The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

If you sign a player to the league minimum, are there limits as to how large the playing incentives can be?

I don't believe so.

Now if you want to pay a player the veteran league minmum (so that they only cost $450k against the cap regardless of actual annual salary), then you can only pay them a signing bonus up to $25k.

I think some incentives will be recorded against the minimum salary if they are considered achievable, pushing up the cap hit.

So you could have
1) league minimum salary, which would count as a max 450K against the cap, even though the player gets more in his pocket based on his experience (like Ethan Albright)
2) you could have signing bonus of max 25K as BH said
3) roster bonuses of however big you wanted- only they count against this year's cap if they make the roster
4) incentives , which if "Likely to Be Earned" would count against this year's cap and if "Not Likely To Be Earned" would not count against this years cap (but count against next years cap if he does earn them)

The next step would be, can you sign a vet to a multi year deal, with incentives and roster bonuses, workout bonuses, etc. and still receive cap relief with the 450K per year max cap hit?
Or does that apply only to single year deals?

Single year deals only.

Roster bonuses can't be on these veteran contracts either... they can literally only be the league minimum and the 'up to 25k bonus'. Anything over that and you wouldn't get the cap relief.

I hope they address this in the next CBA. Teams should have some cap relief for keeping journeymen players other than a one year deal. The 31 yo player is disappearing. Teams that are successful as of late are signing young, cutting when they become free agents, and starting again.

How much does trading Coles to the Jets hit us with, and when a player IE>>Rod Gardner dosen't get picked up by a team, because he wont restructure his contract, or sign on for more years, will end up hurting our boys?