Panthers and the Salary Cap

[Kevin Greene]

Top 10 biggest cap hits....3 are RBs. LOL.

The fanbase got what they wanted though

 

What fan base.

I recall stating if Marty Hurney went RB/Stewart #1 just 2 years after drafting DWill #1 he should be fired on the spot.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

[top dawg]

Except that Hardy was never in our long term future if you believe some people.  We rented him for ~$13 mil, and suffered greatly for it.  I would not have tagged him (unless I had a trade in the works).

 

My dream scenario, as I stated earlier this year, would have been to try and trade him to the Raiders, and obtain Jared Veldheer and/or Denarius Moore and/or Lamarr Houston (and some picks).  Veldheer would have been my priority, with or without a trade.  Moore could have been rented on the cheap, and eventually released if he didn't live up to snuff.   Tagging Hardy cost the team big time this season, and no one would have faulted Gettleman if he would have let Hardy walk.

[Cpt slay a ho]

i wanted tate, guy is a legit number 1

[Marguide]

  Tagging Hardy cost the team big time this season, and no one would have faulted Gettleman if he would have let Hardy walk.

 

Plenty would have been raging if we had let him walk. Remember, at the time, most of us assumed they either were close to a long term deal or thinking draft day trade.

 

Even though it probably would have been an error in hindsight, franchising him with the intent of working out a new deal would have been easier to understand than just renting him.

 

I honestly believe Gettleman decided to tag Greg for 1 year thinking he was going to still be able to fill some of our obvious holes with decent players and continue last year's success. Then he pretty much struck out with all the FA moves and the team was left with a pretty substandard roster.

 

And to top it off, we lost Greg anyway. That could not have been foreseen and Dave should not be hammered for not anticipating what happened. We could have lost him to injury and the result would have been the same.

 

Maybe someday, Gettleman will talk about his plan and how it did or didn't come to fruition during the 2014 season.

[Pimpdaddy]

....Nice article and in all this mess you really cant make a call to fire Rivera or DG cause no one could succeed in this environment... what is mind boggling is JR, a supposedly astute businessman, bought off on these ridiculous contracts... wonder what his freakin pie chart shows now?... still want Shulong gone though...

[Snake]

My comments were actually directed more to the people who feel like we could have kept multiple players such as Ginn, Captain, Mitchell, and Smith for what it cost to keep Hardy.  These people tend to look at this year in a vacuum with no regard for the cap ramifications in the future.

 

Your point of view seems to center more around using Hardy's cap space to invest in a player over an extended time that could help the team in the future.   Which is a valid argument.  My point of contention with a lot of the comments I see is what Hardy's $13m is equal to.

 

We could have easily afforded Tate for what we spent on Hardy.  Actually Hardy's tag would have almost covered Tate's salary for 3 years.  By the fourth year the cap would probably be higher anyway.  

 

Would Tate have helped more then Hardy this year?  My guess is no.  Would Tate help more in the next 3 years?  yes

 

Every decision carries short term vs long term ramifications.  We could have just let Hardy walked and rolled over the savings until next year.  We could cut Kalil and TD next year and that could help us 5 years from now.

 

Wanting to invest in a player such as Tate for multiple years vs tagging Hardy for a single year is a valid argument, but at the same time tagging Hardy isn't as absurd as some people would claim. I would guess a lot of GMs would have given him a long term contract.  Defensive ends that can consistently get to the quarterback are highly coveted in the league.  Those that can also play the run are even more so.  For all we know we might have traded him at some point.

 

Did the "super bowl run" play into some of our off season decisions? probably

We did go 12-4 last year.  Most would agree the strength of our team was our defense and i think it is pretty evident that Hardy was a big part of that defense.  

 

I've stated before that us going 12-4 might have been the worst thing to happen to DG.  A lot of people might have got an unrealistic view of where this team was at.

 

.

 

The tale of 2013 and 2014 are a tale of everything going right and everything going wrong. Tagging Hardy was a gamble that failed and if we would have let him walk it would have been someone else suffering. Now he will more likely go on to have a great career somewhere else.

 

[thennek]

Good write-up OP.  I don't think anyone doubts that the Panthers have cap issues, and that Hurney made some really bad decisions. 

 

What I don't understand is that all NFL teams have made stupid mistakes, signed bad contracts, and sign bad players.  Are Hurney's bad contracts & stupid decisions really worse than other teams bad contracts & stupid decisions or are the Panthers just using this as an excuse? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[the_philosopher]

As we know, there's nothing ol Dave could do the last couple years about our huge RB contracts. But he should have committed to fielding a run-oriented offensive line in the meantime. As I understand it, big mean olinemen that can push people around and create creases for running backs are way easier to find on a budget than players with the athleticism and smarts to passblock at a high level. We ended up with cheap, finesse tackles who can't do either. We should have been a power running team these last two seasons until those contracts are off the books.

