Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.

[Mookie]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.


I've read we are in a deep financial situation, while other teams have tens of dozens of million to spend on players. Recently however, news broke out that the cap will rise to $130M, and reading around the forum, I saw that was great news for us, and even better news were the follow-up that the cap will indeed rise to $132M.


Now, if the roster stays put exactly as it is today, where do the Cowboys stand next year? Secondly, what if Orton, Austin and Ware (Any other candidate?) all get cut? Thirdly, what is the difference if them being cut [released] today versus, March or June (seeing how those dates are often mentioned).


Fourthly, do we have enough cap space to sign draft picks? And, do we have enough for any free agents, or am I being too greedy? And finally what is next year's situation and when will it all get better?

 

[LatinMind]

this makes it easy
http://overthecap.com/calculator/?Team=Cowboys

 

[big dog cowboy]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.

We're in timeout.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.


I've read we are in a deep financial situation, while other teams have tens of dozens of million to spend on players. Recently however, news broke out that the cap will rise to $130M, and reading around the forum, I saw that was great news for us, and even better news were the follow-up that the cap will indeed rise to $132M.


Now, if the roster stays put exactly as it is today, where do the Cowboys stand next year? Secondly, what if Orton, Austin and Ware (Any other candidate?) all get cut? Thirdly, what is the difference if them being cut [released] today versus, March or June (seeing how those dates are often mentioned).


Fourthly, do we have enough cap space to sign draft picks? And, do we have enough for any free agents, or am I being too greedy? And finally what is next year's situation and when will it all get better?

Short answer is we gave too much money to players who were not worth said money...............some call it bad luck, I call it incompetence.

 

[Nightman]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.


I've read we are in a deep financial situation, while other teams have tens of dozens of million to spend on players. Recently however, news broke out that the cap will rise to $130M, and reading around the forum, I saw that was great news for us, and even better news were the follow-up that the cap will indeed rise to $132M.


Now, if the roster stays put exactly as it is today, where do the Cowboys stand next year? Secondly, what if Orton, Austin and Ware (Any other candidate?) all get cut? Thirdly, what is the difference if them being cut [released] today versus, March or June (seeing how those dates are often mentioned).


Fourthly, do we have enough cap space to sign draft picks? And, do we have enough for any free agents, or am I being too greedy? And finally what is next year's situation and when will it all get better?

Dallas restructures a lot of contracts to create room. During the off-season it looks bad and the media writes about the Cowboys being in cap hell. It's just not the reality of the situation. They can create as much room as they need and now that they can roll over unused cap space, there is no reason to stop doing it this way. The cap is expected to rise a lot in the next few years and hopefully all the worrying will stop, but I doubt it.

Last year, Dallas had to deal with the second of two 5m cap penalties imposed by the league. They still found enough room to tag Spencer-10.6m, sign Durant-2.4m, sign Allen-900k, sign Sims-900k, sign Waters-1.5m, sign all their draft picks, extend Romo-108m, extend Lee-43m, extend Scandrick-6m and eat the injuries and releases/trades of Lissemore, Ratliff, Livings, Sensabaugh, Arkin, Crawford, Bass, Johnson, Connor and Cook.

This season they can create over 45m in cap space with a few restructures(Romo, Witten, Lee, Carr, Scandrick, Free)
Cutting Costa, Durant and a few near minimum guys(Irvin, Clutts, Kearse, Wilson)
Either restructuring, releasing or re-doing Ware(same with Orton)
Naming Austin a June 1st cut

That would leave Dallas around 24m under the salary cap. They don't have to do everything above, but they can roll over any excess, so there isn't a lot of risk to the restructures. They could hang onto Costa and Durant if they want to wait until after the Draft and FA. Not a big deal either way. That leaves them plenty of room to be active in Free Agency, sign all the Draft picks, extend Dez and TSmith and leave a nice reserve for injuries, late signings and roll-over.

