With QB contracts reaching into the 50m a year range and continuing to climb,  it seems like the yearly cap raise is being outpaced by these QB numbers. At some point there has to be a ceiling on QB annual pay, no? I mean, even if the Cap goes to 250m in the coming years and the next great QB sets the market at 60...70m a year, that will leave scraps for the rest of the roster. How is this sustainable?

I was actually just wondering, if NYG just signed Daniel Jones to $40M per year (average) plus incentives, what the hell does a Hurts deal need to look like? 

8 hours ago, Captain F said:

With QB contracts reaching into the 50m a year range and continuing to climb,  it seems like the yearly cap raise is being outpaced by these QB numbers. At some point there has to be a ceiling on QB annual pay, no? I mean, even if the Cap goes to 250m in the coming years and the next great QB sets the market at 60...70m a year, that will leave scraps for the rest of the roster. How is this sustainable?

When you break down contracts into position groups, it makes more sense.

In 2022, our cap hit from our starting O-Line was: $46,891,000 (this doesn't include all the pending dead money coming after due to structuring). Our cap hit for the starting QB position was $4,790,000 (our total for the QB position was about $8.5M (thanks Carson Strong)).

 

Basically, it's not supposed to be sustainable in that a team can afford to pay to keep all the top players. The cap was designed to create parity throughout the league and combat perennial winners/losers. 

 

Is it fair that one player makes more than another? That's a question for the players' union. They didn't like it when rookies made more than vets and they made changes there. Perhaps there will be positional considerations in future CBAs if that's what the players collectively want. 

 

 

9 hours ago, JohnB said:

I was actually just wondering, if NYG just signed Daniel Jones to $40M per year (average) plus incentives, what the hell does a Hurts deal need to look like? 

Hurts then should get $80 million since he's twice as good as DJ. 

5 years $80 million per year. 

3 hours ago, brkmsn said:

When you break down contracts into position groups, it makes more sense.

In 2022, our cap hit from our starting O-Line was: $46,891,000 (this doesn't include all the pending dead money coming after due to structuring). Our cap hit for the starting QB position was $4,790,000 (our total for the QB position was about $8.5M (thanks Carson Strong)).

 

Basically, it's not supposed to be sustainable in that a team can afford to pay to keep all the top players. The cap was designed to create parity throughout the league and combat perennial winners/losers. 

 

Is it fair that one player makes more than another? That's a question for the players' union. They didn't like it when rookies made more than vets and they made changes there. Perhaps there will be positional considerations in future CBAs if that's what the players collectively want. 

 

 

While the cap may have been conceived as a way to stop big market teams steamrollering the little teams by hoarding all the talent on inflated contracts, the current cap system is more about preserving owners profit than it is any notion of maintaining competitive balance. 

23 hours ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

While the cap may have been conceived as a way to stop big market teams steamrollering the little teams by hoarding all the talent on inflated contracts, the current cap system is more about preserving owners profit than it is any notion of maintaining competitive balance. 

interesting theory, and while it may be true, I feel like there's been way more parity in the last decade or two, so I would argue that it's been beneficial to a more competitive league. 

21 hours ago, JohnB said:

interesting theory, and while it may be true, I feel like there's been way more parity in the last decade or two, so I would argue that it's been beneficial to a more competitive league. 

The fact the cap went down a couple of years ago only reinforces my view that it's about owner profit rather than competitiveness.

Parity schmarity, if a team manages to scout and draft a series of pro bowl / all pro talents, it's nonsense that they have to lose a couple of them every 4 years to try and keep teams run by a-holes who could fall into a barrel of tiddies and come out sucking their own thumb notionally competitive.

If you can't raise your competitive level through getting to pick the best college players before anyone else, forcing other teams to weaken their team isn't going to help either.

 

11 minutes ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

The fact the cap went down a couple of years ago only reinforces my view that it's about owner profit rather than competitiveness.

Parity schmarity, if a team manages to scout and draft a series of pro bowl / all pro talents, it's nonsense that they have to lose a couple of them every 4 years to try and keep teams run by a-holes who could fall into a barrel of tiddies and come out sucking their own thumb notionally competitive.

If you can't raise your competitive level through getting to pick the best college players before anyone else, forcing other teams to weaken their team isn't going to help either.

 

Parity increase league wide revenue. When there's hope for a team to turn things around, fans will buy more merchandise and wear it to games instead of donning homemade gear:

On 3/10/2023 at 8:31 AM, brkmsn said:

When you break down contracts into position groups, it makes more sense.

In 2022, our cap hit from our starting O-Line was: $46,891,000 (this doesn't include all the pending dead money coming after due to structuring). Our cap hit for the starting QB position was $4,790,000 (our total for the QB position was about $8.5M (thanks Carson Strong)).

 

Basically, it's not supposed to be sustainable in that a team can afford to pay to keep all the top players. The cap was designed to create parity throughout the league and combat perennial winners/losers. 

 

Is it fair that one player makes more than another? That's a question for the players' union. They didn't like it when rookies made more than vets and they made changes there. Perhaps there will be positional considerations in future CBAs if that's what the players collectively want. 

