Salary Cap Hell...Cloudy Team Future

[sportsman]

The Dallas Cowboys are projected to be at least a league-leading $31 million over the salary cap next season.

The Cowboys will face what one NFL executive called "a train wreck" in terms of their salary-cap issues.

If Dallas is $31 million over the cap, it would be $13 million more than the next-closest team, the New Orleans Saints.

Dallas' messy salary-cap situation got even messier when the Cowboys released former Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jay Ratliff, who will count for almost $7 million against the cap in 2014.

Dallas likely will be forced to cut more players and slash contracts in an effort just to get back to the salary cap, especially after giving lucrative extensions to quarterback Tony Romo, linebacker Sean Lee, tight end Jason Witten and wide receiver Miles Austin.

http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/9854353/dallas-cowboys-projected-31-million-salary-cap-2014

 

[ScipioCowboy]

Bad general management.

 

[chicago JK]

Yeah it is frustrating. I hate hearing fans say, "at least Jerry will spend money". Sure I want a team who will spend money but is spending money really a big benefit. Mostly it is signing their own players or FA's to second or third contracts. Outside of Romo and Ware signings over the years (who all teams would have resigned if they were in the right spot), I don't think any of the big contracts they have given have proven good values. Big Davis? Guruode? Carr? Scandrick? Free? Ratliff? Austin? etc.

Some of those guys are good players but how many proved to be worth the salary...especially when they were approaching 30?

 

[Tabascocat]

Jerry would be a great MLB owner who can throw away money to anyone and everyone. He wouldn't even worry about the luxury tax and sign the flavor of the winter meetings.

Football? He and his son are bass ackwards while kicking the rock further down the road, eventually it will hit a tree.

 

[TheCoolFan]

Thank goodness. It's going to get worse...much worse and I love it. Anything to break the string of 8-8. Gimme a rock bottom year!

 

[StarBoyz83]

We seeing as this team needs 9 new starters and all new coaches to even compete were screwed!!

 

[Future]

Spencer coming off the books saves about 10, cutting Ware saves more than 7, and I think designating Miles a June 1 cut saves like 6. Durant, Orton, and Costa are close to another 3. Parnell is 1.5. The combination of Brown, Irvin, Nevis, Clutts, Wilson, Lemon, Weems, Cam Lawrence, Jeff Olson would save more than another 4. Romo restructuring will save a bunch, though I'm not sure exactly how much.

That's almost your 31 right there. Then there are a ton of guys who have been signed off the street who will come off the books when they are released. I think we'll be able to get under without too much of a problem, though being able to sign anybody is going to be tricky.

 

[DOUBLE WING]

This is Jerry's best work as a GM here, folks.

 

[TwoCentPlain]

At some point, the big money players need to give some back if they value victories over their wallet. Romo, Ware, Carr, Austin, Witten have all been paid beyond well for their time here. Now their production is nowhere close to their salaries.

Is a ring important to them? Do they even care about winning or would they rather just line their pockets and go through the motions? All teams deal with this situation at some time. It just so happens it is now for the Cowboys.

Greed probably robbed the 90's Cowboys of two SBs. If Aikman and Emmitt would have taken less (only 10-20% less), they probably would have had an additional ring or two.

 

[Common Sense]

Spencer coming off the books saves about 10, cutting Ware saves more than 7, and I think designating Miles a June 1 cut saves like 6. Durant, Orton, and Costa are close to another 3. Parnell is 1.5. The combination of Brown, Irvin, Nevis, Clutts, Wilson, Lemon, Weems, Cam Lawrence, Jeff Olson would save more than another 4. Romo restructuring will save a bunch, though I'm not sure exactly how much.

That's almost your 31 right there. Then there are a ton of guys who have been signed off the street who will come off the books when they are released. I think we'll be able to get under without too much of a problem, though being able to sign anybody is going to be tricky.

So we're going to cut 16 players and still not have money to sign anyone new?

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Spencer coming off the books saves about 10, ...

