Sturm On Cowboys Contract Handling

[FuzzyLumpkins]

From Andrew Brandt:

2. In my time in Green Bay managing the cap, I resisted the annual temptation to mortgage (restructure) Brett Favre’s contract for cap purposes—“short-term gain for long-term pain”—so we would not leave a large cap charge in his wake (his “dead money” was $600,000). My not-so-humble brag is relevant now that Tony Romo leaves behind a cap charge of $19.6 million, whether taken as a hit this year or spread out between this year and next. The Cowboys will be operating with this debit on their cap, their highest player cap charge, for a player who will likely end up playing elsewhere.

I know I have been critical of teams like the Cowboys or Saints in their cap management, but there are consequences such as 1) letting players go to market rather than being able to be proactive and lock them up and 2) not playing with a full deck due to non-roster charges eating up cap space. The Cowboys are now paying the bill on Romo; Drew Brees’s bill with the Saints will come due in the next couple of years.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/03/14/nfl-free-agency-business-football-10-reflections-andrew-brandt

You sure seem intent on the appeal to authority today. Cannot articulate on your own or something?

Mortgage is a terrible analogy. There is no interest much less a compounding annual interest. Scary rhetoric is garbage.

How are we "paying the bill with Romo?" The $20m everyone is complaining about now was worth significantly more back in 2013 and what exactly are we unable to do? We are near $9m under the cap and we can eat the charge and still save money.

Then next year poof! The dreaded acceleration is gone and we can sign Martin to a massive contract in the interim.

Oh noes we're screwed because we didn't play Church and MCClain $6m AAV? Please.

Then you look at us in 2018 and we under by $10s of millions. Oh noes!

 

[Nightman]

You sure seem intent on the appeal to authority today. Cannot articulate on your own or something?

Mortgage is a terrible analogy. There is no interest much less a compounding annual interest. Scary rhetoric is garbage.

How are we "paying the bill with Romo?" The $20m everyone is complaining about now was worth significantly more back in 2013 and what exactly are we unable to do? We are near $9m under the cap and we can eat the charge and still save money.

Then next year poof! The dreaded acceleration is gone and we can sign Martin to a massive contract in the interim.

Oh noes we're screwed because we didn't play Church and MCClain $6m AAV? Please.

Then you look at us in 2018 and we under by $10s of millions. Oh noes!

Exactly

From now on teams aren't even going to give Signing Bonuses and pro-rate them

They have too much cap space and don't need to restructure....... the restructure argument is over in DAL.... SJones and austerity won

Teams will just give Roster Bonuses that aren't pro-rated and the contracts will be more like MLB and NBA or straight line accounting

 

[waldoputty]

Lol accounting Olympics.

I'd gladly live in cap hell for a decade for a Super Bowl win next year. Instead of making it to the playoffs here and there

the key point is that we could have at least 4-5 years of strong superbowl contention before a year or so of lower spending.
if we draft well, then it would not matter.
if we draft badly, then we would not have won anything in the 4-5 years - so who cares.

people make it out as short term thinking.
instead of commenting out of follow-the-sheep model, they should check the numbers themselves.

ANYBODY WHO WANTS MY SIMPLE MODEL TO RUN YOUR OWN CAPS NUMBERS, I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SEND YOU THE MODEL AND ANSWER QUESTIONS ON HOW TO MESS WITH IT. it is not rocket science, just a small spreadsheet doing arithmetic.

 

[waldoputty]

Oh yah.........Jones and his win now every year mentality, the risk taker, and he isnt signing guys to fill holes he is desperately trying to fill because he just doenst feel like it. LOL

And every year we have to push more money into the future just to get under the cap to sign draft picks.

Now its a home grown philosophy and they are on board. LOL

I have spent the 1-2 hours of work to load the salary cap into excel.
you are generalizing without any specifics.
the model says we can sign 3 top FA and a top RT in 2017 while the cap is not blown up.
the model was tested for 5 years.
after signing the 10m of FAs, i suspect we can still afford 2 top FA (but no one left) and a decent RT in 2017 (also no one left)

anyone who wants to check my model and kick my butt (if you are right), i would be happy to send you the model.
i would even help you to change it if so requested.
if you dont have any real numbers behind what you are saying, it is just hot air.

work with real numbers.
dont follow the sheep

 

[haleyrules]

The salary cap combined with Free Agency has ruined football. Can not keep a team together.

