Cap Space coming up

[thunderraiden]

I don't know how aware everyone is to Scott saying we had a lot of cap space this year to make moves because of our warchest of cap space in 2024 but I went ahead and took some liberties with OTC salary cap calculator so we could all be on the same page: 

With just the obvious restructures of DJ, T-Mot, Donte, and Austin C who should all factor into the teams long-term plans, the extension of Burns which is obvious (a 100mill extension I gave him of 4 years dropped his salary cap figure substantially and that was even with a 45 mill signing bonus).

I also cut Pat and Damien Wilson, two players no one will miss.

I want to note that while I am cutting Shaq here for simplicity, its just as likely the team extends him because it would be around the same cost anyways as cutting him.

With these basic moves that Samir has shown time and again he is willing to make, we have $52m in cap space for 2023 and $110m in cap space in 2024. This is why Fitty said be prepared this offseason for some fireworks.

Also: For the "dont kick the can down the road" crowd, the contracts Samir gave last year were set-up to be able to do this. The way the salary cap works it has been figured out that if your owner has a lot of liquid cash (like ours) then you can manipulate it this way with restructures every year. Basically the only downside to manipulating the Salary Cap in this way is that you need lots of cash on hand as an owner (and also you restructure good players only) and not every owner has the resources to accomplish that feat.

Edited February 23, 2023 by thunderraiden

[ChuckWag78]

Great write up. 

We absolutely can take advantage of cash over cap because of Tepper's wealth. Huge advantage in the long run. 

[joemac]

2 hours ago, ChuckWag78 said:

Great write up. 

We absolutely can take advantage of cash over cap because of Tepper's wealth. Huge advantage in the long run. 

Can you please explain what cash over cap means?  I have seen this used a few times around here and I don't really understand what it means.  Thanks. 

[Jackie Lee]

4 minutes ago, joemac said:

Can you please explain what cash over cap means?  I have seen this used a few times around here and I don't really understand what it means.  Thanks. 

Something like if player gets a $25M signing bonus, that can be a $5M cap hit per year spread over five years, but you pay out the actual cash in year one. So Tepper can afford to pay up front unlike probably someone like the Raiders

[neverlosethefeeling]

26 minutes ago, joemac said:

Can you please explain what cash over cap means?  I have seen this used a few times around here and I don't really understand what it means.  Thanks. 

 here’s a good explanation from the Pat McAfee show

[joemac]

9 minutes ago, neverlosethefeeling said:

 here’s a good explanation from the Pat McAfee show

Guess its a good thing to have an owner who happens to be one of the very richest people in the entire world. 

[Basbear]

for uptinth time, kicking the can only works if you have a real winner. For the last 5 years panthers are 5 win team. They wasted allllllll the cap space on a 5 win team. 

[joemac]

16 minutes ago, stbugs said:

His wealth doesn’t really matter here at all. There is still a cap in place so you can’t use Tepper’s wealth to create new cap. Every NFL owner makes enough to all do this.

Honestly, it’s not a new concept. How many restructurings did Hurley do before? The reason it worked for the Saints is that they were restructuring their stars like Brees. We were restructuring Short and ended up keeping him one year longer wasting $14M more. We restructured Olsen on his last leg and again paid him a lot of extra money when he was done.

Anyway, any team in the NFL can do the same process but it’s still about the players and talent you have. Look at the Browns, they were able to clear cap in 2022 and only have a $9M cap hit in 2022 for Watson. That worked out great for them but they’ll be restructuring the poo out of that deal for quite some time and unless he starts playing at a Mahomes level, cash over cap won’t mean poo. Chiefs can do it with Mahomes and they’ll look like geniuses but in the end it’s still working because of Mahomes. NO’s cap magic worked because they had Brees, not Teddy, Sam or Baker.

Did you watch the video that I was replying to?  They specifically talk about how its beneficial to have a cash rich owner...

[neverlosethefeeling]

34 minutes ago, stbugs said:

His wealth doesn’t really matter here at all. There is still a cap in place so you can’t use Tepper’s wealth to create new cap. Every NFL owner makes enough to all do this.

Honestly, it’s not a new concept. How many restructurings did Hurley do before? The reason it worked for the Saints is that they were restructuring their stars like Brees. We were restructuring Short and ended up keeping him one year longer wasting $14M more. We restructured Olsen on his last leg and again paid him a lot of extra money when he was done.

Anyway, any team in the NFL can do the same process but it’s still about the players and talent you have. Look at the Browns, they were able to clear cap in 2022 and only have a $9M cap hit in 2022 for Watson. That worked out great for them but they’ll be restructuring the poo out of that deal for quite some time and unless he starts playing at a Mahomes level, cash over cap won’t mean poo. Chiefs can do it with Mahomes and they’ll look like geniuses but in the end it’s still working because of Mahomes. NO’s cap magic worked because they had Brees, not Teddy, Sam or Baker.

It’s true that every owner is rich, but not true that every owner is cash rich. Mark Davis off the top of my head is believed to have almost his entire net worth wrapped up in the Raiders and is not cash rich, which has resulted in some disadvantages for the Raiders. 