[R0CKnR0LLA]

Good write-up OP.  I don't think anyone doubts that the Panthers have cap issues, and that Hurney made some really bad decisions. 

 

What I don't understand is that all NFL teams have made stupid mistakes, signed bad contracts, and sign bad players.  Are Hurney's bad contracts & stupid decisions really worse than other teams bad contracts & stupid decisions or are the Panthers just using this as an excuse? 

 

Much worse than the average team. Hurney shelled out record breaking contract after record breaking contract to resign a 2-14 team. Next year we have the highest cap hit for any DE (Charles Johnson), biggest cap hit for any OLB (Thomas Davis), biggest cap hit for any center (Kalil) and 2 of the top 10 paid running backs. For comparison, Max Unger, Seattle's first team all-pro center, who is just as good as Kalil, his cap hit is less than half of what Kalil's is for 2015. $5.6 million vs $11.795 million.

 

If Gettleman had kept Godfrey on his original Hurney contract (and not forced him to take a paycut) he would have made the same as Earl Thomas next year. He also made Beason the highest paid MLB in NFL history when he was injured, hadn't proven yet he would return to form from his injury AND still had a full year left on his rookie contract. Any GM with half a brain would have let him play at least part of the season remaining on his original contract and prove he's back and healthy again before shelling out a massive extension.

 

Combine this with the fact that Hurney also left the team with very little cheap talent (AKA quality draft picks). 2009 draft, only decent player was Captain Munnerlyn, everyone else was a complete bust. 2010, Greg Hardy and Brandon LaFell. 2011, only Cam, rest of the draft was garbage. 2012, Keuchly and Josh Norman. The previous 4 drafts combined netted only 6 quality picks with 24 complete busts, that's an 80% failure rate. If that alone wasn't bad enough, Hurney also traded away future draft picks leaving DG with only 5 picks his first year and 6 his 2nd.

 

This is why we have 3 UDFAs starting on the OLine, and have our secondary and WR corps filled with bargain basement free agents that nobody else wanted.

[Goondal]

Williams

Tolbert

Kalil

Davis

Johnson

3-4 of those guys probably won't be back, and it's gonna piss off a lot of the same butthurt Smith fans that are attached to old, declining players. None of them are worth the massive hits they have going forward.

I want Kalil to stay, would be fine with cutting the rest, as painful as the Davis cut would be

[Dexterity]

I want Kalil to stay, would be fine with cutting the rest, as painful as the Davis cut would be

Here's my opinion...

Williams & Tolbert are gone. No questions.

Johnson is gone. His cap hit is insane & he can be cut to clear space. I think DG will try to renegotiate his deal, but I don't see CJ interested in taking a massive paycut.

Davis will restructure again. He's basically got a dummy contract that can be cut. He'll renegotiate & finish his career here.

Kalil is an unknown. He's an All-Pro, & while he's getting older, still has a good 3-4 years left. His cap hit is getting ready to skyrocket. It's absurd for a C, even as good as Kalil, & he can be dropped to clear a ton of space. He's not gonna be worth it. But can DG really afford to cut the only good OL he has? Will Kalil be willing to restructure? Hopefully they can rework his deal. If he refuses though, it's 50/50 IMO.

[AU-panther]

Good write-up OP.  I don't think anyone doubts that the Panthers have cap issues, and that Hurney made some really bad decisions. 

 

What I don't understand is that all NFL teams have made stupid mistakes, signed bad contracts, and sign bad players.  Are Hurney's bad contracts & stupid decisions really worse than other teams bad contracts & stupid decisions or are the Panthers just using this as an excuse? 

 

I haven't took time to study every team in the league but in my opinion its really bad when compared to the majority of the teams in the league.  

 

Here is an interesting article that talks about some of our contracts:

 

http://overthecap.com/best-worst-contracts-2014-carolina-panthers/

 

Its not just the size of the various contracts on the roster, its the structure of them.  Alot of our bigger contracts have been restructured and/or had voidable years added to them. Some of this was actually done by DG, but once you get so far behind on the cap you have to do this just to have enough cap space to field a team.

 

Look at Kalil's contract:

 

http://overthecap.com/player/ryan-kalil/1190

 

He has been restructured several times and has voidable years.  In theory he could void his contract in 2017 and we would still have a cap hit of $3.3m.

 

For those who don't really understand voidable years:

 

http://overthecap.com/the-voidable-year-and-the-salary-cap/

[Rubi]

So basically we have to cheer on a minor league NFL team until 2017...then we can finally afford big league talent.

No Money Mo Problems.

We just have so many low quality players. The only real team speed we have is at the linebacker position. That really sucks

[Rise of The Hive]

I thought it would be better after this season, ugh!