 

[CowboyRoy]

I have spent the 1-2 hours of work to load the salary cap into excel.
you are generalizing without any specifics.
the model says we can sign 3 top FA and a top RT in 2017 while the cap is not blown up.
the model was tested for 5 years.
after signing the 10m of FAs, i suspect we can still afford 2 top FA (but no one left) and a decent RT in 2017 (also no one left)

anyone who wants to check my model and kick my butt (if you are right), i would be happy to send you the model.
i would even help you to change it if so requested.
if you dont have any real numbers behind what you are saying, it is just hot air.

work with real numbers.
dont follow the sheep

Its very simple.

We were 13 million over the cap when this all started. Just to get under the cap we had to restructure a couple contracts. That means were borrowing in future years caps because we cant even manage it properly.

After the restructuring we are now 13 million under the cap. That is enough to sign a couple bargain FA's, which we did, and sign our draft picks.

THATS IT!!!!

There is no model or whatever nonsense you are talking about. If we could potentially get big cap relief next season, but this only because they got lucky and struck gold and can get rid of Romo's 27 million dollar salary. And it looks like they are already biting into that apple.

 

[Alexander]

Obviously your model is for garbage.

Its very simple.

We were 13 million over the cap when this all started. Just to get under the cap we had to restructure a couple contracts. That means were borrowing in future years caps because we cant even manage it properly.

After the restructuring we are now 13 million under the cap. That is enough to sign a couple bargain FA's, which we did, and sign our draft picks.

THATS IT!!!!

There is no model or whatever nonsense you are talking about. If we could potentially get big cap relief next season, but this only because they got lucky and struck gold and can get rid of Romo's 27 million dollar salary. And it looks like they are already biting into that apple.

You are begging for the spreadsheet. Just admit it.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Its very simple.

We were 13 million over the cap when this all started. Just to get under the cap we had to restructure a couple contracts. That means were borrowing in future years caps because we cant even manage it properly.

After the restructuring we are now 13 million under the cap. That is enough to sign a couple bargain FA's, which we did, and sign our draft picks.

THATS IT!!!!

There is no model or whatever nonsense you are talking about. If we could potentially get big cap relief next season, but this only because they got lucky and struck gold and can get rid of Romo's 27 million dollar salary. And it looks like they are already biting into that apple.

You have no model and apparently cannot do simple arithmetic. You also have no idea what the cap looks like moving forward or the nature of signing bonuses and cap accounting.

After signing several FA we are over $8m under the cap. Add in $5m+ from Romo leaving and we have around $13m. The rookie pool will be around a third of that. If we make Romo a June cut then we will be $21m under the cap. All that rolls over too.

Even better when Romo leaves we will be $34 or $42 under the cap next year.

The fact is that none of the pass rushers on the market were worth paying. That is unless you think Crawford is a bargain. You want to pay another Carr type more than Carr got?

And "THATS IT?" Watch them sign Martin to elite guard money in the coming months.

 

[waldoputty]

Its very simple.

We were 13 million over the cap when this all started. Just to get under the cap we had to restructure a couple contracts. That means were borrowing in future years caps because we cant even manage it properly.

After the restructuring we are now 13 million under the cap. That is enough to sign a couple bargain FA's, which we did, and sign our draft picks.

THATS IT!!!!

There is no model or whatever nonsense you are talking about. If we could potentially get big cap relief next season, but this only because they got lucky and struck gold and can get rid of Romo's 27 million dollar salary. And it looks like they are already biting into that apple.

you do not sound like you know how a typical contract is structured.
13 million, if you wanted to use it up, can EASILY sign 2 top FAs.

 

[waldoputty]

You have no model and apparently cannot do simple arithmetic. You also have no idea what the cap looks like moving forward or the nature of signing bonuses and cap accounting.

After signing several FA we are over $8m under the cap. Add in $5m+ from Romo leaving and we have around $13m. The rookie pool will be around a third of that. If we make Romo a June cut then we will be $21m under the cap. All that rolls over too.

Even better when Romo leaves we will be $34 or $42 under the cap next year.

The fact is that none of the pass rushers on the market were worth paying. That is unless you think Crawford is a bargain. You want to pay another Carr type more than Carr got?

And "THATS IT?" Watch them sign Martin to elite guard money in the coming months.

probably martin and collins.
year 1 cap impact for both would likely be ~$12million.
someone has to actually look in a spreadsheet to see how things flow into the follow-on years.

if people dont want to look at the numbers, then it is complete silliness.
or you have people like alexander who knows better but just dont want to admit it.

