A quick salary cap primer for those of you who would like to play GM this offseason

[chewtoy]

BRH is probably the better person to cover this stuff, as he is more familiar with the ins and outs of the nfl rules. But these are the things to keep in mind when you are making cuts or signing free agents (Note: Most of you probably already know all this stuff. If you do, feel free to ignore this. And if I have anything wrong or if my info is out of date, please let ME know, because I’ve been using these assumptions to do my own amateur GM work…..):

1.) The salary cap number is NOT what you save if you cut the player. The cap number is the total amount of money from the player’s contract allocated to this year’s cap. That includes this year’s salary, roster bonuses, AND a prorated portion of signing bonuses, etc. You CANNOT recoup signing bonuses by cutting a player.

2.) In fact, if you cut a player with multiple years left on their contract, the signing bonus allocation is ACCELLERATED to the current year. This can actually make it more expensive to CUT a player than to keep them. If, for instance, a player signed a 4 year deal with 10M in salary and $5M in signing bonus, the AVERAGE yearly salary would be $15M/4 = $3.75M –> 2.5M in salary and 1.25M in bonus every year. However, if you cut the player in year 2, the remaining 3 years of their bonus would all count towards this year’s cap – in this case that would be 3*1.25 = $3.75M. So the player has a CAP number of $3.75M, but the savings you get from cutting them is $0.

3.) Better yet, you have to remember that a cut player must be replaced. The cheapest that this can be done is with a min salary player (~$300k). As a result, the net SAVINGS from cutting a player really has to be reduced by this amount. In the above example, if we cut our $15M man in year 2 of his contract we end up breaking exactly even EXCEPT that we have to replace him on the roster – the net effect of cutting and replacing him is AT A MINIMUM -$300k.

Lets look at a couple of real examples:

Michael Bush signed a 4 year, $14M contract. It had a $4M signing bonus, it guaranteed 900k of his year one and 1.1M of his year 2 salary. The remaining three years on the contract have salaries of 1.5M (plus a $1M roster bonus in 2013), 2.8M in 2014, and 3.55M in 2015. All told, his cap numbers should look like this:

2013: Salary (1.5M) + roster bonus ($1M) +prorated signing bonus ($1M) = $3.5M
- If cut: Guarenteed salary (900k) + accelerated signing bonus ($3M) + replacement (300k)= $4.2M
- Net= -700k
2014: Salary ($2.8M) + prorated signing bonus ($1M) = $3.8M
-If cut: accelerated signing bonus ($2M) + replacement (300k)
- Net = +1M
2015: Salary ($3.55M) + prorated signing bonus ($1M) = $4.55M
-If cut: accelerated signing bonus ($1M) + replacement (300k) = $1.3M
-Net= +3.25M

So for Mike Bush, it makes no sense to cut him even if he is unproductive until next offseason. Doing so would actually hurt your cap status. But starting next season, he had better earn his keep.

Another one I’ve seen a fair amount about is Matt Spaeth. Lets look at his contract:
In 2011 Spaeth signed a 3 year, 5.97M contract, $1M of which was a signing bonus. His salary this year is 1.025M, he has a 100k roster bonus. So, his cap number looks like this:

2013: Salary (1.025M) + roster bonus (100k) + prorated signing bonus (333k) = 1.455M
- If cut: Signing bonus (333k) + replacement (300k) = 633k
- Net= +822k
So cutting Spaeth helps our cap situation, but by less than $1M

If you are looking for contract details, (surprisingly) rotoworld.com has pretty good info on most players.

[Mikefive]

No disrespect to anyone else, but I'd trust LT2_3 as my "expert". Where are you, man?

[Underdog]

Anyone looking to play GM, go here:

http://forums.kffl.com/threads/30252...Sign-Up-Thread

[brantcruz50]

I think Chewie did a nice job covering. I didn't notice anything wrong.

One thing I THINK that may have changed with the new CBA in 2011 is how signing bonuses get allocated in trades (not cuts). I may have dreamed this (really). But I seem to recall something changing (maybe the ability to allocate s/b over 2 years rather than 1 ala the June first date for cuts) that potentially makes veteran trades easier. Is that ringing a bell for anyone?

[LT2_3]

No disrespect to anyone else, but I'd trust LT2_3 as my "expert". Where are you, man?

Here. Always ready to chime in if needed. It will be an interesting offseason at least from the perspective of seeing how Emery proceeds.

Will he extend Cutler this offseason to gain some cap space?

Will he re-sign Urlacher and at what price point? Will it include extreme escalators?

Will they extend Marshall to gain some cap relief or do they consider him tied to Jay?

Will he restructure Peppers contract to gain space this year, but make him harder to cut later?

Most everyone knows that Cliff Stein is the salary cap / contracts guy, but it's never really been determined whether the philosophy to pay more upfront and keep later cap hits lower was Stein's or Angelo's.

It will be interesting for sure. The one thing I could see is that if they go after a top OLT in free agency, they could structure THAT contract to keep the early cap hit low with a monster signing bonus that is prorated.

When it comes to Spaeth and Hester, it depends more on the value that Trestman puts on them than their cap hit. Neither are very expensive this year. I was always of the impression that Spaeth was Martz' 6th lineman and Hester was one of Lovie's favorites. I wouldn't be surprised to see them both go because they don't fit the new offensive paradigm.

I realize that many people often want to clear dead wood to gain cap space so they have more $$$ to play with in their free agency scenarios. Chewy is right though that they would also have to be replaced and we only have 5 draft picks to get replacements that way.

It will be an interesting offseason to say the least.

[LT2_3]

I think Chewie did a nice job covering. I didn't notice anything wrong.

One thing I THINK that may have changed with the new CBA in 2011 is how signing bonuses get allocated in trades (not cuts). I may have dreamed this (really). But I seem to recall something changing (maybe the ability to allocate s/b over 2 years rather than 1 ala the June first date for cuts) that potentially makes veteran trades easier. Is that ringing a bell for anyone?

I'm not sure about trades, but they can release a player at any time and still spread the signing bonus over 2 years. That's why "June 1st free agency" doesn't exist any longer.

[brantcruz50]

I'm not sure about trades, but they can release a player at any time and still spread the signing bonus over 2 years. That's why "June 1st free agency" doesn't exist any longer.

Great. Given this, I bet it is the same with trades (spred unamortized SB over 2 years). Which theoretically does make trade easier (especially big money guys).

In the past it was almost like the NBA given most teams play close to the cap. The Portis-for-Bailey trade was one of those big ones where you had similar priced guys.