The case for Restructuring Romo

[rpntex]

That's not true at all. For instance they restructured Tyron almost immediately.

That looks like an "apples to oranges" comparison to me. With Romo, we're most likely talking about a 3-year window. Anything that gets pushed into the future is spread out over a 3-year period (most likely). What's more, it's a huge amount of guaranteed money you'll be deferring. With Tyron, you're talking about a lot less guaranteed money, and a much bigger window (9 years, IIRC). The future hit will be smaller and spread out over a much longer time period.

 

[rpntex]

That's the problem I have. They are jumping back and forth between strategies. The restructured when the cap was stagnant from 2009 to 2013. It remained at 123m or below for 5 seasons. They also tries to compete during their re-build and we lived through several 8-8 seasons. Now they are getting semi-conservative when the cap is rising rapidly, they have a ton of FAs to sign and we are SB contenders.

They preach patience and let Murray go citing the money, but then they sign Hardy. They can't reach a deal with Dez, a homegrown superstar, but will pay him 28m over the next 2 years.

Romo isn't going anywhere, his contract is bloated and guaranteed and was designed for a restructure this year. Have a plan and stick to it. I think spending well above the cap for a few more seasons while Romo is here would be the best plan. Once he is gone the cap will be easy to clean up while we transition to another QB.

Using large signing bonuses and doing restructures allows us to compete with the teams that horde cap space and then splurge like Philly and Indy. And teams like NE, GB and SEA that have been building smarter and better than us for a long time.

With all due respect, I don't view it as changing strategies. It's all in how a team values certain positions. It can be argued that in the present NFL, there are a LOT fewer impact Pass-Rushing DEs than there are impact RBs. So naturally, the asking price will be higher for the DE. Same thing can be said for the WR position. The opinion is that there are many RBs that can be effective in this offense. Conversely, there are only so many WRs who can do what Dez does.

It's not just the Cowboys who place a premium price on DEs and WRs, and not so much on RBs. It's the state of the game as itis.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

That looks like an "apples to oranges" comparison to me. With Romo, we're most likely talking about a 3-year window. Anything that gets pushed into the future is spread out over a 3-year period (most likely). What's more, it's a huge amount of guaranteed money you'll be deferring. With Tyron, you're talking about a lot less guaranteed money, and a much bigger window (9 years, IIRC). The future hit will be smaller and spread out over a much longer time period.

It's all guaranteed money for Romo at this point. The question is when does it hit the cap. Now all at once or spread over multiple years.

Also the max you can spread a cap hit is 5 years.

 

[big dog cowboy]

They preach patience and let Murray go citing the money, but then they sign Hardy.

Apples and oranges. We know the value of RB's and it isn't a premium like pass rushing specialists are.

 

[burmafrd]

Apples and oranges. We know the value of RB's and it isn't a premium like pass rushing specialists are.

the relative value of a guy capable of getting 15 sacks a season vs a RB is just not in any way comparable in todays NFL.

 

[joseephuss]

It's all guaranteed money for Romo at this point. The question is when does it hit the cap. Now all at once or spread over multiple years.

Also the max you can spread a cap hit is 5 years.

Not really.

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowb.../final-part-of-tony-romos-guarantee-comes-due

IRVING, Texas -- Now that we are into the second week of the 2015 NFL league year, another $7.5 million of Tony Romo's $17 million base salary in 2015 has been fully guaranteed.

Last March Romo had $7.5 million of the 2015 base salary with the second guarantee kicking in on the fifth day of the league year.

After this year, no more money is guaranteed in the $106 million extension Romo signed in 2013. Romo’s base salaries in the next two years actually are lower than what he will make in 2015. He is scheduled to earn $8.5 million in 2016 and $14 million in 2017. His deal runs through 2019.

 

[Nightman]

They declined to re-sign Murray because they thought the risk of injury was too high. If he had played all 16 games each year of his contract they probably would have re-signed. him.

There is no comparison to Hardy's 1 year completely non-guaranteed contract to the long term contract that Murray signed. If Hardy misses a game, he does not get paid.

