Wilson's cap hit in 2015

[WizardHawk]

We are still a full year away, but already plenty of people are talking about Wilson and his potential impact on the salary cap and what potential impact that has on all of the other signings going on this year, and/or next season.

Everyone is watching Kaepernick and I know many are expecting Wilson to get at least as good, if not more than his deal. The question is do we expect that to happen? I mean Kaepernick is likely to get a fairly common style of deal with 25% or so of the contract in a signing bonus and a lot of back end loading to make him prove he deserves it. In other words, he is going to demand a lot given how much of it will actually be guaranteed.

Seattle is in a unique situation with both Wilson and Allen in this negotiation. On the one hand you have one of the richest owners in any sport, and the other a player with a serious hunger to win. I'm not going to get too deeply in the whole 'home down discount' argument, but I do think there are ways to keep his hit to the cap down while still taking very good care of him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can spread out signing bonuses up to 5 years against the cap. Is that right? If you sign a player to a 7 year deal you can still only go 5 on spreading that bonus out? I'm assuming that is right here.

If a more typical QB contract pays out like $25-$28m in signing bonus and back loads much of the cap hit to the last two years how much less per year over the life of the contract would you take if Allen did something crazy and broke the record for signing bonuses and guaranteed overall money? Would you still need $18m/yr if you got like $40-$45m up front and the first two years fully guaranteed?

Let me ask you this, would you rather have a flacco style contract that supposedly averaged $18m/yr, but had so little of it guaranteed where you just know the likelihood of seeing the full amount is slim? Or would you rather make only an average of $15m/yr, but have more than half of it fully guaranteed with lots of front loading?

I mean take that example. Give him $45m signing bonus and an average of $6m/yr for 5 years with the first two fully guaranteed. He counts an average of $15m against the cap, but with all that money up front he is earning interest on it TODAY. Doesn't have to worry about what happens if he has a catastrophic injury either.

Is $15m/yr too high or too low in exchange for some crazy front loading and higher than normal guaranteed money?

Given how we all know Allen is willing to spend and take risks to win and that Wilson is so young and so special as well as it feels like more driven to win than to simply play to get rich is some kind of crazy and unprecedented contract like this even remotely likely?

I think if he has a year where he plays at least as well as he did this year that something like this can happen and it can help them to sustain forward momentum by not locking up $20m/yr or more and keeping them from putting pieces around him to keep winning.

Disclaimer: Yes JDM and a few others (you know who you are), we know you think all Seattle fans are naive and Wilson is simply going to demand to be the highest paid player in the league. This is a question of if it is at least possible to do something radical, how much would/should a player be willing to take off the total in lieu of front loaded contracts with crazy guaranteed money.

 

[BoBlake]

We are still a full year away, but already plenty of people are talking about Wilson and his potential impact on the salary cap and what potential impact that has on all of the other signings going on this year, and/or next season.

Everyone is watching Kaepernick and I know many are expecting Wilson to get at least as good, if not more than his deal. The question is do we expect that to happen? I mean Kaepernick is likely to get a fairly common style of deal with 25% or so of the contract in a signing bonus and a lot of back end loading to make him prove he deserves it. In other words, he is going to demand a lot given how much of it will actually be guaranteed.

Seattle is in a unique situation with both Wilson and Allen in this negotiation. On the one hand you have one of the richest owners in any sport, and the other a player with a serious hunger to win. I'm not going to get too deeply in the whole 'home down discount' argument, but I do think there are ways to keep his hit to the cap down while still taking very good care of him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can spread out signing bonuses up to 5 years against the cap. Is that right? If you sign a player to a 7 year deal you can still only go 5 on spreading that bonus out? I'm assuming that is right here.

If a more typical QB contract pays out like $25-$28m in signing bonus and back loads much of the cap hit to the last two years how much less per year over the life of the contract would you take if Allen did something crazy and broke the record for signing bonuses and guaranteed overall money? Would you still need $18m/yr if you got like $40-$45m up front and the first two years fully guaranteed?

Let me ask you this, would you rather have a flacco style contract that supposedly averaged $18m/yr, but had so little of it guaranteed where you just know the likelihood of seeing the full amount is slim? Or would you rather make only an average of $15m/yr, but have more than half of it fully guaranteed with lots of front loading?

I mean take that example. Give him $45m signing bonus and an average of $6m/yr for 5 years with the first two fully guaranteed. He counts an average of $15m against the cap, but with all that money up front he is earning interest on it TODAY. Doesn't have to worry about what happens if he has a catastrophic injury either.

Is $15m/yr too high or too low in exchange for some crazy front loading and higher than normal guaranteed money?

Given how we all know Allen is willing to spend and take risks to win and that Wilson is so young and so special as well as it feels like more driven to win than to simply play to get rich is some kind of crazy and unprecedented contract like this even remotely likely?

I think if he has a year where he plays at least as well as he did this year that something like this can happen and it can help them to sustain forward momentum by not locking up $20m/yr or more and keeping them from putting pieces around him to keep winning.

Disclaimer: Yes JDM and a few others (you know who you are), we know you think all Seattle fans are naive and Wilson is simply going to demand to be the highest paid player in the league. This is a question of if it is at least possible to do something radical, how much would/should a player be willing to take off the total in lieu of front loaded contracts with crazy guaranteed money.

Seattle is going to spend the entire salary cap no matter who they pay. The argument for not paying Wilson has nothing to do with the millions he'll earn versus the billions that Allen has. It's only about salary cap managment.

If he has a catastrophic injury, sure Wilson will be fine, but the TEAM will not be able to manage if so much money is tied up into Wilson. They couldn't trade or sign a quality free agent.


Paul Allen is restricted from spending more than the ~$135MM Salary Cap. In fact, it's not even him involved in these discussions. John Schneider is the GM. The money and salary decisions go through him.

 

[WizardHawk]

Seattle is going to spend the entire salary cap no matter who they pay. The argument for not paying Wilson has nothing to do with the millions he'll earn versus the billions that Allen has. It's only about salary cap managment.

If he has a catastrophic injury, sure Wilson will be fine, but the TEAM will not be able to manage if so much money is tied up into Wilson. They couldn't trade or sign a quality free agent.


Paul Allen is restricted from spending more than the ~$135MM Salary Cap. In fact, it's not even him involved in these discussions. John Schneider is the GM. The money and salary decisions go through him.

No one suggested he can or should spend more than the cap. And I understand the risk of tying up so much money and how hard it would be to recover if Wison wasn't able to at least fill out most of that.

Still, the thing that prevents the front loading of contracts is the scare of spending so much so early and risking that dead money. Wilson is 25 and the rules that protect the QB's these days cuts down that risk of significant injury for them.

So if you think something that bold is too much, then how far can/should the go to give Wilson enough to lower the overall hit by raising the guaranteed and upfront money?