Worst cap situations

[WizardHawk]

Agent's Take: The five teams with the worst salary cap situations - CBSSports.com
Not a new article, it's from December, but still has a valid discussion about teams with the worst situations on paper for their cap space going into the FA/draft season and some decent discussions about why some may not be as bad as their numbers indicate.

Specifically, it runs down the Saints, Cardinals, Steelers, Patriots and 49ers and their current issues.

NFL 2015 Cap Tracker | Spotrac
Sort that for 2015 by clicking the cap space column (last column) and see where your team stacks up in current cap sapce. Saints have the biggest problem and Jacksonville needs to spend the most.

How does any of these cap figures factor into your valuation on any of these teams going into next year? Saints were a dumpster fire last year, have an aging QB (granted HOF worthy one) AND still have massive payroll problems. Outlook on them for a super weak division? Cards were spectacular before their QB went down. No cap space and questions at QB, can they build a real challenge for the NFCW? How about the Steelers? Can they get better on defense with these cap issues?

 

[Fencer]

Pats fans' views are generally:

• A deal with Revis will be expensive, but we're cautious optimistic it will happen. Everything else depends upon whether that money is spent.
• McCourty will be kept.
• Mayo and Wilfork will be asked to take paycuts. Opinions differ as to whether they'll agree.
• Amendola will be gone.
• Solder will be kept.
• Gostowski will be kept.

There's great disagreement as to the value of Vereen (who has Welker's agents, who are supposedly again asking for the moon -- yikes!), Connolly (which mirrors an outside world that gave him an All-Pro vote but also some very low grades), and Arrington (outstanding slot CB who is miserable playing on the outside).

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Signing Justin Houston is a must to get the lower cap number for 2015, a FT would be bad news.

 

[Gooch1034]

Pittsburgh really needs Polamalu to retire. Pains me to say that but it is just the truth. Also a huge plus is that Ben really wants to stay in Pitt. Things could be much worse for the Steelers.

 

[jdwills126]

If Detroit Franchises Suh they will be right their with those 5. They will have to cut Bush, Tulloch, and Jones.

I am concerned the Lions will have Calvin restructure and end up paying him like he is in his prime for the next 5 years.

The way the salary cap is structured it makes teams restructure guys salaries and ends up creating dead salary space.

 

[WizardHawk]

Yeah, I don't like the structure that kind of forces teams against a limited window to leverage their cap against their future. It is supposed to create parity and to extent it does, but teams can just defer several players for a year and create a roster that is above their means, at the cost of dead money or major cap issues in subsequent seasons. If you don't do it, you might not be able to take advantage of those windows.

 

[NEPatsfan]

Agent's Take: The five teams with the worst salary cap situations - CBSSports.com
Not a new article, it's from December, but still has a valid discussion about teams with the worst situations on paper for their cap space going into the FA/draft season and some decent discussions about why some may not be as bad as their numbers indicate.

Specifically, it runs down the Saints, Cardinals, Steelers, Patriots and 49ers and their current issues.

NFL 2015 Cap Tracker | Spotrac
Sort that for 2015 by clicking the cap space column (last column) and see where your team stacks up in current cap sapce. Saints have the biggest problem and Jacksonville needs to spend the most.

How does any of these cap figures factor into your valuation on any of these teams going into next year? Saints were a dumpster fire last year, have an aging QB (granted HOF worthy one) AND still have massive payroll problems. Outlook on them for a super weak division? Cards were spectacular before their QB went down. No cap space and questions at QB, can they build a real challenge for the NFCW? How about the Steelers? Can they get better on defense with these cap issues?

The cap is crap. There are so many ways of getting around it that it doesn't really matter, making this article pointless.

 

[WizardHawk]

So what specifically is wrong with it? Just calling something crap doesn't make it so. I'd bet you didn't even skim the section on the Pats.

 

[NEPatsfan]

So what specifically is wrong with it? Just calling something crap doesn't make it so. I'd bet you didn't even skim the section on the Pats.

Do you actually think it's going to be an issue for any of those teams?

There are plenty of ways around it. BB happens to be a master of it. What you need to watch is the guaranteed money on an NFL contract, everything else is meaningless.

Even notice how many contracts get torn up and redone?

Look at Revis's contract, the second year was nothing more than a "place holder", and the cap number for it will never fully come into play.

 

[WizardHawk]

Do you actually think it's going to be an issue for any of those teams?

There are plenty of ways around it. BB happens to be a master of it. What you need to watch is the guaranteed money on an NFL contract, everything else is meaningless.

Even notice how many contracts get torn up and redone?

Look at Revis's contract, the second year was nothing more than a "place holder", and the cap number for it will never fully come into play.

