We won't be players in FA again in my opinion

[Hoofbite]

Considering every single one has agreed to this............YES

Agreed? The massive upfront route isn’t an option. They can’t agree to choices that aren’t available to them. They “agree” to the option(s) that is available.

This is like saying players prefer a charter flight over teleportation. They all “agreed” to take the flight.

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

You can't be if you shop at the Goodwill.

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

You can't be if you shop at the Goodwill.

 

[gjkoeppen]

I guess English is a 2nd language for you, huh. See, I can get snarky and condescending too.

You're acting like I'm proposing that. You said, and I quote, "You idea may work in fantasy land but not in the NFL". Go back and read my posts and I've been consistently saying the same thing - not that it would be done, could be done, or made sense to do. I've simply said that, from a strictly mathematical calculation, a 100% guaranteed, bonus contract is the worst-case scenario for a salary cap standpoint. Doesn't matter what the term is.

An $84m, 6 year contract with all paid in the form of a bonus with no salary, hits the cap for $14m in 2018. So, obviously, any actual contract that gets done will have a lesser salary cap impact in 2018. A 6 year, $84m contract ($44m bonus + $40m total non-guaranteed salary) hits the cap for less. Unless, the first year salary is front-loaded to more than the 6 year average of the salary. But the Cowboys wouldn't do that. Why would they? He's going to be on the roster so they would simply move that salary into cap and pro-rate it over the 6 year term.

A case could be made that a 1 yr, $17m contract hits the cap more, but the Cowboys aren't going to do that. Why would they? They have him for $9.3 if they don't do anything. And that wasn't what YOU threw out in one of your posts (1/16 at 12:44 p.m.) - "5 year 75 mil contract with a 35 mil signing bonus" is what YOU threw out that I've been addressing.

Again, English must be your 10th language. Why in the world would you keep mentioning a "possibility" of the 100% bonus contract WHEN IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DO? THE LEAGUE WILL NOT ALLOW IT. ALL CONTRACTS, REPEAT ALL CONTRACTS, HAVE TO BE REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY THE LEAGUE. Second NO TEAM would even try that. So again WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO BABBLE ON ABOUT SOMETHING THAT CAN'T HAPPEN?

As for your 1year contract I'll give you the same answer you gave me - go reread my comments. What I've always said is Martin will opt to play for the option year amount of 9.3 mil rather than to leave money on the table by signing some team friendly deal when he and his agent both know that after 2018 he will be in very high demand and won't have to settle for a team friendly deal when he will be able to command big bucks paid up front and not take any back ended loaded deals.
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[JustChip]

Again, English must be your 10th language. Why in the world would you keep mentioning a "possibility" of the 100% bonus contract WHEN IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DO? THE LEAGUE WILL NOT ALLOW IT. ALL CONTRACTS, REPEAT ALL CONTRACTS, HAVE TO BE REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY THE LEAGUE. Second NO TEAM would even try that. So again WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO BABBLE ON ABOUT SOMETHING THAT CAN'T HAPPEN?

As for your 1year contract I'll give you the same answer you gave me - go reread my comments. What I've always said is Martin will opt to play for the option year amount of 9.3 mil rather than to leave money on the table by signing some team friendly deal when he and his agent both know that after 2018 he will be in very high demand and won't have to settle for a team friendly deal when he will be able to command big bucks paid up front and not take any back ended loaded deals.
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Ok, let's see if we can get this back to a reasonable level of civil discourse. My ESL comment was catty, disrespectful and not called for. For that I apologize.

Now, borrowing from Cool Hand Luke, "wut we hav heyah is a failyah to communicate". I fully agree with you, there is no reason to expect Martin to give a home town discount. Maybe he will, probably he won't. I'm just trying to make a case that he doesn't have to for the Cowboys to be able to sing him now and still not blow the cap this year for their other needs.

Kevin Zeitner, who signed his FA contract last year, is the highest paid guard, left or right, as of this moment. His deal was $60m total with $23m guaranteed. The breakdown was:

$12m signing bonus
1st yr salary: $6m ($4m guaranteed)
2nd yr. salary: $10m ($5m guaranteed)
3rd yr. salary: $10m ($0 guaranteed)
4th yr. salary: $10m ($0 guaranteed)
5th yr. salary: $12m ($0 guaranteed)

Salaries have, and will continue to, escalate and, given Martin's credentials, he'll get way more than Zeitner next year when he's a FA. Just for discussion purposes, let's assume he gets $75m total w/ $35m guaranteed (25% and 52% more than Zeitner respectively) which I thought you postulated in one of your posts. There's no way to know how Martin and the Cowboys will structure guaranteed portion (bonus vs. guaranteed salary), but again, for discussion purposes let's assume similar to Zeitner's:

