn't guaranteed? If not, then that certainly eases my mind. I'm not so much worried about the cap as I am the overall salary we are dedicating to players that will be in their mid 30's with significant base salaries right around when we need to keep these younger guys.

 

[CoCo]

I don't think the money is guaranteed. All they do is take this year's salary and convert it to a lump sum payment. The cap hit is spread over the remaining years, but no more money is guaranteed. And the cap hits for the young guys are very low for the first couple years, after that the old guys will be off the books. It's a cycle.

Correct. Not without its risk of course. Bad drafts kill you becuase you lose the opportunity for young productive players for cheap (1st contract) replacing/pushing the big cap $ guys off the roster.

 

[TheCount]

Correct. Not without its risk of course. Bad drafts kill you becuase you lose the opportunity for young productive players for cheap (1st contract) replacing/pushing the big cap $ guys off the roster.

So if you've got a guy with a 13m base salary and $0 in bonus, how much do you save by cutting him? The 13m? 0? Something inbetween?

I get that you can turn some of it into bonus to fool the cap if you need to, but that also assumes you're keeping him, doesn't it? What if he's 35, making 13m and giving you production as that drafted guy making 1.5m. Can you get rid of the older guy and save money?

 

[Kevinicus]

So if you've got a guy with a 13m base salary and $0 in bonus, how much do you save by cutting him? The 13m? 0? Something inbetween?

I get that you can turn some of it into bonus to fool the cap if you need to, but that also assumes you're keeping him, doesn't it? What if he's 35, making 13m and giving you production as that drafted guy making 1.5m. Can you get rid of the older guy and save money?

Base salary, unless it is stated in the contract is guaranteed, counts 0 if the player is cut. Signing bonus, roster bonus, etc. would count, but not base.

 

[TheCount]

Base salary, unless it is stated in the contract is guaranteed, counts 0 if the player is cut. Signing bonus, roster bonus, etc. would count, but not base.

Okay, so it wouldn't count against the cap, it would just be dead money if the guy is cut?

Essentially base salary is guaranteed money but doesn't count against the cap, is that the jist of it?

 

[JBS]

This estimate is completely off..

Guys like Ratliff, Bern, and livings haven't restructured yet

 

[xwalker]

Okay, so it wouldn't count against the cap, it would just be dead money if the guy is cut?

Essentially base salary is guaranteed money but doesn't count against the cap, is that the jist of it?

No. Normally, base salaries are not guaranteed. There are 2 exceptions:

1. Once the season starts, vested veterans (4 years experience), base salary for that season is guaranteed.

2. The team can guarantee base salaries. The new CBA gives teams more freedom to guarantee base salaries. This is being used in a method similar to how signing bonuses have been used to defer the cap hit of a contract. Brandon Carr's 2nd year base salary was guaranteed for about 16M. This was automatically converted into a restructure bonus after the end of the 1st year. They were able to get his 1st year cap hit down to 3.6M using this method. After the restructure, his 2nd year cap hit will be about 6M.

 

[Nightman]

This estimate is completely off..

Guys like Ratliff, Bern, and livings haven't restructured yet

I'm just going by the numbers reported. Those guys have all been reported to have been done. The numbers still have to add up to 123m at some point. I'm just trying to figure out who is left. Connor just got released, so there is another 3m off, so we are somewhere around 3.8m over still.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'm still a bit curious to see how we keep all the young, good players with all this money we are guaranteeing to older guys.

At some point, Miles is going to count 13m+ against the cap, all of it guaranteed. Ratliff will count 10. Witten another 8m. Etc. If Dez signs a new contract in the 10-15m per year range, that's almost 25 to 30m on #1 and #2 receivers alone. Throw Witten in, and you've got 35m just on two receivers and one tight end.

Maybe that's normal, I don't feel like doing that research right now, but that sounds like an awful lot before you've even looked at paying a hopefully improved oline, running back and QB.

You either keep them or designate them June 1 cuts. As it is some of that money counts for this year as well. It doesn't accelerate until it accelerates.

You can also string out their contracts like we string out these contracts. That way we get years where Dez Lee etc only count a pittance agains the cap like those guys are now. We can reset after Ware and Romo are gone.