Spencer isn't even on the books for 2014. He has no contract after this year and is a FA. Zip, nada, nothing to do with the capo next year for Spencer. He signed a $10M contract with the Cowboys for 2013. There is no bonus money or anything else with him.

 

[Future]

So we're going to cut 16 players and still not have money to sign anyone new?

Most of the replacements for those guys are on the roster, or can be drafted at way lower cap rates. We are talking about a bunch of backups. The hardest one to replace will be Ware. Other than that, none of those guys have major roles.

 

[xwalker]

The Dallas Cowboys are projected to be at least a league-leading $31 million over the salary cap next season.

The Cowboys will face what one NFL executive called "a train wreck" in terms of their salary-cap issues.

If Dallas is $31 million over the cap, it would be $13 million more than the next-closest team, the New Orleans Saints.

Dallas' messy salary-cap situation got even messier when the Cowboys released former Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jay Ratliff, who will count for almost $7 million against the cap in 2014.

Dallas likely will be forced to cut more players and slash contracts in an effort just to get back to the salary cap, especially after giving lucrative extensions to quarterback Tony Romo, linebacker Sean Lee, tight end Jason Witten and wide receiver Miles Austin.

http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/9854353/dallas-cowboys-projected-31-million-salary-cap-2014

It has been posted numerous times exactly how the Cowboys can easily get back under the cap.

Comparing next years cap numbers at this time of year is a worthless endeavor. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. The more free agents that the team has, the better their cap projections will look at this time; however, when those teams re-sign their free agents, they might be in worse shape than other teams to already have many players under contract.

This issue is posted repeatedly ever year, yet the ramifications have yet to be significant. People were quoting numbers anywhere from 20 to 40 million over the cap for the Cowboys at this time last year, yet they not only got under the cap, but also Franchised Spencer which was 10.6M that didn't even show up on the original projections.

Chicago has something like 29 free agents.

The projections don't show that a team like Carolina is going to go from paying DE Greg Hardy 1.35M in 2013 to about 12M in 2014 if they want to keep him.

 

[Future]

Spencer isn't even on the books for 2014. He has no contract after this year and is a FA. Zip, nada, nothing to do with the capo next year for Spencer. He signed a $10M contract with the Cowboys for 2013. There is no bonus money or anything else with him.

Yea but if they are 31 mill over the cap now, next year they would be 21, unless that number didn't include him, which I might be wrong about.

 

[Risen Star]

Do you know how frustrating it is to be just another cornerback or two away from the promised land and not have the money to get it done?

 

[Risen Star]

Yea but if they are 31 mill over the cap now, next year they would be 21, unless that number didn't include him, which I might be wrong about.

If they're projected to be 31 over for next year then that doesn't include players not under contract next year.

People, please...do NOT ask Stephen Jones about this. He hates that.

 

[Future]

If they're projected to be 31 over for next year then that doesn't include players not under contract next year.

People, please...do NOT ask Stephen Jones about this. He hates that.

Not necessarily. If they are going by what the cap hit is right now, and just translating it to next year - which I think some of them do - that would include Spencer.

 

[Risen Star]

Not necessarily. If they are going by what the cap hit is right now, and just translating it to next year - which I think some of them do - that would include Spencer.

I doubt anyone would do that. That wouldn't make any sense.

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Yea but if they are 31 mill over the cap now, next year they would be 21, unless that number didn't include him, which I might be wrong about.

The $31M doesn't include Spencer. I'm pretty sure on that.

The base salaries of Romo, Ware, and Carr will have to be converted to signing bonuses just like last year. That's probably around $20M right there. The Cowboys have around $2m left over from this year which will carry over. So, that leaves around $9M to cut. I imagine Austin taking a paycut from $6M to $1.5M which saves $4.5M. Looks like we need another $7-8M to cut to get under the cap and sign draft picks.

 

[Future]

I doubt anyone would do that. That wouldn't make any sense.

...we are talking about the NFL media.