There is also the issue that you might not find a Hardy type player even if you had a top 10 pick; whereas, there is a big list of players that might be as good as Murray at RB in the draft.

Apples and oranges. We know the value of RB's and it isn't a premium like pass rushing specialists are.

That is not how they sold it. They made it out to be a financial decision, not risk aversion. Whether or not the positions are valued differently or not, going from not committing to Murray to offering Hardy 13m is a big jump. I am glad they made it, but they seem to be inconsistent at every turn.

You can argue they are only signing 'value' contracts, but committing 28m to Romo, 13m to Dez and 13m to Hardy in lump sums is not using the cap effectively. That is 54m that could be cut by 20m. going year to year is also dangerous and time consuming.

 

[Nightman]

Not really.

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowb.../final-part-of-tony-romos-guarantee-comes-due

Why are they scheduled to hit like that: 17m, 8.5m and 14m?

The only explanation was a planned restructure in 2015. This the last year they can pro-rate it for 5 years and next year the savings would be minimal with a restructure.

 

[joseephuss]

Why are they scheduled to hit like that: 17m, 8.5m and 14m?

The only explanation was a planned restructure in 2015. This the last year they can pro-rate it for 5 years and next year the savings would be minimal with a restructure.

It may be scheduled that way, so Dallas can cut ties after 2016 with relatively little dead money left.

 

[Zekeats]

Nothing to see here.......move along.....the village has lost their ????

 

[Nightman]

It may be scheduled that way, so Dallas can cut ties after 2016 with relatively little dead money left.

Why would they want to cut ties with Romo?

 

[joseephuss]

Why would they want to cut ties with Romo?

Well, after two more seasons he may not be the same QB he is today They don't have to cut him, but his contract becomes much more friendly to do so in two years if there is some drop off in his play. If they keep him 3 seasons (through 2017) then his dead money drops to $2.5 million for 2018, which is a bargain for them. It doesn't make sense to restructure now to create large amounts of dead money in the future.

 

[big dog cowboy]

You can argue they are only signing 'value' contracts, but committing 28m to Romo, 13m to Dez and 13m to Hardy in lump sums is not using the cap effectively. That is 54m that could be cut by 20m. going year to year is also dangerous and time consuming.

Yes it could be cut but it likely won't be. Most agree they are now being very smart about their cap management now.

 

[Nightman]

Well, after two more seasons he may not be the same QB he is today They don't have to cut him, but his contract becomes much more friendly to do so in two years if there is some drop off in his play. If they keep him 3 seasons (through 2017) then his dead money drops to $2.5 million for 2018, which is a bargain for them. It doesn't make sense to restructure now to create large amounts of dead money in the future.

Taking a 28m hit this year when the cap is 148m to avoid an extra 6m in 2018 when the cap will be 160m seems like over kill to me.

 

[joseephuss]

Taking a 28m hit this year when the cap is 148m to avoid an extra 6m in 2018 when the cap will be 160m seems like over kill to me.

Maybe it is overkill, but it sure does appear that Dallas does not want to carry any more money for Romo than is completely necessary.

 

[Nightman]

Maybe it is overkill, but it sure does appear that Dallas does not want to carry any more money for Romo than is completely necessary.

That is what we are discussing, 'what is completely necessary'. I believe anything that improves the team is completely necessary. Worrying over the cap 3-4 years into the future is unnecessary.

Even through the worst of times when the cap didn't go up a single dollar for 4 years and Dallas was hit with a 10m cap fine, we weren't in anything I would call cap hell. Nothing that would prevent me from improving today's team.

 

[rpntex]

It's all guaranteed money for Romo at this point. The question is when does it hit the cap. Now all at once or spread over multiple years.

Also the max you can spread a cap hit is 5 years.

I know you CAN spread it out over five years, but in my opinion, that's a little unrealistic. I think three years is more likely, dependent upon Romo's health, of course.

My point was, that even if it IS five years, the amount that would be deferred is huge, compared to Tyron's deal. What's more, you can spread Tyron's deal out ver a longer period of time. The difference between the two really invalidates the comparison.

