Our cap space and why we can afford a top tier free agent

[WOW!!]

Goodwin just got 3year 20mil deal.. With his small history of production.. That's not good that he sets the market with a deal that "could" be 6.5mil a season.. Only 10mil is guaranteed so I hope it's heavy incentives laden..

[bababoey]

I had to pie you because you did alot of math and writing and I could almost, almost, read all of it and still give a damn.  Good job

[Beast_3000]

34 minutes ago, Adb6368 said:

I don't think Pep will request $6M. He was paid somewhere around $4M last year when including incentives. I'd expect him to come on for the exact same deal again.

That would be nice but everyone wants a reward for their production and sweat equity. Yeah he is a millionaire, but he is wrapping up his career. If you are worth about 6 to 7 and he is aware we need him more than he needs us he will at least get  a small bump in pay.

[Adb6368]

16 minutes ago, Beast_3000 said:

That would be nice but everyone wants a reward for their production and sweat equity. Yeah he is a millionaire, but he is wrapping up his career. If you are worth about 6 to 7 and he is aware we need him more than he needs us he will at least get  a small bump in pay.

This may be cliche but he really doesn't seem to be the guy that is in it for the money. If he is coming back it is for 1 reason only: to win a ring. He took less to come back to Carolina last year and I don't think anything changed since then.

[grimesgoat]

8 hours ago, AU-panther said:

With free agency upon us I'm starting to a lot of comments about how much cap space we do or do not have.  A lot of people around here already understand all of this but for those that don't, maybe this will help in the future.  I'm far from an expert and I don't have access to the contract so I can't be 100% on all of the numbers but it should be close.

Spotrac.com has our cap as $181.6m, this is the same amount as the NFLPA had listed in a recent tweet so we'll start with that number. Overthecap.com had a bit higher number but I think it might be wrong or not updated yet.

Spotrac.com has our top 51 commitment at $157m, Overthecap.com has us at 154.4m.  From what I can tell the difference is mostly because of TD's contract.  I'm not sure who is right so I am just going to split the difference, $151.8m 

Quick note about top 51.  During the off season a teams salary cap is based off of the top 51 salaries on the roster.  Most numbers you see this time year are top 51 numbers.  During the season your salary cap also include players 52 and 53, practice squad and IR.  The last two players on your roster are usually cheap, we'll go with 500k to make the math easy and practice squad will cost you about $1m.  IR is the reason a lot of team try to leave some cushion going into the season.  We don't really need a huge cushion this year because we have several players with high base salaries that could easily be converted to bonuses if we need to free up some cap during the season.

 

Top 51                     $151.8m

players 52 & 53           $1m

practice squad            $1m

cushion                         $5m

Total                           $158.8m

Draft picks - According to https://overthecap.com/draft  the total cost of our draft picks will be 6.4m, but you have to remember that those players will be replacing players that are already counting against your cap.  So if they replace 8 players that are making 480k then you really only need $2.6m.  That puts us at $161.4m

Total Cap:                      181.6m

used cap:                       161.4m

Available cap space:      $20.2m

We've already resigned Gano.  I haven't seen the contract details yet but I would guess his first year cap hit is around $3m, that leaves us $17.2m

Maybe we pay Peppers $6m.  New total: $11.2m (Peppers might be difficult because if it is just a one year deal you can't really backload it unless you want to add dummy years)

Lets go big on a free agent receiver, 5yr/60m.  You could easily have a $5m cap hit the first year.  New total $6.2m

Maybe one more cheaper free agent, 3yr/10m.  $2m cap hit first year.  New total $4.2m

That leaves us a little bit of cap space left to resign some cheap free agents or resign some of our guys.  You have to remember that if you sign someone for $1m it only reduces your remaining cap by about $500k because you are replacing someone.

As you can see we can easily pay for one of the high dollar free agent this year.  Weather or not that is the best use of cap space is a different discussion.

Some people will wonder about the following years, especially since we back loaded a few contracts.  According to overthecap.com we have $72m in space next year.  That total is for only 25 players, but even after you fill out the roster and account for the contracts that you added this year, along with the new rookies, you will probably be around $30-40m in cap space next year.