 

[Nightman]

Here's is a visual aid

 

[Zordon]

gooo gooo gaa gaa winky winky pooh pooh....

edit: oh I thought you said like a 5 month old, my bad...

 

[Section446]

Short answer is we gave too much money to players who were not worth said money...............some call it bad luck, I call it incompetence.

What's worse is that the fan base supports average players getting overpaid (Romo)...

 

[Cowboys22]

Here you go. Stop giving it any thought. It's of no concern to us fans. No team has ever been over the cap when it counted. That should tell you all you need to know. Do 5 year olds worry about if their parents can pay the rent or mortgage? Just know this, when the salary cap is tight, there will be limited activity in free agency. When they have cap room, they will likely go sign free agents you may have heard of. Just like when money is tight, 5 year olds get less for Christmas but Christmas still comes. The 2014 season will come and Dallas will have a team made up mostly of the same players minus a few and plus a few from the draft and free agency. That is all you need to know and worrying about the cap is pointless.

 

[xwalker]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.


I've read we are in a deep financial situation, while other teams have tens of dozens of million to spend on players. Recently however, news broke out that the cap will rise to $130M, and reading around the forum, I saw that was great news for us, and even better news were the follow-up that the cap will indeed rise to $132M.


Now, if the roster stays put exactly as it is today, where do the Cowboys stand next year? Secondly, what if Orton, Austin and Ware (Any other candidate?) all get cut? Thirdly, what is the difference if them being cut [released] today versus, March or June (seeing how those dates are often mentioned).


Fourthly, do we have enough cap space to sign draft picks? And, do we have enough for any free agents, or am I being too greedy? And finally what is next year's situation and when will it all get better?

They can free up about 7.5M without touching the contracts of Ware, Austin or Orton.

They could free up as much as 19M by also cutting Ware, and Orton and making Austin a June 1st cut. The draft picks will only cost about 2M because they replace players that are already counting against the cap. Only the top 51 contracts count against the cap in the off-season.

They will need to keep space available to give new contracts to Tyron and Dez; although, they can make the 1st year cap hit of their new contracts low which they have done in the past.

Bottom Line: The 2014 salary cap is not an issue for the Cowboys. They do have to plan ahead for the future years. One benefit to the future years is that the dead-money will likely be smaller. It is currently about 11M for 2014 due to players like Ratliff. It will likely be about 6M in 2015 if Austin is a June 1st cut. It was about 30M in 2013.

 

[theSHOW]

https://encrypted-tbn3.***NOT-ALLOWED***/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTJRu9YACvrgRwPzqXtaHI-OaGN_w-kcVyj97YHF1ojq-bSiSer

 

[IrishAnto]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.


I've read we are in a deep financial situation, while other teams have tens of dozens of million to spend on players. Recently however, news broke out that the cap will rise to $130M, and reading around the forum, I saw that was great news for us, and even better news were the follow-up that the cap will indeed rise to $132M.


Now, if the roster stays put exactly as it is today, where do the Cowboys stand next year? Secondly, what if Orton, Austin and Ware (Any other candidate?) all get cut? Thirdly, what is the difference if them being cut [released] today versus, March or June (seeing how those dates are often mentioned).


Fourthly, do we have enough cap space to sign draft picks? And, do we have enough for any free agents, or am I being too greedy? And finally what is next year's situation and when will it all get better?

It's like that because I say so.

 

[DanTanna]

Allright Jameis here it goes:

Other teams: dem stron
Cowboys: ain't stron

 

[Lonestar94]

You are a fan, you dont need to know this information.

Go out and get some fresh air, go pick up a new hobby.


Jerry Jones's Cowboys are not worthy of your time and effort.

 

[burmafrd]

We spend too much where we should not too often.

 

[Kaiser]

Salary Cap situation; can anybody explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old.

Its not a five year old’s analogy but as a business example, picture you are in a business where you can make as much money as you want - but you have a limit to your Sales/Marketing budget for attracting new customers. However the good sales employees all get big bonuses up front. You also have a credit card that charges zero interest that can pay more bonuses, but hiring the right employees and controlling the bonuses is biggest factor in the success of your company.