$20 m signing bonus
1st yr salary: $7.5m ($6m guaranteed)
2nd yr. salary: $12.5m ($8.5m guaranteed)
3rd yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
4th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
5th yr. salary: $15m ($0 guaranteed)

The only real reason Martin wouldn't do this is if he or his agent thinks he'll get substantially more than $75m/ $35m next year. The Cowboys' selling point to Martin to sign now is he's getting a projected market-based contract now and foregoing the risk of career ending injury. And to insure you're not giving anything up, we'll make it a 6 yr. contract adding your rookie option in a year 1 making it a $84m total w/ $44m guaranteed:
​

$20 m signing bonus
1st yr. salary: $9.3m ($9.3m guaranteed)
2nd yr salary: $7.5m ($6m guaranteed)
3rd yr. salary: $12.5m ($8.5m guaranteed)
4th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
5th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
6th yr. salary: $15m ($0 guaranteed)

The 2018 salary cap hit would only be $3.33m more than it is currently under the rookie option. With > $18m currently available under the cap, this leaves them plenty of room to do what they need to do (D Law & D Irv) other than maybe Hitchens. And there's plenty they could still do to free available cap space (e.g. restructure Dez & Witten) if they have to in order to sign a FA they really want/need.

 

[gjkoeppen]

Ok, let's see if we can get this back to a reasonable level of civil discourse. My ESL comment was catty, disrespectful and not called for. For that I apologize.

Salaries have, and will continue to, escalate and, given Martin's credentials, he'll get way more than Zeitner next year when he's a FA. Just for discussion purposes, let's assume he gets $75m total w/ $35m guaranteed (25% and 52% more than Zeitner respectively) which I thought you postulated in one of your posts. There's no way to know how Martin and the Cowboys will structure guaranteed portion (bonus vs. guaranteed salary), but again, for discussion purposes let's assume similar to Zeitner's:

$20 m signing bonus
1st yr salary: $7.5m ($6m guaranteed)
2nd yr. salary: $12.5m ($8.5m guaranteed)
3rd yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
4th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
5th yr. salary: $15m ($0 guaranteed)

The only real reason Martin wouldn't do this is if he or his agent thinks he'll get substantially more than $75m/ $35m next year. The Cowboys' selling point to Martin to sign now is he's getting a projected market-based contract now and foregoing the risk of career ending injury. And to insure you're not giving anything up, we'll make it a 6 yr. contract adding your rookie option in a year 1 making it a $84m total w/ $44m guaranteed:
​

$20 m signing bonus
1st yr. salary: $9.3m ($9.3m guaranteed)
2nd yr salary: $7.5m ($6m guaranteed)
3rd yr. salary: $12.5m ($8.5m guaranteed)
4th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
5th yr. salary: $12.5m ($0 guaranteed)
6th yr. salary: $15m ($0 guaranteed)

The 2018 salary cap hit would only be $3.33m more than it is currently under the rookie option. With > $18m currently available under the cap, this leaves them plenty of room to do what they need to do (D Law & D Irv) other than maybe Hitchens. And there's plenty they could still do to free available cap space (e.g. restructure Dez & Witten) if they have to in order to sign a FA they really want/need.

First there are a couple of things you need to understand. THE ONLY guaranteed portion of any NFL contract is the signing bonus that the player gets up front and gets prorated over the life of the contract. The salary part of the contract is not guaranteed. At any time (I'm not saying it will or want it to happen) a player can be released and only the prorated bonus money would still count against the cap and the player doesn't get the remainder of that years salary (if cut during the season unless he's a fully vested veteran and then he would get the remainder of that years salary) or any future year's salaries that may still be left on the contract. This is why more and more players who are very high in demand want the bulk of their salary portion of their contracts paid up front and not back end loaded where they may not see it. When they are in their prime and in high demand they want their money up front so if their game starts to slide they don't become a cap casualty because of a high salary or they get an injury that shortens their career that they've already have gotten the bulk of the contract.

You argument and example don't say the same thing. You say that Martin should sign the deal you show because he would be getting "projected market value" and to forego the risk of possible injury yet to get to where his actual salary is close to the current market value is 3 years down the road which would probably be higher then and he still runs the risk of career ending injury before he gets there.

