Salary Cap Experts

[HizzleRocker]

Anyone know much about the SuperChargers cap? I know we are near the bottom of the list, as a small market team, heading into the draft. Any inside knowledge of plans there?

 

[Pattersonca65]

Anyone know much about the SuperChargers cap? I know we are near the bottom of the list, as a small market team, heading into the draft. Any inside knowledge of plans there?

I read one story that the Chargers heading into the offseason were only about $1.3 million under the cap. They are not in great situation right now. They have some big personnel decisions to make.

That is not my opinion, just what I've recently read about them.

 

[HizzleRocker]

I read one story that the Chargers heading into the offseason were only about $1.3 million under the cap. They are not in great situation right now. They have some big personnel decisions to make.

That is not my opinion, just what I've recently read about them.

Yeah, I thought it was closer to 2+mil, but regardless I heard we are outta the FA bidding process.

 

[fastforward]

Teams don't get into cap difficulties until they're about 50% over the cap in real terms. Even the Cowboys problems are not insurmountable. The Rams were at the cap limit, (purely by cap numbers), for the past few years but they could have spent more if they'd really needed to. In "real" terms the Rams were $48M over the cap as of February 2013. That's to say they've spent $48M on player salaries that hasn't been accounted for against the cap yet. The Rams have organised salaries so that they'll be close to the cap level for the foreseeable future no matter what they do. If they were to have all the Draft picks taken away and a FA embargo placed upon them they'd be at the cap limit. If they sign Draft picks they'll be at the cap limit. If they sign rookies, FAs, and extend a few veterans they'll still be at the cap limit. They can move cap money around by changing the wording of contracts. Changing salary into a renegotiation bonus will move cap money back. The Cap figure is almost meaningless. Several teams are considerably below the cap limit. The financial gap between the top and the bottom has never been greater.

 

[WizardHawk]

Weren't the cowboys penalized for their cap overage two years ago stemming from the uncapped season? Think the Cowboys were penalized 10m over two years along with the Redskins who were even more penalized and all of it was redistributed to the rest of the league as added cap space.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Nothing Magic

about managing the CAP...it's no secret the teams that are perennial playoff teams spend to near the cap limit every year...imo...it's about timing, good drafting, and to some degree, luck.

You're always going to have players that either over or under perform the contract they're playing under.

Looking at the situation in PIT...Kahn is respected as one of the top cap experts in the NFL, yet PIT has been in cap hell for many years now. They made a calculated gamble to re-sign a lot of veteran players after the SB loss the GB...it didn't payoff with another ring because the players got old. We lost several good draft picks to FA as a result, but again...it was a calculated gamble.

 

[fastforward]

Weren't the cowboys penalized for their cap overage two years ago stemming from the uncapped season? Think the Cowboys were penalized 10m over two years along with the Redskins who were even more penalized and all of it was redistributed to the rest of the league as added cap space.

The Cowboys and Redskins were penalised for taking advantage of the 2010 CBA situation. The Redskins paid Haynesworth $20M up front. Normally a team would spread the cost of that bonus over several years for cap purposes. The Redskins chose to keep all of that amount in the uncapped 2010 season which allowed them to have a lot more money available in future years. If that bonus had been calculated over 4 or 5 years the Redskins would have had $15M+ less cap space. The Cowboys did a similar thing with Austin.

Money already paid to Rams players that hasn't yet been accounted for under the cap:
Bradford $7,190,000
Austin $5,740,092
C.Long $4,500,000
Cook $4,000,000
J. Long $3,750,000
Finnegan $3,000,000
Brockers $2,682,544
Ogletree $2,619,564
Hayes $2,500,000
Wells $2,000,000
Langford $2,000,000
Jenkins $1,551,994
Quinn $1,340,646
Laurinaitis $1,200,000
Kendricks $1,180,313
Quick $1,178,500
Pead $688,400
McDonald $486,000

 

[Jikkle]

Good organizations think long term and view the cap as a giant puzzle that you need to put together. The know how to play with the numbers and what years to front load money and what years to back load it.

I'll use the Seahawks and Harvin as an example since a lot of Hawk fans on this thread. The Seahawks knew that this season was when they would have the highest odds of winning the SB so they made Harvin's cap hit only 4.9 million in 2013 so they could afford to load up on as much talent as they could to make the run that they did this season.

The real key though to sustaining a level of long term success is having an elite QB in place and managing the draft well. Sure you need really sound cap management but ultimately you're going to have to let guys go and you need guys ready to step in for them.

To use my team the 9ers for example they had Goldson as a FA last offseason but because they managed the draft well they had the ability to let Goldson walk and had the ability to move up and draft a younger, cheaper, and better option with Eric Reid. And now with 5 picks in the first 3 rounds they can afford to let other guys walk as well and have the means to replace them.

I mean the whole reason why Seattle won the SB wasn't due to excellent cap management but because they had talented guys in key positions at bargain prices because they drafted well. And if Seattle is going to continue to be in the running it will be because of how they draft.