The potential to have 4 new linemen

[Fredd]

They can get under the cap without doing anything with Ware and Austin. It comes from restructuring Romo, Carr, Witten and Lee.

They can cut Ware immediately and have the 7.5M available for free agents.

They can make Austin a June 1st cut and free up 5.5M. That is more than enough to cover all of the draft picks and they can probably carry some of the extra cap room over to 2015.

that's where I thought you were going with it...this team continues to rob peter to pay paul (restructures) and as long as they do that, they can never fully get back to the basics of fielding a team the right way, IMO...I am not disagreeing with you, it just bugs me that the only way to make the team viable is to plug holes like this...our cap is so screwed up that we have to guarantee more then $55m to a QB, guarantee a lot more of Carr's and the others money....

...if I thought they would make good decisions with this scenario, then I am all in on the ware and austin decisions...the problem is that the FO can't see the forest for the trees most times

 

[xwalker]

that's where I thought you were going with it...this team continues to rob peter to pay paul (restructures) and as long as they do that, they can never fully get back to the basics of fielding a team the right way, IMO...I am not disagreeing with you, it just bugs me that the only way to make the team viable is to plug holes like this...our cap is so screwed up that we have to guarantee more then $55m to a QB, guarantee a lot more of Carr's and the others money....

...if I thought they would make good decisions with this scenario, then I am all in on the ware and austin decisions...the problem is that the FO can't see the forest for the trees most times

I realize that it "bugs" fans because of how the Cowboys handle the cap; however, the money pushed into the future does not really "come due" at some point. It does for individual players when they are cut, but they always have other players to "borrow" against.

An NFL team can basically operate at a level that is basically more than 100% of the salary cap indefinitely.

Example (over simplified for ease of explanation):
Let's say that there is no cap during the off-season but teams must be under the cap by the game 1.
The cap is 100M every year.
In the off-season, you give all players 5 year contracts that total 150M in year 1 and 100M in the following 4 years.
Current Year: 150M (2014)
Current Year +1 : 100M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

Now, prior to game 1 you must get under the cap; therefore, you restructure contracts and push 50M into year 2.
Current Year: 100M (2014)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2015 you restructure and push 50M into the following year.
Current Year: 100M (2015)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2016 you restructure and push 50M into the following year.
Current Year: 100M (2016)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2017 ...

You can see that the 50M just gets pushed forward indefinitely. There is Zero Interest on salary cap "loans". You couldn't do this in the real world with real money because interest would make it impossible; however, in the salary cap world it can be done.

You can see that there are basically 2 components of the salary cap each year. There is the money paid to players that year and there is the money that was pushed forward from previous years. In the example in year 2015 and later, the current money is 100M and the previous money is 50M. As long as the current money is below the 100M cap, then the previous money can be pushed forward indefinitely.

Obviously, the actual NFL salary cap is much more complicated; however, it's the same concept as the example. In the example, in December of 2015, people would be proclaiming that the Cowboys are 50M over the the 2016 cap; however, in reality their current money is exactly at the cap and they are just moving the previous money forward to 2017.

 

[Fredd]

I realize that it "bugs" fans because of how the Cowboys handle the cap; however, the money pushed into the future does not really "come due" at some point. It does for individual players when they are cut, but they always have other players to "borrow" against.

An NFL team can basically operate at a level that is basically more than 100% of the salary cap indefinitely.

Example (over simplified for ease of explanation):
Let's say that there is no cap during the off-season but teams must be under the cap by the game 1.
The cap is 100M every year.
In the off-season, you give all players 5 year contracts that total 150M in year 1 and 100M in the following 4 years.
Current Year: 150M (2014)
Current Year +1 : 100M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

Now, prior to game 1 you must get under the cap; therefore, you restructure contracts and push 50M into year 2.
Current Year: 100M (2014)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2015 you restructure and push 50M into the following year.
Current Year: 100M (2015)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2016 you restructure and push 50M into the following year.
Current Year: 100M (2016)
Current Year +1 : 150M
Current Year +2 : 100M
Current Year +3 : 100M
Current Year +4 : 100M

In 2017 ...

You can see that the 50M just gets pushed forward indefinitely. There is Zero Interest on salary cap "loans". You couldn't do this in the real world with real money because interest would make it impossible; however, in the salary cap world it can be done.

You can see that there are basically 2 components of the salary cap each year. There is the money paid to players that year and there is the money that was pushed forward from previous years. In the example in year 2015 and later, the current money is 100M and the previous money is 50M. As long as the current money is below the 100M cap, then the previous money can be pushed forward indefinitely.

Obviously, the actual NFL salary cap is much more complicated; however, it's the same concept as the example. In the example, in December of 2015, people would be proclaiming that the Cowboys are 50M over the the 2016 cap; however, in reality their current money is exactly at the cap and they are just moving the previous money forward to 2017.

I understand the concept but are you taking into account things like guaranteed money? For example, romo's contract has $55m guaranteed (to start)...if you restructure, presumably you are adding something to the end of the deal for him (whether an extra year, or more money); even in the case of Free's pay-cut, it seemed like he still was getting the same money, just moved around to gain space and keep him. so, if you continue to restructure these guys by giving them large cash sums/bonus money, the players get paid, but is it adding something on to the end?

