Why do you care so much about the yearly average on a contract?

TheCount

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.
 

superonyx

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It seems like the nature of message board fans to play sofa GM these days.
We are a group of football addicts and some of us tend to need the next fix. When the season ends they switch to free agency. Then they start playing sofa GM on our own guys.
Then they will play sofa GM for the draft. Then sofa coach for training camp.

I'm not sure if its admirable and cool or sad in a way :)
 

Galian Beast

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.

Have to disagree with your assessment here. Your breakdown is a bit misleading.

The average annual contract matters quite a bit, you can't simply look at the cap hit year to year, particularly when money is moved around.

The average annual contract combined with the length and guaranteed money need to be looked at holistically to understand the burden and risk a team takes on when they sign a contract with a player.

It isn't the one figure you have to look at, but you could just as easily say that about any other one number. Guaranteed money alone doesn't matter without the length of the contract. Dead money can't be understood without looking at cap hits for each year which are informed by calculating that average prorated over the course of the contract not to mention where the money tends to fall in the contract front end or back end.
 

TheCount

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The average annual contract combined with the length and guaranteed money need to be looked at holistically to understand the burden and risk a team takes on when they sign a contract with a player.

That's literally what I just said.

"Average Yearly" means nothing without the context of all the other factors, and in fact it matters the least at the end of the day because it assumes everything else is even and static, which if far from the truth.
 

Proof

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It’s not as if there’s entirely no correlation between them outside of Pittsburgh. AAV basically tells us the aims and ball park.
 

CowboysFaninHouston

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.
actually its not totally meaningless. although yearly and year to year is important, the average shows the impact of a player over the life of a contract in several ways. at some point you have to pay, so you may pay less in 2019 (i.e. for DLaw) compared to his franchise tag, but his average impacts the subsequent years as a percentage of an over all contract. yes, the salary cap goes up, thus you are hedging your bets against what percentage does the cap go up and yes, you have the option to renegotiate the contract and push cap hits to future years, but at some point you pay, either as a percentage of the salary cap when players is on the team or a percentage of dead money against your cap... those determine your ability to stay competitive (given good players cost money) and the window of opportunity you may have to make it to the big dance...as we know dead money is a killer
 

ESisback

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It seems like the nature of message board fans to play sofa GM these days.
We are a group of football addicts and some of us tend to need the next fix. When the season ends they switch to free agency. Then they start playing sofa GM on our own guys.
Then they will play sofa GM for the draft. Then sofa coach for training camp.

I'm not sure if its admirable and cool or sad in a way :)

IMHO, it’s all those things. It’s admirable and cool in the sense that people are intelligent and detailed and passionate about their team, and the game in general, but it’s also kinda sad. People are too obsessed, too serious at times, about a game—one they actually have very little affect on. Of course, everyone’s entitled to approach it any way they choose, but whenever you encourage someone to lighten up or embrace hope and optimism, you’re met with angry pronouncements—“not a real fan”, “kool Aid chugging homer”, “clueless Care Bear”, etc., etc.

There are people on this forum that I greatly admire for their knowledge—the cap gurus, draft wizards, personnel experts, and the many “X’s & O’s” whiz bangs. But I have equal admiration for the fun loving wordsmiths and clever goofballs that are here for a good time.

My biggest problem is resisting “altercations” with deadly serious know-it-alls and the perpetually unhappy.
 

X550i

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.

I agree and have been preaching this as well. I also understand it's kind of bragging rights for the player to be the highest paid at his position, but that may just be for one or two years till the next guy gets paid.

However for all the points you mentioned, the actual cap implications are based on the allocation of the guaranteed money.
 

X550i

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It seems like the nature of message board fans to play sofa GM these days.
We are a group of football addicts and some of us tend to need the next fix. When the season ends they switch to free agency. Then they start playing sofa GM on our own guys.
Then they will play sofa GM for the draft. Then sofa coach for training camp.