Two last points, all of your projections to get the 4 players the Cowboys feel they need to extend or resign you seem to think that will all fit in the 18.5 mil of cap space and still be enough to play in free agency. The only way that could happen is if they all agree to extremely team friendly contracts with most of it back end loaded with small bonuses and since 3 of them will be free agents the chances are high that other teams will offer better deals. You also forget that the Cowboys need to allow for the pool for their draft choices and Stephen has publicly said that restructuring contracts is the last resort option because of the high risk of just adding dead money on the cap down the road.
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[Sydla]

First there are a couple of things you need to understand. THE ONLY guaranteed portion of any NFL contract is the signing bonus that the player gets up front and gets prorated over the life of the contract. The salary part of the contract is not guaranteed. At any time (I'm not saying it will or want it to happen) a player can be released and only the prorated bonus money would still count against the cap and the player doesn't get the remainder of that years salary (if cut during the season unless he's a fully vested veteran and then he would get the remainder of that years salary) or any future year's salaries that may still be left on the contract. This is why more and more players who are very high in demand want the bulk of their salary portion of their contracts paid up front and not back end loaded where they may not see it. When they are in their prime and in high demand they want their money up front so if their game starts to slide they don't become a cap casualty because of a high salary or they get an injury that shortens their career that they've already have gotten the bulk of the contract.

You argument and example don't say the same thing. You say that Martin should sign the deal you show because he would be getting "projected market value" and to forego the risk of possible injury yet to get to where his actual salary is close to the current market value is 3 years down the road which would probably be higher then and he still runs the risk of career ending injury before he gets there.

Two last points, all of your projections to get the 4 players the Cowboys feel they need to extend or resign you seem to think that will all fit in the 18.5 mil of cap space and still be enough to play in free agency. The only way that could happen is if they all agree to extremely team friendly contracts with most of it back end loaded with small bonuses and since 3 of them will be free agents the chances are high that other teams will offer better deals. You also forget that the Cowboys need to allow for the pool for their draft choices and Stephen has publicly said that restructuring contracts is the last resort option because of the high risk of just adding dead money on the cap down the road.
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You have been wrong a few times in this thread after professing everyone was basically dumb about contracts.

You did it again in this post. Teams can guarantee base salary.

 

[JustChip]

First there are a couple of things you need to understand. THE ONLY guaranteed portion of any NFL contract is the signing bonus that the player gets up front and gets prorated over the life of the contract. The salary part of the contract is not guaranteed. At any time (I'm not saying it will or want it to happen) a player can be released and only the prorated bonus money would still count against the cap and the player doesn't get the remainder of that years salary (if cut during the season unless he's a fully vested veteran and then he would get the remainder of that years salary) or any future year's salaries that may still be left on the contract. This is why more and more players who are very high in demand want the bulk of their salary portion of their contracts paid up front and not back end loaded where they may not see it. When they are in their prime and in high demand they want their money up front so if their game starts to slide they don't become a cap casualty because of a high salary or they get an injury that shortens their career that they've already have gotten the bulk of the contract.

You argument and example don't say the same thing. You say that Martin should sign the deal you show because he would be getting "projected market value" and to forego the risk of possible injury yet to get to where his actual salary is close to the current market value is 3 years down the road which would probably be higher then and he still runs the risk of career ending injury before he gets there.

Two last points, all of your projections to get the 4 players the Cowboys feel they need to extend or resign you seem to think that will all fit in the 18.5 mil of cap space and still be enough to play in free agency. The only way that could happen is if they all agree to extremely team friendly contracts with most of it back end loaded with small bonuses and since 3 of them will be free agents the chances are high that other teams will offer better deals. You also forget that the Cowboys need to allow for the pool for their draft choices and Stephen has publicly said that restructuring contracts is the last resort option because of the high risk of just adding dead money on the cap down the road.
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I may not be interpreting it correctly, but what is on Over the Cap for Zeitner doesn't seem to line up with what you're saying about the guaranteed portion. The heading in the 2018 Base Salary column has (Guaranteed) under it and there are 2 amounts for Zeitner - $10m and $5m (in italics). I'm interpreting the $10m to be the salary if he's on the roster; the $5m is whether he's on the roster or not. The prorated signing bonus is in it's own column and is $2.4m. Finally, the pre-June 1 cut Dead Money is shown as $14.6m which is 4 years of prorated bonus plus the $5m guaranteed salary portion.

Again, I may be interpreting it wrong, but the only way these numbers make sense is if the signing bonus was $12m ($2.4m per year prorated) and there was a guaranteed salary component of $4m in 2017 and $5m in 2018. His actually salary in 2017 was $6m and it will be $10m in 2018 unless he is cut before June 1 (in which case he only gets $5m).