 

[Hoofbite]

That's not true at all. For instance they restructured Tyron almost immediately.

They took it almost up until the deadline for being cap compliant.

They restructured him on the 9th and the deadline for being under the 2015 cap was 4pm ET on the 10th.

 

[Hoofbite]

I'm glad you responded with an actual argument instead of the same tired lines. I still don't agree with your assertions.

If they had restructured Carr and Witten they would have gained another 10m in space. That money could have been used for Peppers or Allen and maybe we go the Championship game instead of GB.

The problem is all the half measures. If they would have just stayed with the restructures we would have 30m in cap space right now. Way more than enough to deal with any dead money. The problem in the past is that no one lived up to their contracts besides Romo, Witten,TO and Ware.

If they would have stayed the course they would be no better off than any other team in terms of usable cap space. That's the deal with restructuring. After a couple years you have added cap dollars that are you are now trying to subtract. Sure, they are currently operating at a disadvantage by taking the inflated cap charges right now but they have to be taken at some point. You can't possibly be on the cusp for 6 or 7 years. You just have to face facts and realize that at some point all the money pushing you have done has not given you any sort of advantage and if you ever want to be in a position to actually sign the 1 or 2 guys who can put you over the top, you can't be freeing up space that is occupied by previous sleight of hand every single offseason. You actually have to get that surplus which requires free up space without any previous - or minimal amounts of - restructures on the books.

Looking back on it, they probably would have been better off for 2014 if they had more talent on defense. That's indisputable, but it's also looking at the 2014 from a different perspective than anyone had in March of 2014. Hindsight is always 20/20. Had they restructured Carr last year his cap hit would be another $1M or so higher and the team would be facing a giant amount of dead money to cut him. Right now it's cap neutral to cut him. With a restructure last year it would be around $5M in the red. On the other hand, had they never restructured Carr in the first place the team would free up to $8M by cutting him right now.

Carr, Free, Spencer, Lee, Ratliff, Austin, TNew, RW31. RW11, MBIII, Gurode, Hamlin didn't earn their money

Claiborne, FJones, MJenkins, MartyB, BCarter, 2009, BCarpenter didn't live up to their draft status

And that's the nature of the business. If anyone had the ability to know whether or not a signing or drafted player would pan out they wouldn't need to restructure in the first place. They'd be so far ahead of every team that signing players to big contracts would be unnecessary. Their roster would be full of Richard Sherman or Russell Wilson type players on rookie contracts. They'd have to be the best team in the league every year because the'd be hitting home runs on every single pick and every single free agent bargain.

The bottom line is that nobody knows how things will turn out when they sign a guy or draft a guy. There's risk in every move. All teams screw the pooch at some point or another. The difference between restructuring or not is whether or not a team can take the money freed up by cutting a bad signing and use it to try and acquire a guy worth the pay. If Dallas could cut Carr right now and have at minimum $6M in cap space, would they do it? I'd have to say, "hell yes", but because they wagered on a guy producing at an older age rather than when he is in his prime, they free up nothing by cutting him unless they use a June 1st designation.

If we're going to list guys who haven't "earned their money", then we have to at least acknowledge that without signing all those contracts that turned sour the team would have the money necessary to sign guys without restructuring. Take away those missed signings and picks and what does the team have in free space or talent? Essentially, you've just stated what I have been claiming. Restructuring has been a crutch to cover for the bad decisions the team has made in the past. Seriously, take just 1/3 to 1/2 of those contracts off the books and the team probably has a cumulative $30M in space over the past 2-3 years. Turn 1/3 of those picks into just solid role players and the team is improved right now.

You can't throw good money down the drain to cover your bad spending. That's basically what restructuring every year does. You sacrifice your ability to create space to put you over the top in future years just to cover your bad decisions of recent past.

 

[Chuck 54]

I still think any restructure for Tony Romo should be a final option. I believe the Cowboys have a plan, including signing Dez and lowering his hit this year. Restructuring Romo is an option in their pockets if all else fails. You certainly don't do anything foolish until Hardy starts playing and you see where his deal is headed, along with how the team is doing.