That was in regard to your claim that "you don't pay age," which is a good idea. But it has nothing to do with when the cap charges should hit the cap.
No, it does. Because if you pushes charges to later years and the end result is the exact same as paying for age. You have a high cap hit. That's not disputable. Restructuring increases the cap charge for later years, which is exactly the same as paying for age as far as the cap is concerned.
Again, you have to consider the cap being equal to 100.0 each year -- as if your cap number can never be greater than 100 percent of the cap. The actual dollar amount is meaningless -- whether the cap is $20 million or $200 million, you can use up to 100 percent of it. Would you rather take a $15 million cap hit when the cap is $20 million or $200 million? Obviously, the latter. It's the same thing to a lesser degree when actual contracts and cap numbers are involved -- it's always better to take any cap hit when the cap is higher, if you have a choice.
But the cap is not equal to 100.0 every year. Why even pretend that it is?
Those were just hypothetical examples to show how the percentages change, not showing the maximum advantage that could be gained. And that savings is PER YEAR, not over a four-year span -- the four-year cap was $600 million, remember? Those were AVERAGE percentages for the four years.
You can't average percentages with different denominators and pretend the percentages have equal value.
Like I said, if Carr is not worth the money, then the problem was signing him in the first place, not restructuring his contract in 2013. And to keep paying him more than he is worth is simply foolish. If the team thinks he's worth it, then they keep him and pay him. If not, they should cut him, regardless of the cap consequences. You DON'T compound the problem by paying him more than he's worth.
Yes, the problem is signing him the first place. Guess what, nobody has a crystal ball. He was a top CB free agent at the time. If everyone could have accurately predicted he would be half the player he signed for, he wouldn't have signed for the contract he received.
As I have said time and time again, any team who can correctly make these decisions to avoid the bad signings is in a position to never have to restructure because they are so far ahead of the game to begin with. Bad signings happen to everyone. Nobody can predict the future. Saying, "they shouldn't have done that", is a cop out plain and simple because it assumes that the team had the information that is available right now 3 or 4 years ago.
Neither one of those is bad! That's the point. You WANT to structure contracts that way. The only thing bad is signing players for more than they're worth -- or getting less from them than what you're paying or have paid them.
And nobody actually knows what a player is worth 5 years from now. Tell me, who's going to be the best CB, best LB, best S, or best RB 5 years from now?
And that's incredibly stupid. The money he has already received is already going to hit the cap at some point. Why keep him and continue accumulating even MORE cap charges if he's not worth it?
Because cap space dictates a teams ability to acquire players. Is that not obvious? Yes the money he has been paid will hit the cap at some point, but if it hits the cap immediately it's a barrier to acquiring more players, and in some cases it's a catalyst for releasing players.
The discussion is settled. Both Jerry and Stephen have clearly changed their position on the matter. There's literally nothing left to be said because no team operates in the "free as much space as possible right now" manner that you've been championing. Sorry, Adam. You are wrong.