Regarding the future market assumption, it's actually 2 years in the future, not 3. Zeitner signed in spring of 2017 and Martin will be an FA in January 2019. I'm having to use some projection of what it would be and 12.5% per year escalation seems reasonable. Maybe it is, maybe it's not.

If what I project for Martin is close and is agreed upon, they'll have $15.5m available. A 2nd round tender for Irving is somewhere around $3m (and I don't believe they'll offer 1st round tender) so that drops it down to $12.5m. The wild card in the salary cap situation is D Law. I'm not sure what to expect him to command. The one thing I'm very confident is that they can't Franchise Tag him because that would be somewhere in the $16m range. Hitchens is the one that I don't think they'll be able to do. And you're right, I haven't factored the draftees in. But I believe there are relatively painless restructurings that can be done. E.g., restructuring Witten prior to June 1, who has zero dead money, from a $6.5m salary to a $4m bonus and $2.5m salary. This lowers his cap hit by $2m this year with only a $2m dead money hit next year. I haven't looked at all of them, but maybe other situations like Witten's that frees cap money this year with minimal or moderate dead money carryovers.

 

[JustChip]

You have been wrong a few times in this thread after professing everyone was basically dumb about contracts.

You did it again in this post. Teams can guarantee base salary.

Good...I thought maybe I was having a senior moment.

 

[Nightman]

Good...I thought maybe I was having a senior moment.

There is also a lot more space than 18m......in fact the total is closer to 24m right now

The 18m is based on 176m cap and 9.5m carryover

But the cap will be at least 178m and there will be more adjustments........ 700k for Thornton signing with BUF.....500k back from Elliott suspension............1.5m from Paea retirement= 24m under

Then there are the annual easy restructures to TSmith, TFred, Witten and Lee...... that is another 21m

So that is 45m under the cap with a couple pen strokes

That is before they deal with Dez, TCrawford, OScan, Hanna. Mayowa, RGregory and extend your favorite topic ZMartin

 

[JustChip]

There is also a lot more space than 18m......in fact the total is closer to 24m right now

The 18m is based on 176m cap and 9.5m carryover

But the cap will be at least 178m and there will be more adjustments........ 700k for Thornton signing with BUF.....500k back from Elliott suspension............1.5m from Paea retirement= 24m under

Then there are the annual easy restructures to TSmith, TFred, Witten and Lee...... that is another 21m

So that is 45m under the cap with a couple pen strokes

That is before they deal with Dez, TCrawford, OScan, Hanna. Mayowa, RGregory and extend your favorite topic ZMartin

Good deal.

You can probably answer a question I've noodled on. I know players such as Zeke and Gregory don't get paid while they're suspended and don't count against the cap, but is their contract term adjusted for the time suspended? For example, Randy Gregory signed for 4 years and will be an FA after next year (assuming he is applies for and is reinstated). But is his FA status extended another year for the year he's been suspended?

 

[Nightman]

Good deal.

You can probably answer a question I've noodled on. I know players such as Zeke and Gregory don't get paid while they're suspended and don't count against the cap, but is their contract term adjusted for the time suspended? For example, Randy Gregory signed for 4 years and will be an FA after next year (assuming he is applies for and is reinstated). But is his FA status extended another year for the year he's been suspended?

You need 6 games at full pay to gain a year's service time and 4 years to gain UFA

Since he was suspended 14 games in 2016 his contract tolled(paused) and since he missed all of 2017 it tolled again

So the Cowboys have 3 years of team control left on his rookie deal

 

[gjkoeppen]

You have been wrong a few times in this thread after professing everyone was basically dumb about contracts.

You did it again in this post. Teams can guarantee base salary.

One of the biggest complaints from NFL players is their contracts aren't fully guaranteed like the NBA and MLB. In the NFL often the FIRST years salary is guaranteed and even once in a while PART of the 2nd year if the contract is 5 or 6 years. Whopty doo. When those contracts are back end loaded this means very little because the salaries for those years is so low. Besides if a team offers a contract with a signing bonus you would expect that the player would see at the very least the 1st year's salary. It's the end of those contracts where the player starts to make real money on salary that is not guaranteed and it's those years that turn players into cap casualties because of their high salaries where as when they sign contracts with the salary up front by the time they get to that point they've already received the bulk of their contract and they don't become cap casualties because their salary is not exorbitant. The long and the short of it is no matter how much the fans want Martin or any other player to sign team friendly deals and no matter how much you think it makes sense the players will look at things and see what offer gives them the most money the quickest and that will for the most part eliminate team friendly back end loaded contracts.
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