Speaking of back loaded contracts, they aren't necessarily bad,   The problem arises when teams do too many of them and don't plan for the future and you back yourself into a corner and have to cut players to free up space.

5yr/50m contract with 15m signing bonus (not back loaded)

            Salary               Prorated bonus           Cap hit

year 1      7m                           3m                            10m

year 2      7m                           3m                            10m

year 3       7m                          3m                            10m

year 4       7m                          3m                            10m

year 5       7m                          3m                            10m

5yr/50m contract with 15m signing bonus ( back loaded)

              Salary               Prorated bonus           Cap hit

year 1      1m                           3m                            4m

year 2      6m                           3m                            9m

year 3       8m                          3m                          11m

year 4       9m                          3m                          12m

year 5       11m                        3m                          14m

advantages of back loading:

You even out your cash expenditure, have to remember that signing bonuses are paid upfront.  In the back loaded example the player  will get $16m in the first year.  By having increasing yearly salaries the player is less likely to fall behind other players as inflation sets in.  If you frontloaded a contract a player might be more apt to sit out at the end of the contract if they are making a lot less then their peers. 

Also if you release the player before the contract is over you usually save yourself some cap.  4 year cost of the non back loaded contract would be $43m.  the 4 year cost of the back loaded one would be $39m.

 

 

Great writeup.  Unfortunately, I think you left our 2018 dead money.  6.8m so far.  That, and I think the cushion should be a little higher than 5m suggests we may only have around 10-12m to play with. 

[rodeo]

Teams sign big free agents with under 10 million in space every year. We're the only team who thinks 24 million just isn't enough.

[jayflip]

18 minutes ago, rodeo said:

Teams sign big free agents with under 10 million in space every year. We're the only team who thinks 24 million just isn't enough.

Seriously. Aren’t the Eagles over the cap right now and didn’t they just trade for a player with a pretty decent cap hit?

I bet they’re not done making moves, cuttingbas needed and still adding more talent to their roster. 

[TheBiggerCat]

4 minutes ago, jayflip said:

Seriously. Aren’t the Eagles over the cap right now and didn’t they just trade for a player with a pretty decent cap hit?

I bet they’re not done making moves, cuttingbas needed and still adding more talent to their roster. 

Yes, but they have a competent GM and we have an ex radio show host who's strings are still being pulled by JR

[Khyber53]

11 hours ago, AU-panther said:

With free agency upon us I'm starting to a lot of comments about how much cap space we do or do not have.  A lot of people around here already understand all of this but for those that don't, maybe this will help in the future.  I'm far from an expert and I don't have access to the contract so I can't be 100% on all of the numbers but it should be close.

Spotrac.com has our cap as $181.6m, this is the same amount as the NFLPA had listed in a recent tweet so we'll start with that number. Overthecap.com had a bit higher number but I think it might be wrong or not updated yet.

Spotrac.com has our top 51 commitment at $157m, Overthecap.com has us at 154.4m.  From what I can tell the difference is mostly because of TD's contract.  I'm not sure who is right so I am just going to split the difference, $151.8m 

 

 

 

Sorry to point out an error in your math, but... Splitting the difference between $157 million and $154.4 million isn't $151.8 million. The difference between them would be $155.7 -- so you are creating $3.9 million that we wouldn't have. As a percentage of total cap space, it isn't that much, but it could mean the difference between a top tier candidate and having to settle for someone lower in the pecking order.

 

[KDawg004]

1 hour ago, rodeo said:

Teams sign big free agents with under 10 million in space every year. We're the only team who thinks 24 million just isn't enough.

 

1 hour ago, jayflip said:

Seriously. Aren’t the Eagles over the cap right now and didn’t they just trade for a player with a pretty decent cap hit?

I bet they’re not done making moves, cuttingbas needed and still adding more talent to their roster. 

This. Every year it’s the same excuse. When are we ever going to have cap space? Every other team in the league finds a way to make the cap work. We’re the only team that’s always capstrapped. For someone that is hailed as a cap genius, Hurney sure doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing.