 

 

It may not help every team, but it helps a lot of them. How many teams in the 80’s had a legitimate shot at winning a title? 49ers, Redskins, Giants, Raiders… maybe Broncos if they don’t choke so much? Just the same group of teams making the SB on rotation. That occurred all the way up to the late 90’s with Packers, Cowboys, Broncos, Bills.
 

How many teams in a given year could win the title today? 12? More? If LAC prevents the Jags comeback, they can play KC close in the next round. Jags lost by 1 score. If Dak doesn’t throw multiple picks they had a real chance at beating SF. Then Eagles-Cowboys NFCCG would be a barn burner. Ravens very nearly beat Cincinnati without Lamar, imagine them with him. And How many total teams are 1-2 years of smart moves away? 20? More? Jets with a QB, Lions with a pass rush, Broncos with a Payton-corrected Russell Wilson, Steelers if Pickett is the guy, Dolphins if Tua has a proper cranium.

Its been so good for the overall league, even if a Cleveland or a Houston keeps making the same mistakes

20 hours ago, brkmsn said:

Parity increase league wide revenue. When there's hope for a team to turn things around, fans will buy more merchandise and wear it to games instead of donning homemade gear:

So it is about money.

23 hours ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

So it is about money.

That's all it is. If more teams are competitive all the owners make more money. That's the beauty of profit sharing. 

When QB numbers reach into the top 5 paid QBs, the chances of a team being able to afford supporting talent to get to the super bowl drops.  Hurts's contract is going to severely hamper the eagles chances of retaining sufficient talent to push for a super bowl for a couple years.

Looking at the eagles, they HAD to let guys like Hargrave, Bradberry, CJGJ and Edwards walk because they simply would't be able to afford LT contracts.  That's a lot of talent.  And probably won't be all that's leaving......Epps, Cox, White, Joseph and Suh probably won't be back.  

The good news is that the eagles will have a ton of draft picks in 2024 and whatever they come away with this year.  

The unknowns are what guys they draft that can play significant snaps defensively, how well young guys like Nakobe Dean, Milton Williams, and Jordan Davis develop.  And Howie does well with 1 year contracts to fill voids.

 

Clearly there is a ceiling on QB contracts, I think the Ravens / Lamarr situation is the first signs of it arising seriously, I think it would be a definite cooling of the market, if the Browns hadn't given the terror of the Houston massage industry the dumbest contract in NFL history last year and then restructuring it to make it even dumber this year.

I think our cap situation this year is as much a function of a few expensive old timers having void years built up that mean they can't cut bait for dead cap or kick the can down the road with an extension. We'll have to see what shakes out in terms of our free agents that are still in the market, but the fact we couldn't match what was a pretty ordinary offer for Edwards is concerning.

I still think it is really funny that anyone (any of us) worry about the cap with Howie here.  There are so many nuances, moves, planning that we are unaware of.  I remember last year there was nothing the Eagles were going to be able to do.....and yet we got Bradberry, CJGJ, AJ Brown (with an extension), Suh, Joseph, etc.  This year we retained Bradberry, Kelce and Graham.   

When it comes to the cap, it might be fun for some to use Over the cap, play armchair GM and drive yourselves nuts...me?  I just sit back and laugh with all of the "Sky is falling, we are doomed!" prognosticators and let Howie do his job.  

One thing for sure, I do not miss the days of us being Cap Champions having 100 miillion in available cap room!  Yes, it gave you a warm fuzzy knowing that if we needed to do something, we could.  But at the end of the day, we didn't win anything doing it that way.  Let Howie play his shell games, manipulate the f out of it....sit back and enjoy.  The people that are complaining about mortgaging the future should be just enjoying today!  Tomorrow isn't guaranteed!  

At some point, I think there will be a push for "one player can't be attributed to more that X% of the total salary cap."  Basically a salary cap inside of the salary cap.  How many players are cut or paid less to fund one QB?

2 minutes ago, E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles said:

At some point, I think there will be a push for "one player can't be attributed to more that X% of the total salary cap."  Basically a salary cap inside of the salary cap.  How many players are cut or paid less to fund one QB?

The league can have an overall salary cap and get the players to buy in, I think if you start restricting positional spend or individual pay I think there'd be a legal challenge shortly afterwards, hell there'd be people calling it communist.

The cap for next year is 224.8 million.  We have close to 58 million in dead money.  Hurt will cost about 50 mil a year.  Brissett if they sign him and I imagine they will, will cost 5-10 mil a year.  So that's a total of 113-118 mil a year or more than half the cap.  We still have to pay 51 other players.  Howie maybe can redo another contract of two with dummy years added for some minimal relief but we don't have much of any wiggle room left.  This is the end of the line for kicking the cap ball down the road.  We need an influx of young cheap talent.  Next year we already have 11 picks I believe and will get another 4 comp picks probably.  They may trade 1 or 2 of those picks for lesser round picks this year in the mid to late rounds, but we sure need to trade down 2-3 times this year to fill holes along with adding cheap vets like Penny on 1 year deals.  

