Can Someone Please Explain to Me Why The Carolina Panthers Always Have Minimal Cap Space to Work With for Free Agency?

[TheMaulClaw]

I think were still paying JStew.

[Navy_football]

The Panthers has been too sentimental regarding contracts and player relationships in the past. Hopefully, new ownership changes this approach to running the team. 

Sometimes you have to make the tough decisions that are in the best interest of the team, but may not be beneficial to the player. 

Hurney could easily free up another 30+ million by making the right post-June cuts and extending Shaq. And would really only need to replace a Nickelback and add DT and WR depth - both could be upgraded through the draft. 

Kalil - doesn't even play so no loss - 7.25M cap savings

Poe - Love is much better, so depth needed - 6.00M cap savings

Munnerlyn - could easily be upgraded under the cap savings - 3.50M cap savings

Torrey - was only a stopgap until the rooks got up to speed, WR depth needed - 5.00M cap savings

Olsen - injury prone, time to let go - 2.90M cap savings

Ross Cockrell - doesn't even play so no loss - 2.40M cap savings

Shaq - extend or cut and replace via draft - not worth 9.2M salary 

[cardiackat88.]

It is all from past mistakes.

Delhommes massive payday.

D-Wills massive payday.

Signing mediocre players like Khalil, Munnerlyn, and others.

It is like running up a credit card and then still trying to squeeze out the remaining money to make it to payday. A continuous loop that will seem to never be broken.

[PantherPhann89]

2 hours ago, Khaki Lackey said:

Yeah , the Kalil contract was Gettleman’s worst mistake by far. If I’m not mistaken though, we could have moved on from him after last season with minimal damage, but Hurney restructured it. Right?

Yeah,  I think Hurney was trying and did free up money with that restructure. It wouldn't be as much of a hit to cut him this year. But as much as it is, it may be best to keep him and still sign someone else. Naaaaa

[GoobyPls]

Even if we have cap space we still wouldn’t go after big name free agents. And there are ways to work around the cap but the panthers refuse to do so, cause the “future”

[lumbeecheraw75]

i found this article interesting when reading OTC.

 

https://overthecap.com/projecting-2019-spending-in-the-nfl/

[Toomers]

4 hours ago, PantherPhann89 said:

Yeah,  I think Hurney was trying and did free up money with that restructure. It wouldn't be as much of a hit to cut him this year. But as much as it is, it may be best to keep him and still sign someone else. Naaaaa

Hurney did nothing but what he was supposed to do. He’s the only person that is free of blame for that contract. So far. 

 Now if they do something ignorant like keeping and paying him more, than that’s on Hurney. 

[rhyslloyd]

If we actually pay Shaq Thompson $9M this season and don't cut Kalil, Munnerlyn and Smith, we deserve everything we get because of it.  

[Camp Fodder]

13 hours ago, Adb6368 said:

The teams that have 70M in cap space are... not... good

And we are?

[Mr. Scot]

It actually falls under two separate areas:  philosophy and execution.

Gettleman's philosophy was to plan for five years down the road, i.e. make moves to get better now but keep one eye toward the future as well.

Hurney has always been a "win now" guy. Hence, he'll max out the cap on a regular basis without worrying about the future because "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it".

Basically, chess vs checkers.

Now to be clear, I prefer the "chess" philosophy, but you can win with either method if you know what you're doing.

Whether you sign good players for good value or overpay for guys that are mediocre at best is a matter of execution. That's the other side of the coin. You can have the right philosophy,  execute it poorly and still fail.

So basically, outside of the Gettleman years, we've been going all in on a regular basis. It just hasn't produced results.

[RumHam]

It's called shitty drafts and overpaying aging veterans. Our scouting on player personnel isn't very good. We hang on to projects for too long that never fully develop. We continue to let aging veterans play. also, we have two legacy players that are paid big, actually now three with short, on a yearly basis. That's why you can't let your QB cuck your team much like Rodgers has. 

[RumHam]

This is also why i'm open to tanking the season if Cam can't do it. Let that poo run out and let him walk. Do not overpay for a backup QB when we could have a top pick. Let some young talent get experience and these shitty contracts run out. If we can get a decent corner and move jackson to nickel, we can let captain walk. Torrey needs to walk, badly.

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, stbugs said:

Yep. We can get to $40m in cap space easily and lose basically nothing based on those players last year.

Also, one thing I now really hate from the new CBA is the cap rollover. I guess it can even the playing field but it’s an easy recipe to basically tank and build up draft picks (Browns and Colts trading our if higher picks/getting future picks while they know they’ll suck and get high picks again and then spend like a drunken sailor because you didn’t spend anything the prior few years. None of this huge space is because of the lack of salaries in that year, it’s a multiplier of staying under the cap for a few years purposely.

Also, as much as I hate Matt Kalil’s contract, Hurney was just as bad this past year. If we keep Poe, he handed out the same amount in total that we will have paid Kalil in Poe, Searcy, Cockrell and Smith and we got almost nothing. If we keep any of the others with Poe, we’ll have spent more than Kalil. That’s why I laugh when people talk about how bad Kalil’s contract was and then don’t realize how much money we wasted on last year’s FAs. For just one year of Hurney’s guys and Kalil we wasted $60m. Throw in the lost seasons of the other Kalil and Olsen and we’re right next to $100m in cap for very little.

Any of Cockrell, Searcy, Poe or Smith would be as good of a LT as Matt Kalil.

He is one of the top two worst roster moves this franchise has ever made. Very unfortunate we didn't fire Gettleman before he made this idiotic blunder.

[grimesgoat]

A lot of the salary cap space has to do with how much gets carried over from the prior year.  If you don't spend your full cap, you get to carry some over.  It may make sense to build through the draft and squirrel some money away if you know you are not going to truly compete for 2-3 years, then all of the sudden you find yourself with a solid young core and 50 million in cap space (without a bunch of dead money).  Unfortunately the Panthers never think strategically (or more than 12 months out) and are stuck with little money to improve the team through free agency.

Gettleman was pretty good at the rollover game, but then when we finally got some money to play with, we blow it on Munnerlyn, Kalil, etc.  Whether those were Gettleman's signings or not is not as important to me.  The point is we need a GM that is not going to spend every penny he has just because he has it.  And anyone that wants to spend every penny we have for the upcoming season is putting us right back on the treadmill.  Our ceiling in 2019 is possibly sneaking into the playoffs as a wildcard.  To me, that is not worth spending all of our available cap space on a ton of high priced vets.