Oh, and btw, Falcons got Brooks Reed and Andy Levitre to take paycuts to help the team. Why aren’t we doing that with Ryan Kalil again?

[TheSpecialJuan]

Great work there, very informative.

[Khyber53]

5 minutes ago, KDawg004 said:

 

This. Every year it’s the same excuse. When are we ever going to have cap space? Every other team in the league finds a way to make the cap work. We’re the only team that’s always capstrapped. For someone that is hailed as a cap genius, Hurney sure doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing.

Oh, and btw, Falcons got Brooks Reed and Andy Levitre to take paycuts to help the team. Why aren’t we doing that with Ryan Kalil again?

What is reported as, or more often referred to, as pay cuts are often just rearrangements of contracted money into backloaded contracts or conversions to signing bonuses. Altruistic pay cuts by a player are a very, very rare thing. 

The league's cap is designed to trim away at good portion of the aging second tier each year. The cap grows but rarely at the rate of contract growth for the second tier guys (most of the guys being let go right now like DeMarco Murray, etc...). League minimums grow as well for each year of service to trim away at the bottom end of rosters as well, so that teams don't keep a bunch of decent but not great 30 year olds as back ups and special teamers. 

I mention this because in reviewing FA vs salary cap space, a big part of the GMs job is deciding which of these guys available are second tier (good but not star) players on their way out because their time has come and which of them are just falling victim to bad cap management by their old team or a change in scheme that makes them redundant. It's tough to do it, but roaring in and grabbing big names often gets a team burned, often times for years down the road. The Washington Redskins and Albert Haynesworth are a great example of this. 

A GM also has to keep a three to four million to address that bottom part of the roster. We'd all be amazed at how much time and energy is put into this and how much handwringing a long-tenure GM has to go through in deciding the fate of the lunch pail guys that he has relied upon for a few years. These are the cuts to guys like Brad Hoover and Mike Minter that are tough, but necessary to make, ones that can have a lot of impact on team chemistry. It's also where they have to sift through other teams' trash heaps to find something. It's rare but sometimes you find a Stephen Davis or Michael Oher on the curbside, just waiting for someone to give them a call.

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into this, but getting back to the original deal, don't expect many voluntary pay cuts or that they actually are pay cuts at all.

 

[grimesgoat]

1 hour ago, jayflip said:

Seriously. Aren’t the Eagles over the cap right now and didn’t they just trade for a player with a pretty decent cap hit?

I bet they’re not done making moves, cuttingbas needed and still adding more talent to their roster. 

Wow - timely.  Looks like Eagles just dumped Torrey Smith salary.  They still have Foles to trade and will probably unload a DE or two to get below cap.

[AU-panther]

4 hours ago, grimesgoat said:

Great writeup.  Unfortunately, I think you left our 2018 dead money.  6.8m so far.  That, and I think the cushion should be a little higher than 5m suggests we may only have around 10-12m to play with. 

The dead money should be included in those totals, I just typed in a number wrong so it might seem the dead money was left out.  

As far as the cushion goes there doesn't seem to be any standard amount.  I've seen plenty of teams go into the season with a lot less then $5m.  You  have to make sure you have enough to cover guys that go on IR.  

We actually have several players with large base salaries in the current year that could easily be converted to bonuses which would free up cap space if we need to.

1 hour ago, Khyber53 said:

Sorry to point out an error in your math, but... Splitting the difference between $157 million and $154.4 million isn't $151.8 million. The difference between them would be $155.7 -- so you are creating $3.9 million that we wouldn't have. As a percentage of total cap space, it isn't that much, but it could mean the difference between a top tier candidate and having to settle for someone lower in the pecking order.

 

You are correct. Thank you for pointing it out.  I edited the original post to reflect that.  Hopefully are commitments are closer to what overthecap.com has listed.  Also I hope guessed high on Peppers and any free agent we sign.

Either way we can fit a $12 million dollar a year type of player into our cap this year if we so decide, and it wouldn't ruin us in the future either.