Skins salary cap figures

Salary Cap

Our resident cap expert CrazyCanuck is going to have to clear this up for us.

While I wouldn't consider myself a "cap expert", I have spent a lot of time researching the cap rules and trying to find reliable Skins contract info. Through various sources I've built my own "Skins Cap Spreadsheet" which seems to be pretty close to reality in most cases. I figured I'd share some of my findings for those interested. Sorry for the long post.

1. Where to find Skins contract/cap info:

A. http://www.nflpa.org/Media/main.asp?subPage=Active+Player+Search

- The offical NFLPA site. You can search for any player in the league and find out their base salaries throughout the length of their contract. I treat this as the "official" source for salary info.

B. http://home.earthlink.net/~wahoofamily/salary04.htm

- This is Buddha's Redskins page. This site is one of my favorites and has a lot of useful information. He lists base salaries (probably taken from A.) and gives contract details regarding signing bonuses, etc. Unfortunately it does not give true cap numbers and the data is not always 100% accurate.

C. http://redskins.theinsiders.com/3/salary_cap_chart.html

- This is the Warpath Insider's cap page. It's the closest thing you'll find to an accurate cap chart on the net. It has salaries, prorated signing bonuses, as well as "other" bonuses that come into play when calculating the cap. Most of my numbers match this site but there are some discrepencies and I have found a few errors on their page. Nevertheless if you want a pretty accurate view of the Skins cap situation this is the place to go.

2. Cap Details:

A. If I'm not mistaken, as long as we cut Trotter after June 1st, he will count against next year's salary cap.

If a player is cut/traded after June 1st only his current SB will count in the current year and all other prorated SB gets accelarted to the following year. So in Trotter's case he has $1.162M of prorated SB for 2004. This will count in 2004 no matter what. He also has an additional $4.647M of remaining SB after 2004. If he is cut before June 1st this additional amount is accelerated to 2004. If he's cut after June 1st it gets accelerated to 2005 instead.

B. This question has come up before - Does it make a difference in the salary cap if Fiore retires or is cut? If it does make a difference what is it?

Good question. I have read of a "retirement provison" that may be in place to prevent a player from taking a huge signing bonus and then retiring soon afterwards (it's called the Barry Sanders rule). I'm not sure of the exact rules but basically the Skins may be entitled to some cap relief if Fiore retires. Again I'm not positive about this one.


C. Samuels cap hit is 8.328 based on his base salary and a weird combination of roster bonuses,workout bonuses plus his signing bonus.

Very true. In fact the only two players for which I consistently find cap number discrepencies are for Samuels and Arrington. As FRPLG mentioned, the reason is their complex contract structure, and more importantly, the multiple contract restructures that both players have gone through. For these reasons it is very hard to find accurate info about the contract details and/or bonus structures that are needed to accurately calculate the cap hit.


Anyways I hope this answers some of the questions. My goal is to get my cap sheet to match the one on Mr. Snyder's desk, to the penny. Unfortuantely, the limited info available out there makes it tough to come up with a cap chart that is 100% accurate. But don't worry, I'm working on it.

GO SKINS

Mr. CrazyCanuck
Thank you clearing this up.

Two questions:

1) How much cap room do we have left to sign our draft picks and possibly(?) pick up a June 1st d-lineman that might get cut? Basically what is left in our cap?

2) Is it still cold up there and have you seen Elvis?

One thing I never found out about the CAP. Does incentives count against the cap? And do if so which year do they count against? Is there a limit on the percent of salary or amount of money can come from incentives?

From the Salary Cap FAQ page: http://www.askthecommish.com/salarycap/faq.asp

"How does the NFL Salary Cap treat cash incentives?

Answer: All incentives are included in team salary if they are "likely to be earned" (LTBE). LTBE incentives are performance levels that the player or team has reached in the previous year.

For example, if a quarterback threw twenty touchdowns last year and his incentive clause for this year is set at fifteen touchdowns, then this incentive is “likely to be earned.” Also, incentives that are in the sole control of the player, like non-guaranteed reporting bonuses and off-season workout and weight bonuses, are considered LTBE.

An impartial arbitrator will hear disputes between the owners and the players concerning what should be considered LTBE (especially for rookies or veterans who did not play in the prior year). Conversely, if a player did not reach the performance incentive in the previous year, the incentive is deemed "not likely to be earned" (NLTBE) and is not included in team salary.

To determine whether a clause is LTBE or NLTBE for Salary Cap purposes (i.e., not whether the player actually earned the incentive), it is necessary to look at the performance of the team in the prior season, not the current season.

For example, assume Player X receives an incentive bonus if he participates in 50% of the team’s offensive plays this season. Assume further that last season the team had 1,000 offensive plays. Therefore, as soon as Player X plays in 500 plays in the current season (or 50% of last year’s 1,000 plays), the incentive will be considered earned for Salary Cap purposes.

The same incentive is considered "not earned" if the same player in the current year only participated in one of the team’s first 502 offensive plays. In this situation, it would be impossible for the player to achieve the 50% incentive based on last year’s performance of 1,000 plays. It is important to remember that looking to last year’s performance level is only for Salary Cap purposes and will not affect the player's right to receive a bonus for his performance in the current year. "

Man, Canuck, it's good to have you back! I was beginning to wonder if you'd been hired by the skins FO, and were too busy to post for us!

Keep the helpful info coming!

Cheers! :food-smil

Mr. CrazyCanuck
Thank you clearing this up.

Two questions:

1) How much cap room do we have left to sign our draft picks and possibly(?) pick up a June 1st d-lineman that might get cut? Basically what is left in our cap?

2) Is it still cold up there and have you seen Elvis?

1) Right now we're $800K under the cap, plus another $2.7M when Trotter is cut, for a total of $3.5M.

2) No and yes.

Man, Canuck, it's good to have you back! I was beginning to wonder if you'd been hired by the skins FO, and were too busy to post for us!

Thanks JW. Never really left, but there's only so much you can talk about in May.

And if/when the Skins' FO does hire me, you guys will be the first to know!