Ok, you didn't take my hint so I'll spell it out for you. That article doesn't say all 5 are screwed. It says where they are at in cap and what options they need to address and what options they have to bring them down. You clearly didn't even look at it beyond seeing it had your team among the worst in current cap space.

Kind of hard to dispute an article you didn't even bother to look at.

 

[WizardHawk]

First paragraph for the pats:

New England's cap situation isn't as bad as it seems. It should be noted that a majority of New England's $5.71 million of carry-over room will be eaten up by unlikely-to-be-earned incentives being achieved by players. Signing Darrelle Revis to a long-term deal, presumably near the top of the cornerback market ($13 million to $14 million per year) will create a substantial amount of cap space. Revis has a two-year, $32 million deal on paper, which in reality is a one-year contract for $12 million.

So tell us again how much crap it is.

 

[NEPatsfan]

Ok, you didn't take my hint so I'll spell it out for you. That article doesn't say all 5 are screwed. It says where they are at in cap and what options they need to address and what options they have to bring them down. You clearly didn't even look at it beyond seeing it had your team among the worst in current cap space.

Kind of hard to dispute an article you didn't even bother to look at.

You're correct I didn't even look at it. You know why? Because it's a pointless article. And it's easy to dispute it because most people know the cap is crap.

 

[WizardHawk]

 

[tedman2012]

Pats fans' views are generally:

• A deal with Revis will be expensive, but we're cautious optimistic it will happen. Everything else depends upon whether that money is spent.
• McCourty will be kept.
• Mayo and Wilfork will be asked to take paycuts. Opinions differ as to whether they'll agree.
• Amendola will be gone.
• Solder will be kept.
• Gostowski will be kept.

There's great disagreement as to the value of Vereen (who has Welker's agents, who are supposedly again asking for the moon -- yikes!), Connolly (which mirrors an outside world that gave him an All-Pro vote but also some very low grades), and Arrington (outstanding slot CB who is miserable playing on the outside).

to me pats should keep wilfork and revis after that so what . that collins boy looks very good isn't mayo a lb ?

 

[fordman84]

Dallas may not be in cap trouble, but have a couple of guys that could put us there for a few years based on what we do with them this year.

 

[WizardHawk]

Dallas may not be in cap trouble, but have a couple of guys that could put us there for a few years based on what we do with them this year.

Romo's 27m this year does limit the things you can do in free agency and is the reason you can't have both dez and murray. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes out for them. They were on the verge of big things last year. Can they reload around that huge nearly 20% of cap space salary of Romo's?

 

[molsaniceman]

Romo's 27m this year does limit the things you can do in free agency and is the reason you can't have both dez and murray. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes out for them. They were on the verge of big things last year. Can they reload around that huge nearly 20% of cap space salary of Romo's?

U do know they will restructer his salary and change the cap amount

 

[cdumler7]

You're correct I didn't even look at it. You know why? Because it's a pointless article. And it's easy to dispute it because most people know the cap is crap.

The Cap is somewhat crap but there is still a major point to it. Decisions now affect later seasons. Just like for this upcoming season the Patriots were willing to sacrifice $5 million in dead money so they could keep Revis for this past season. So essentially they paid a $5 million a year player for this upcoming season to be nothing. Now will that decision kill them for this upcoming season? No. They have some moves they can make to get around some of that but at the same time it does limit them some. They won't be able to keep everybody from this past Championship Team. I would bet also you won't see them bring in many outside players (partly because they really don't need to and partly because they just don't have the money). So again while the Cap is crap in a way of a team can get around it just like the article says though making too many decisions that way can mean lean times ahead where all those signing bonus' have to come into play. Just look at Dallas as a great example. They organized Romo's contract so he didn't have the huge cap numbers in the seasons before this one but this upcoming one they almost have to pay him $27 million which then means they might not get to keep either All-Pro WR Bryant or All-Pro RB Murray. They can keep both but then again making that decision really limits them in the future.

 

[cdumler7]

U do know they will restructer his salary and change the cap amount

Even doing that though all they are doing is pushing the issue to another season and they really can't limit too much of the hit this season. There are already a ton of guaranteed money in this upcoming season that will be very difficult to restructure without having $30 million cap numbers in the next 2 seasons kind of thing. So at some point the Cowboys are going to pay for this contract. Whether that be this upcoming season or in the next 2 is up to them.

 

[Chasin' Utleys]

Even doing that though all they are doing is pushing the issue to another season and they really can't limit too much of the hit this season. There are already a ton of guaranteed money in this upcoming season that will be very difficult to restructure without having $30 million cap numbers in the next 2 seasons kind of thing. So at some point the Cowboys are going to pay for this contract. Whether that be this upcoming season or in the next 2 is up to them.

Isn't restructuring and pushing things down the road what got Steve Mariucci and Frisco in trouble?