4 hours ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

The league can have an overall salary cap and get the players to buy in, I think if you start restricting positional spend or individual pay I think there'd be a legal challenge shortly afterwards, hell there'd be people calling it communist.

I'd be surprised if the NFLPA would balk too hard at a CBA that says "no one salary can exceed more than XX% of salary cap" or the top 3 salaries or whatever metric you choose.  Or exempt the top 2, 3, 4 contracts.  It benefits the overall team by allowing more money to be spread around to pay more players.  As you know, leaving it as-is is going to  leave alot of vets on the curb for younger cheaper players necause that one position will keep growing. 

No offense to Hurts, Burrow, Rodgers, or any other star QB, but paying one player that much is a questionable investment.

And you may be right about legal challenges.  Just looks like the safer play may better roster with rookie contract QB over top paid QB, if it continues. 

3 hours ago, weko said:

The cap for next year is 224.8 million.  We have close to 58 million in dead money.  Hurt will cost about 50 mil a year.  Brissett if they sign him and I imagine they will, will cost 5-10 mil a year.  So that's a total of 113-118 mil a year or more than half the cap.  We still have to pay 51 other players.  Howie maybe can redo another contract of two with dummy years added for some minimal relief but we don't have much of any wiggle room left.  This is the end of the line for kicking the cap ball down the road.  We need an influx of young cheap talent.  Next year we already have 11 picks I believe and will get another 4 comp picks probably.  They may trade 1 or 2 of those picks for lesser round picks this year in the mid to late rounds, but we sure need to trade down 2-3 times this year to fill holes along with adding cheap vets like Penny on 1 year deals.  

The thing is Howie will have to hit on many of the high picks.  That hasn't always been his strong suit.  

4 hours ago, weko said:

The cap for next year is 224.8 million.  We have close to 58 million in dead money.  Hurt will cost about 50 mil a year.  Brissett if they sign him and I imagine they will, will cost 5-10 mil a year.  So that's a total of 113-118 mil a year or more than half the cap.  We still have to pay 51 other players.  Howie maybe can redo another contract of two with dummy years added for some minimal relief but we don't have much of any wiggle room left.  This is the end of the line for kicking the cap ball down the road.  We need an influx of young cheap talent.  Next year we already have 11 picks I believe and will get another 4 comp picks probably.  They may trade 1 or 2 of those picks for lesser round picks this year in the mid to late rounds, but we sure need to trade down 2-3 times this year to fill holes along with adding cheap vets like Penny on 1 year deals.  

Ummm...Hurts extension wouldn't kick in until the following (next) year.  The 58 million dead cap is on "this" years cap.  There are people a lot smarter than me (and the people on this MB) dealing with the in's and out's of the cap on a daily basis.   And we weren't going to be able to re-sign Bradberry, Kelce, BG, etc......and we did.  Everyone just needs to stop and relax when it comes to cap management and leave it to the professionals.

can't begin to understand the complexities of the Cap...and seeing how some teams hire "cap-ologists" to help them with the salary cap...it kind of proves the point...what I don't understand..and maybe someone can shed some light on this....

 

why do they structure contracts the way they do...meaning 

1. Cap number 

2, Guaranteed money

 

Bradberrry signed a 3 yr $40M contract..with a guarantee of $20M

so why is that extra language in there? 

why not just say 3yr for $20M 

I realize all contracts have incentives...which in most cases might be unrealistic....but does the guaranteed amount affect the cap more or less , or not at all, as compared to the contract total value? 

2 hours ago, flyerdog said:

can't begin to understand the complexities of the Cap...and seeing how some teams hire "cap-ologists" to help them with the salary cap...it kind of proves the point...what I don't understand..and maybe someone can shed some light on this....

 

why do they structure contracts the way they do...meaning 

1. Cap number 

2, Guaranteed money

 

Bradberrry signed a 3 yr $40M contract..with a guarantee of $20M

so why is that extra language in there? 

why not just say 3yr for $20M 

I realize all contracts have incentives...which in most cases might be unrealistic....but does the guaranteed amount affect the cap more or less , or not at all, as compared to the contract total value? 

Ultimately, the basic principle at the core of the cap system isn't complicated at all, which is the following:   every dollar a team spends on player compensation must be allocated to that team's salary cap allowance.  Everything else about the cap system, i.e., the stuff that complicates it, is about the timing of when (i.e., in what year) those dollars actually get allocated to the cap.

So when one talks about "guaranteed money", all those guaranteed dollars are guaranteed to get allocated to your cap at some point.   But the other dollars -- the non-guaranteed ones -- are often quite likely to be spent and therefore allocated to the cap at some point.  It would not give a complete picture not to include those types of dollars in the reporting of the contract value.  It is true that some non-guaranteed dollars (including some incentives) are not likely to be spent and if so, will never have to hit your cap at any point, but it is not always easy to figure out which those are.

 

Remember when I said.....don't worry about that cap thingy?  

Years

I think Howie saved some cap space with renegotiating Slay's Contract. How much remains to be seen.