Some teams do great on getting employees at reasonable bonuses. Some teams don’t even try and don’t spend their entire budget. Some teams spend it all and put more money on the interest free credit card.

This team does an OK to good job of handing out the employee bonuses and puts every penny on the interest free credit card so they can have the most sales employees possible.

(And on this team, a third of the customers walk in the store and spend their day standing in line at the complaint counter.)

 

[daveferr33]

Once upon a time there were these bad people called the Media. The Media was jealous of the King who ruled the land with benevolence and mercy and allowed his subjects to be entertained by contests of valor.

Because the Media seethed with Jealousy, they would make up lies about the King--how he had mismanaged those contests of valor.

The King, practing perfect patience and goodness, sent the Prince to assure the subjects that this was not the case; that the Media's account should not be taken seriously (laughed at actually); and that the King had unlimited resources and power to do whatever he wanted to make the contests of valor more entertaining to the subjects.

The good subjects were appeased by the Prince's message and happily ever after paid their entrance fees to the contests of valor thereby making the King and his ruling family very happy.

 

[Zordon]

Simplest way to explain it, we're screwed. Just don't tell Steven about it b/c he'll just chuckle in your face.

 

[Bluefin]

Dallas restructures a lot of contracts to create room. During the off-season it looks bad and the media writes about the Cowboys being in cap hell. It's just not the reality of the situation.

And it's just silly for anyone to look at the giant cap number for the upcoming season as if it's etched in stone.

Not only can Dallas restructure multiple contracts to create cap room, in some cases the contracts are purposefully written to be restructured in future years.

Right now, a quick looks shows the Cowboys with a 2014 cap commitment just north of $152M, that's the current top 51 contracts and dead money.

But Tony Romo ($21.773M), Sean Lee ($7.5M) and Orlando Scandrick ($6.6M) all have contracts that were written to be restructured this year.

The team never had any intention of these contracts counting at this amount for 2014, so there's no reason to look at them this way.

Romo ($11.737M), Lee ($3.684M) and Scandrick ($3.58525M) reduce Dallas' cap charge by $16.868M when you take the planned restructures into account.

This drops the Cowboys' team cap number to just over $135M before they start looking at ways to get under the cap and go to work.

 

[theSHOW]

Dallas restructures a lot of contracts to create room. During the off-season it looks bad and the media writes about the Cowboys being in cap hell. It's just not the reality of the situation. They can create as much room as they need and now that they can roll over unused cap space, there is no reason to stop doing it this way. The cap is expected to rise a lot in the next few years and hopefully all the worrying will stop, but I doubt it.

Last year, Dallas had to deal with the second of two 5m cap penalties imposed by the league. They still found enough room to tag Spencer-10.6m, sign Durant-2.4m, sign Allen-900k, sign Sims-900k, sign Waters-1.5m, sign all their draft picks, extend Romo-108m, extend Lee-43m, extend Scandrick-6m and eat the injuries and releases/trades of Lissemore, Ratliff, Livings, Sensabaugh, Arkin, Crawford, Bass, Johnson, Connor and Cook.

This season they can create over 45m in cap space with a few restructures(Romo, Witten, Lee, Carr, Scandrick, Free)
Cutting Costa, Durant and a few near minimum guys(Irvin, Clutts, Kearse, Wilson)
Either restructuring, releasing or re-doing Ware(same with Orton)
Naming Austin a June 1st cut

That would leave Dallas around 24m under the salary cap. They don't have to do everything above, but they can roll over any excess, so there isn't a lot of risk to the restructures. They could hang onto Costa and Durant if they want to wait until after the Draft and FA. Not a big deal either way. That leaves them plenty of room to be active in Free Agency, sign all the Draft picks, extend Dez and TSmith and leave a nice reserve for injuries, late signings and roll-over.

What would the plan be for 2015 ? I have the answer. Pray for another cap increase and make it big.