 

[xwalker]

I understand the concept but are you taking into account things like guaranteed money? For example, romo's contract has $55m guaranteed (to start)...if you restructure, presumably you are adding something to the end of the deal for him (whether an extra year, or more money); even in the case of Free's pay-cut, it seemed like he still was getting the same money, just moved around to gain space and keep him. so, if you continue to restructure these guys by giving them large cash sums/bonus money, the players get paid, but is it adding something on to the end?

Yes, they restructure Romo's contract every year. They convert that year's base salary into a restructure bonus and spread the hit of the bonus out over the remaining years of the contract. They can add years to the contract to spread it out up to 5 years max.

In the simplified example, you wouldn't really be carrying the 50M from 2014 forward every year. Some of the original 50M would fall off and be replaced by new bonus money. That's how the process works.

As I said, there is a limit. If the Current Money exceeds the cap in a given year, then you will have to make that up by having the Current Money be below the cap in some future year.

Guaranteed money is the same under the cap as non-guaranteed money. As long as the player is on the team it is irrelevant. If the player is cut, then guaranteed money would become part of the Previous Money that you are carrying forward; however, like I said above, new money is always being added to the pool of money that is being carried forward while the money from previous players falls out of that pool of money.

I didn't intend to get into all of the details of the actual cap rules. I just wanted to show you the concept that when you hear about the Cowboys being 30M over the cap or some other big number that it does not necessarily mean anything. If the 30M is just part of the money that is being moved forward every year, then everything is OK. If the 30M is increasing the size of the money being moved forward, then you can have a problem.

The other issue is that unlike the example, the real salary cap increases every year.

The biggest problem for fans is that just looking at the cap situation for 1 year, there is no way to know if the overage amount is increasing the pool of money that is being pushed forward or not. It is possible to look at future years, but it gets really time consuming and the data available to fans/media is not always completely accurate.

 

[Vertigo_17]

I think Spencer is back, albeit for a significant pay cut as I think his market value is low coming off injury.

 

[Fredd]

Yes, they restructure Romo's contract every year. They convert that year's base salary into a restructure bonus and spread the hit of the bonus out over the remaining years of the contract. They can add years to the contract to spread it out up to 5 years max.

In the simplified example, you wouldn't really be carrying the 50M from 2014 forward every year. Some of the original 50M would fall off and be replaced by new bonus money. That's how the process works.

As I said, there is a limit. If the Current Money exceeds the cap in a given year, then you will have to make that up by having the Current Money be below the cap in some future year.

Guaranteed money is the same under the cap as non-guaranteed money. As long as the player is on the team it is irrelevant. If the player is cut, then guaranteed money would become part of the Previous Money that you are carrying forward; however, like I said above, new money is always being added to the pool of money that is being carried forward while the money from previous players falls out of that pool of money.

I didn't intend to get into all of the details of the actual cap rules. I just wanted to show you the concept that when you hear about the Cowboys being 30M over the cap or some other big number that it does not necessarily mean anything. If the 30M is just part of the money that is being moved forward every year, then everything is OK. If the 30M is increasing the size of the money being moved forward, then you can have a problem.

The other issue is that unlike the example, the real salary cap increases every year.

The biggest problem for fans is that just looking at the cap situation for 1 year, there is no way to know if the overage amount is increasing the pool of money that is being pushed forward or not. It is possible to look at future years, but it gets really time consuming and the data available to fans/media is not always completely accurate.

I appreciate the info (truly); this seems much simpler than what appears to be in reality though...why wouldn't every team just go over by the $50m (example) that you used? they can't afford it? at some point, there has to be a "cap" to the cap, right?

 

[xwalker]

I appreciate the info (truly); this seems much simpler than what appears to be in reality though...why wouldn't every team just go over by the $50m (example) that you used? they can't afford it? at some point, there has to be a "cap" to the cap, right?

It costs more in real money to pay players the restructure bonuses. You have to have the cash to do it and there is a time value of money that the team sacrifices.

When they restructured Ratliff's base salary in March of 2013, they guaranteed the majority of it. If they didn't restructure it and they determined after training camp that he would never be healthy, then they could have cut him and saved 5.5M in real money.

This process is how NFL teams got into guaranteed money issues. They didn't have guaranteed money in most NFL contracts 20 years ago. Now, even if a team does not need to manipulate the cap, players expect contracts with guaranteed money.

 

[Mr Cowboy]

fixing the DL is only part of the problem here. Finding an OC who knows how to call plays is just as important. There is absolutely no reason why this offense isn't as explosive as the best offenses in the NFL, other than the design of the offense and the horrible play calling by the OC.

BTW, that 3 technique from Arizona, the sun devils, looks like an up and coming, Sapp like star. McShay says he can be had in the second round.

 

[1LoyalCowboyFan]

I just posted in another thread that they could cut Ware, sign 2 free agent DL and get 2 DL in the draft. That could be 4 new starters on the DL.

They can't cut Carr due to the cap ramifications.

Cutting Ware saves 7.5M.

This would make me sooooo happy. I love Ware, but we need to cut Him. Nothing personal just like he won't take a pay cut. No hard feelings.