[neverlosethefeeling]

7 minutes ago, stbugs said:

What player did they miss out on that our rich owner got? I’ve yet to hear of a legit case where one team got a star player over another because of a bigger up front bonus when the player would have rather been at the cash poor team. Heck, these players are trying to just get to the point of guaranteeing the entire deal anyway.

Dude, try google: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2825044-nfl-rumors-raiders-arent-cash-rich-despite-cap-space-ahead-of-vegas-move

[ChuckWag78]

2 hours ago, stbugs said:

Restructuring is taking the salaries already in place in the contract and converting them to bonuses. It can kick more cap into the future.

Tepper’s wealth makes no difference here because you are paying the player the same amount that year, just a few months earlier. It’s something pretty much every owner can do.

Tepper is still dealing with the same cap space every year as other owners. Where he can use is wealth is non cap spending like new practice facilities and coach salaries.

@Jackie Lee brings up another possibility of paying way more up front as a bonus to get a discount. Let’s be honest, there is no player that’s saying, sure I’ll take less per year than the guy who just signed if you give me more up front. The guaranteed money keeps growing by itself and the couple percent you might get off is likely completely overwhelmed by the Teddy/Sam cost of realizing that you way overpaid the guy with too much guaranteed money.

Yes and no.  From a cap perspective everyone plays with the same deck of cards.

But cash over cap is in reference to the amount of cash you can actually pay to the players up front versus what the cap hit actually is. For example, let's say we signed someone to a 5-year 100 million guaranteed contract. In year one you're paying that player 100 million in actual cash, the cap hit can be spread out over the 5 years. So actual cash spend in a year versus cap hit in a year are very different.

Having a rich owner we will be able to pay out more in those initial years which will attract more talent. It absolutely is an advantage versus cash poor teams. 

[Basbear]

12 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Exactly. I’ve shown it a dozen times that we spent the same amount of cap space on shitty FAs as NO was spending on their stars. We used the same amount or more of the cap the past few years as Cincinnati who has a poorer owner than Mark Davis. The difference? Drafting Burrow, Higgins and Chase in drafts where we got Brown, YGM and Horn just a few picks later.

Signing and drafting the right people >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> whether you have a rich owner to pay higher up front bonuses.

Tepper’s been here 3 years. I’d love to see one example of a cap awesome deal we got by spending more up front than some other team.

You know what this discussion reminds me of? The draft position talk we’ve unfortunately had a lot of lately. Sometimes that discussion turns to the SOS and what teams we want to win or lose. It’s nice and all and technically true, but the single win or loss by the team dwarfs SOS in terms of draft slots. Drafting Joe Burrow or Herbert (or even Tua) instead of Derrick Brown dwarfs a rich owner.

Maybe, just maybe they finalllllllly have a group that knows what NFL talent is. I still remember during 2021 FA with very little space, the following 2022 season had 110 million in cap space.....So in alll our wisdom they borrowed form 2022 to sign all the reddicks, fox, etc.......Then come 2022 there was nothing...... i feel they are going to pull the same BS this year if a top TE wants to sign here. 

It does not make ANY sense to constantly pay 5 win NFL players..... Its not rocket science, just use common sense and the fill in the other gaps with research. 

[NanuqoftheNorth]

13 minutes ago, stbugs said:

The poorest owner (GB has no single owner) was beating us 42-7 this past year and our cash rich owner couldn’t do a damn thing about it. That was all drafting. We draft a QB like a Burrow, we’ll get there and no one will say thank god we had a cash rich owner.

The math works out, I’ll never argue against the math but it just doesn’t matter. The 3rd poorest owner is worth $2B. Plenty of cash flow to make deals.

True, but you still have an employee on staff with an eye for talent and the owner's ear.  For the last decade or so the Panthers have been seated at the back of the class shooting spit balls.

[mountainpantherfan2]

5 hours ago, stbugs said:

Restructuring is taking the salaries already in place in the contract and converting them to bonuses. It can kick more cap into the future.

Tepper’s wealth makes no difference here because you are paying the player the same amount that year, just a few months earlier. It’s something pretty much every owner can do.

Tepper is still dealing with the same cap space every year as other owners. Where he can use is wealth is non cap spending like new practice facilities and coach salaries.

@Jackie Lee brings up another possibility of paying way more up front as a bonus to get a discount. Let’s be honest, there is no player that’s saying, sure I’ll take less per year than the guy who just signed if you give me more up front. The guaranteed money keeps growing by itself and the couple percent you might get off is likely completely overwhelmed by the Teddy/Sam cost of realizing that you way overpaid the guy with too much guaranteed money.

The guaranteed money is the issue and why cash in hand does make a difference. Restructuring isn’t just about converting salary into bonuses. It’s also about converting  non guaranteed money into guaranteed money. 
 
The NFL’s funding rule requires owners to basically escrow all guaranteed money in contracts.  And players will take less guaranteed money than non guaranteed money.  But agents care more about total contract than guaranteed money because it makes them look better. 
 

This is where the restructuring game comes into play.  If you have a high performing player on a big contract, that contract typically has most of the guaranteed money in the signing bonus and the first 1-2 years of the contract. The team can then restructure the contract, convert some of the future salary into a bonus in exchange for more guaranteed money in the later years.  Which requires cash in hand for the escrow account.

Not all owners have that cash in hand.