I'm not sure if its admirable and cool or sad in a way :)

I agree, it cracks me up when I read posts like "no way am I'm paying that" or "it will cripple us in the future"
Who's money is it? I guess some are financial advisors for the Jones'
 

sean10mm

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.

I do think some players care about the top line number for bragging rights. Also AAV is USUALLY fine as a ballpark figure, because typically around the same % is guaranteed in NFL contracts. There are weird exceptions where guys get an abnormally low guaranteed number, or 100% guaranteed like Kirk Cousins did. But most contracts are somewhere in the middle, so it's mostly fine as a lazy shorthand.

Really, the only things that really matter are the real cash paid (from the player POV) and the real cap hit (from the team POV.) By playing with the salary vs bonus numbers, teams can even move around when exactly a big cap hit affects them to game the system even more.

Nobody wants to internet argue over nuance though, they want to yell at clouds about how big the number is.
 

Jake

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Quite frankly, in the end the only thing I care about is winning. Whatever a guy makes matters little if it helps us win a championship or even make a deep playoff run.

I agree players should go for as much as they can while they're able because careers can be short. Make your millions, I don't care.

I care how the team manages the cap because investing too heavily in guys who have won nothing makes it harder to put together a team capable of winning something.
 

jazzcat22

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I agree and have been preaching this as well. I also understand it's kind of bragging rights for the player to be the highest paid at his position, but that may just be for one or two years till the next guy gets paid.

However for all the points you mentioned, the actual cap implications are based on the allocation of the guaranteed money.

That was a big issues with players and the CBA quite some time ago. A player could get a big contract (for what it was at that time) but there was no guaranteed money. So if a player was injured or released or both, the contract was over, they got their signing bonus plus game checks.
Then the signing bonus became bigger, as players wanted bigger signing bonuses, as that was like their guaranteed money. This was before FA though, and I think shortly after.

Then the guaranteed Money kicked in, and it escalated from there. To me that is what drives up the deals and causes the cap issues. As that eventually becomes dead money if a player is released. Or is injured and and has to retire or be released. Such as Alex Smith with Washington will really hurt them.
 

Nightman

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.
You sound like @Toruk_Makto and you are both wrong

APY clearly matters the most...... it is how they keep track..... other numbers count of further inspection but APY is #1

Stop trying to re-invent the wheel
 

Nightman

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Here is the agents take in the DLaw deal........he lists APY first....... like he should

And ultimately, that was about, again, what the player really wanted, which was to stay put. Earlier in the process, Canter sent Lawrence a chart to show how Dallas’s offers stacked up financially against Khalil Mack, Aaron Donald, Flowers and Von Miller.


In the end, among those five, he was third in APY (average per year), third in full guarantee, first in guaranteed APY, first in percentage of the deal fully guaranteed, first in Year 1 cash (factoring in deferments, etc.) and third three-year cashflow. Best of all, he got all of it right at home. And now the Cowboys can turn around and work on deals for Dak Prescott, Zeke Elliott, Amari Cooper and Byron Jones.
 

shabazz

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All that being said......Prescott is in no way,shape or form worth an average salary of 20 mil + per year
 

kskboys

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Of all the numbers involved in an NFL contract; years, cap hit, bonuses, yearly cash, incentives, base, dead cap, etc. - the average yearly over the term fo the deal is easily the most meaningless.

Yet, y'all love going in circles arguing about it, and I'm curious as to why.

Just because it's the easiest to understand in relation to how normal everyday job salaries work?

Neither the player nor the team cares about that number.

The player wants guaranteed cash and perhaps security with a longer term, the team wants to manage the cap and build in an escape hatch if things go south after a few years.

You'd think some of y'all were going to have to dig into your savings to pay these deals, but I promise, no one is going to come knocking on your door.
All that matters is the yearly cap hit. And since that number keeps teams from advancing to/in the playoffs all the time, the cap hit is all that matters.
 
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