 

[Nightman]

After signing several FA we are over $8m under the cap. Add in $5m+ from Romo leaving and we have around $13m. The rookie pool will be around a third of that. If we make Romo a June cut then we will be $21m under the cap. All that rolls over too.

Even better when Romo leaves we will be $34 or $42 under the cap next year..

That is still without getting the 4.5m from Free's retirement and the rookie pool only needs 1.8m in actual cap space due to the rule of 51

Fans here will not know what to do with all the cap room in the next couple years

 

[waldoputty]

Yes, we got the NFL right where we want them.
little do we know, the front office has discovered the secret to drafting after 30 years.
even though we have huge holes in the D, everything will change in the 2017 draft and the team will be magically transformed:

round 1 - edge rusher who is getting 8 sacks in 2017 and will become the daddy in 2018
round 2 - shtudown corner available because the draft has the most upside CBs ever
round 3 - witten's replacement in the 3rd because we are good at drafting franchise TEs in the 3rd just like witten and this is a great year for TEs
round 4- free's replacement in the 4th because we drafted free in the 4th
round 6 - another brown because we drafted brown in the 6th
round 7 - swaim's replacement because we drafted swaim in the 7th
round 7 - bust - we are allowed 1 bust even though we have a magic formula
UDFA - church's replacement since we got church as a udfa

so we are going to fill all the holes - de, cb, te, ot, ss with a couple extra starters just like 2016 !!!

 

[waldoputty]

Exactly

From now on teams aren't even going to give Signing Bonuses and pro-rate them

They have too much cap space and don't need to restructure....... the restructure argument is over in DAL.... SJones and austerity won

Teams will just give Roster Bonuses that aren't pro-rated and the contracts will be more like MLB and NBA or straight line accounting

actually the latest cowboys contracts were back-loaded like before.
the only difference between this year and previous years is the front office is actively reducing the amount of restructuring of previous contracts.
by deleveraging the cap structure, you are effectively squeezing money from the 2017 budget.
that makes no sense as the team went 13-3.
why squeeze this team? when the cap is going up and romo is going off the budget.
2018 cap space is much larger.
it is totally irrational.

 

[CowboyRoy]

You have no model and apparently cannot do simple arithmetic. You also have no idea what the cap looks like moving forward or the nature of signing bonuses and cap accounting.

After signing several FA we are over $8m under the cap. Add in $5m+ from Romo leaving and we have around $13m. The rookie pool will be around a third of that. If we make Romo a June cut then we will be $21m under the cap. All that rolls over too.

Even better when Romo leaves we will be $34 or $42 under the cap next year.

The fact is that none of the pass rushers on the market were worth paying. That is unless you think Crawford is a bargain. You want to pay another Carr type more than Carr got?

And "THATS IT?" Watch them sign Martin to elite guard money in the coming months.

You dreamers can bark and make up all the fluff you want. We never sign FA's because we cant. Its that simple. We are always up againts the cap, we use every dollar, then borrow from future years and all this after we sign nothing but scrubs. If you call that great cap management then by all means go throw a party.

We should get some relief with Romo but that was pure luck. But let me guess, your going to tell me that next season when we have lots of cap space that they are going to follow their grand plan and NOT use it on any big FA's? Give me a break.

 

[CowboyRoy]

you do not sound like you know how a typical contract is structured.
13 million, if you wanted to use it up, can EASILY sign 2 top FAs.

Really? Then what is left over for draft picks? Sounds like you dont understand much yourself.

 

[davey999]

To be this tight to the cap consistently and NOT win, would have to go down as a failed strategy.

 

[waldoputty]

Really? Then what is left over for draft picks? Sounds like you dont understand much yourself.

@bkight13 - will you please educate this poor soul
he needs to understand the rookie pool size and the rule of 51 as you pointed out.

 

[CowboyRoy]

@bkight13 - will you please educate this poor soul
he needs to understand the rookie pool size and the rule of 51 as you pointed out.

LOL..yah, please educate me.

 

[CowboyRoy]

To be this tight to the cap consistently and NOT win, would have to go down as a failed strategy.

Not only that, but when they do sign guys like Frederick, they have to structure the deals so that the early years are very very low salaries and much higher salaries in the future. Thus pushing most of the money into the future killing the cap going forward.

 

[Nightman]

LOL..yah, please educate me.

DAL only needs 1.8m to sign all the rookies(for every player you draft and sign you have to subtract around 500k for other players being dropped from the top 51).......they will have plenty from Romo's eventual space to pay for it and the 1m needed for the Practice Squad come September