Posted at 11:31 AM ET, 05/17/2007
Crunching the numbers
Will Allensworth has graciously stepped up with a guest blog....
A look towards the Redskins salary cap future does not predict disaster, though nor does it project peaches and cream parties. The fact is that the Redskins have a lot of moneys allocated via contract for the 2008 season, more so than the CBA will allow them to spend, and that will necessitate some very difficult decisions.
First, a caveat: Redskins fans are a house divided between those that project annual "cap disaster" and those that insist the books are always in order and that the 'Skins FO will fix things no matter what with their usual "cap wizardry". Neither is true; the Redskins, like the other 31 teams in the NFL, operate under a set salary cap. The Redskins are neither better nor worse than the other 32 teams at managing a budget within those limits, as they, like everyone else, do so successfully each year. What other teams do differently is win or lose less (or more) games. No one is above the rules. The Redskins are identified in the media as being "aggressive" in the offseason, but nothing they spend is unaccounted for any less than the dollars and cents (and sense) expended by other teams for free agents or rookies. When the Redskins need to make money to pursue big free agents, they cut or restructure players. There's nothing unique about that strategy, practiced by every team in the league.
Now some numbers, per the Warpath's Redskins Cap page http://www.thewarpath.net/WarpathRedskinsCap.htm: As of April 30th (which precludes some spending), heading into the 2008 season the Redskins currently have over 128M tied up in contracts. We cannot predict with certainty what the salary cap will be in 2008 as (I believe) it is based on a formula per the CBA that I am unfamiliar with, though an around 7M increase is about as good place to start. From 116M in 2008 would be a safe bet. The only thing we know about the Salary Cap per the CBA is that it cannot go down.
Moving along, we have 128M in contracts that needs to be cut down to 116M. Here are the definite mitigating factors:
Mark Brunell is set to cost the team 6.5M in 2008 as the remaining years on his contract aren't reflected in his restructure (paycut). His 5Mish base salary in 2008 will certainly not be paid out. Either Brunell is cut, or else he finds a way to play for less than 5M in base salary. In either event, he won't be costing us 6.5M. This time next year he'll have 3M remaining in guaranteed signing bonus, which is at or near the minimum he will cost us to cut him next year (~1.5M is the actual minimum). So we'll save anywhere from 3.5-5M on Mark Brunell in 2008.
And here are the thing we'll probably do:
Shawn Springs has ~7.5M remaining in guaranteed bonus which makes him very difficult to cut in the present. By next year that number will be 5M competing with a whopping 7.5M cap hit -- meaning total savings on his removal from roster is around 2.5M. Given his inability to stay on the field through 16 games since 2000, it's a safe-ish bet that he won't do so in 2007. The team isn't going to continue paying an aging CB that kind of money especially given their upcoming cap situation (note: I did not use the word "disaster" here). A June 2nd cut of Springs could save the team as much as 5M on their 2008 cap. As little as 2.5M. On two players alone we're now talking about potentially 10M down, putting us just 2M over the projected 2008 cap.
Brandon Lloyd has a long ways to go towards proving his worth to this football team. I'm not entirely positive on the ins-and-outs of his contract, though we'll know that by 2008 he'll have burned through 2 of 5M of signing bonuses. He has other bonuses though I am not sure how they are guaranteed, or if they are roster bonuses. There's a very good chance that his sizable 4.3M total cap hit in 2008 can be mitigated significantly through a cut. Full disclosure: it's ALSO possible that Lloyd received upwards of 10M in guaranteed money, which means it might not save us money at all to cut him after 2007. Per the Post a while ago www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a ... 70_pf.html, he received near 10M in guarantees. He will not have burnt off the lion's share of that 10M by 2008, thus as likely as not will cost us more than 4M to cut.
Some things to remember: the Warpath numbers do not factor in rookies signed, which essentially amounts to LaRon Landry. Based on recent history, he earns 15+M in signing bonuses. In an unlikely best case scenario that bonus is spread out over 6 years (the limit the CBA allows, this year) with a league minimum 1st year salary. That's still over 2.5M in 2008 cap hit that we haven't accounted for in the 128M.
Also, this doesn't consider a few players that many of us hope the team keeps that are not currently under contract through 2008. Depending on who you ask, this might include Lemar Marshall, Prioleau, Big Joe (prolly not), and Shaun Suisham. It definitely includes Chris
ey. It also does not include our 2008 draft picks.
So how do we get from the cap place we are (currently) obligated to pay through contract to the one we ostensibly want to be at, where we can sign Chris
ey and rookies and free agents and whomever else want to bring on board.
Cuts are the most obvious, though they're slightly limited to those players with larger cap hits than remaining guaranteed money. Do we really need Khary Campbell in 2008 at 855K? Will Demetric Evans be worth it at 867K? These are the kinds of questions that will get answered one way or the other come 2008, as push comes to shove.
Restructures are the other available option. As my blogging colleague Ben Folsom at The Curly R http://curlyr.blogspot.com/2007/05/clou ... t-one.html pointed out, restructure can mean a lot of things. It can mean the player turns annual salary into guaranteed money that is then prorated over the remaining years on the contract. That's what Chris Samuels does every year and it does help lower our cap hit annually (and also helps Chris pick up an immediate check from the franchise -- he must hate that). Or else it could mean the player actually enters into a new contract whereas they take a lower pay to ensure their future with the team -- that's what Mark Brunell recently did. The former case is always beneficial to the player, the latter case is always beneficial to the team. In those rare instances where it is a perceived benefit to both the player and the team, restructures and paycuts happen.
Quick caution on restructures before I wrap up this already garrulous guest blog: these never actually "save" the team money. It shifts non-guaranteed salary (which may or may not get paid) into guaranteed bonuses (which will be paid no matter what). The advantage is that a dollar spent under 2007's 109M salary cap is worth more than a dollar spent under 2008's projected 116M cap. The disadvantage is that you are adding on guaranteed money that protects a player's future salary which, more often than not, is higher than it is in the present. In the best case scenario a pure restructure of salary to guaranteed bonus simply postpones a problem. In the worst case scenario, it turns a formerly cuttable player who is getting long in tooth into an uncuttable salary monstrosity because their ever-growing pay becomes a necessary evil due to the (now) inflated cost of cutting them. This is what, in my opinion, has already happened to Chris Samuels contract. I predict that the large quantities of guaranteed money he has protecting his base salary will remain higher than his actual cap hit years after he's incapable of earning the latter -- thus making him uncuttable (or costly to do so).
From all that, what I'd like Redskins fans to remember is that the cap situation won't be nearly as dire or groovy as you'll hear from either extreme of fan and observer. "Cap Disaster" has been looming long enough for many to wonder when it will actually decide to show up. And the Redskins have had to let walk (or cut, or restructure) valuable members of the team enough times to recognize that the Redskins are not immune from tough decisions simply because we have better "capologists" than the rest of the league. 32 teams manage their own caps successfully by rule and none are exempt in any specific or general manner. The Redskins save cap space the same way the rest of the league does: through cuts and restructures. We have some tough decisions looming on the horizon, but I have every confidence that the Redskins will successfully place themselves below the 2008 cap.
Because those are the rules NFL franchises are bound by.
Cheers and
,
-Skin Patrol
