Next Year's Cap Situation

Good info GTripp! The key to surviving this, is that they have freed more money this year than they needed to. They must be planning on cutting a few guys that will save us against the cap next year. Cutting LLoyd or Arch this year and eating the 6.5 mil effective hit will save us 4 mil next year. Cutting Patten would save 3.5 mil next year. As you said, Brunell, Springs, and Danials saves 9 mil. So, supposing we will be about 130,
130 - 9 - 3.5 - 4 = 113.5 mil. Expect Washington to restructure saving at least 2 mil. I estimate that another 2 mil could also be freed with additional simple restructures. That would put us at 109.5 mil against the 116 mil cap estimate.

Ironically, these moves put us exactly where GTripp says we need to be!

The key is to cut some guys this year, and, does anyone here really believe that Snyder has any plan to same some of the 10 million he has freed up so far?

This is why using the draft is so cap friendly. Any time a team drafts a young guy they can cut the guys who were originally signed as starters (Patten, Wynn, etc.) and are now backups.

Thus taking the hit now rather than later.

Look at the Eagles for example. They verry rarely let people who are no longer starters remain on the team unless they are contributing.

Thanks for posting GTripp. One of the main problems with the Redskins is that we are a front loaded team. All the money is put into the starters. The FO acts like injuries don't happen in the NFL.

I think it's time to start rebuiling. It might take a while too. Is Griff going to ever get back to playing like he did in 04? Probably not. Daniels is a no brainer. If you ask me Springs is a no brainer too. We don't even need to discuss Brunell. The only guy that I would keep is Washington. And even his play slipped last year. If he has a average 07 then I guess he's gone too. Perhaps his hip was the major problem in 06. But IMO it's just time to clean house after 07. We need to get younger in some areas in the worst way.

What is killing us is the play of Arch, Carter and Lloyd does not match up with the $ they are making. And yes Carter played a little better at the end of 06. But he still got gashed against the run. All I remember is 50 year Bob Whitfiled pushing him around and Tiki running wild the last game of the year.

But our FO always seems to wiggle out of cap hell so I'm sure they have a plan in 08-09.

Great work! Thanks for the info...


However, at this point, I'm just going to wait and see what happens. I feel like every year were in this situation, and then end up being great before you know it.

I have a question.If for some strange reason we dont use up all of our cap space this year,could we give that extra money to players now to lower there cap hit for next year?

I thought this would be an effective way to show how constantly restructuring can bite ones team in the balls.

I obtained all the following information from Canuck's Cap Sheets:

For the 2008 season, I removed the value of all players who are likely to be cut from the 53 man roster in this 2007 season. I came out with a total cap number of 119 million. The projected cap for 2008 is 116 million.

On the surface that seems fine. We were three mil over this year and cut some dead weight and restructured some guys and ended up about 10 million under. Not that hard right?

Heres the big issue. After removing 20 players who are likely to miss the 53 man roster in 2007 from the 2008 cap total, that leaves the Redskins with 33 players under contract for the 2008 season who combined are costing us more than the salary cap allows. In that 33, we do not have a Punter, a Kicker, or a long snapper.

Now, we still have to draft two classes worth of players and resign key guys like Cooley. So I estimate that 119 figure will be in the ballpark of 130 million before free agency next year. I am estimating that we will be adding about 9 players to that 2008 total before we hit FA next year (Cooley's new deal + First round pick this year + 3 day 2 picks this year + 3 or so guys to fill out this years roster [TE, LB, OG]).

So if my projections are to be accurate, we will have to free up 14 million in cap space (just to comply with the league office) by March 1st. There will be numerous veteran cuts and probably a few restructures. Not only are we going to have to free up 14 million, but most likely 20 million to put us 6 million under so we can fill out the remaining 9 roster spots PLUS a roster spot for every cut we make to get under the cap. The cuts will likely include any veteran whose net cap gain would net us 1.5 or more million.

-Brunell's contract automatically voids, saving us 3.5 million.
-If Springs makes it this far, cutting him saves 2.5 million.
-Cutting Griffin saves 1.5 million.
-Cutting Daniels saves 3.0 million.
-Cutting Marcus Wasington saves 2.5 million.
-If we get desperate, cutting Betts and Rabach save about 1.3 million each.
-Guys like Lloyd and Arch and Carter still deliever sizable cap hits, meaning they will be Redskins through 2008 guarenteed.

As always we can restructure or make post June 1st cuts to save even more money in 2008. To a degree, we will have to do some of this. We can only free up 13 million by releasing the top 5 guys on that list. We will be forced to restructure (or declare our cuts as post June 1) to free up the final 7 million.

But that 7 million is going to be pushed into future years, and the 2009 cap situation is going to be even worse than this abomidable 2008 one.

It is imperitive that we keep our entire slate of 2008 draft picks. We are going to need to capitalize on those picks to help fill those empty (presumably 14) roster spots. Draft picks are always cap friendly in their rookie years and that's the main source of talent this team will have.

The only way this is going to go down easy is if we win a championship this year. It's not like the 2008 team will be completely void of talent, but I'm near certain that guys like Washington, Daniels, Griffin, Springs, Brunell, Saleve'a, Wynn, Marshall, Collins and Prioleau will not be on the roster come this time next year.

So imagine our current roster without those guys on it. Those are the holes we need to fill in our next two drafts.

I really am not trying to be a doom bringer here, but I wanted to prep you guys as to what the future holds.

But hey, if you didnt like the way the FO was going about things, maybe you see this in a postive light (if you are seeing this in a positive light, ask yourself when the last time you saw your physician was).

I thought we were under the cap presently alot more than your stated 10 million?

I have a question.If for some strange reason we dont use up all of our cap space this year,could we give that extra money to players now to lower there cap hit for next year?

yeah, you can rework their contract and move base salaries or roster bonuses up or cut and resign or whatnot to take the remaining pro-rated money hit immediately etc.

I thought we were under the cap presently alot more than your stated 10 million?

nope. just 10mill, and a lot of work was put into getting the skins that far under.

It's great that we are currently under the cap by ~10 mill and i don't think we are going to use a significant amount of that to sign any more FA's but one thing to consider is out draft picks. If we trade for more picks (which I hope we do) then we may need to sign as many as 7 players. Even at the rookie minimum for some of those picks they are going to take a chunk out of that 10 mill. Also don't forget that we need a TE and possibly a starting OG (thru FA possibly). So if we do use any excess money left after all these factors we aren't going to have much to help us prorate salary hits for next year.

good read, but don't we go over the same paranoia every year? the skins capologist is far and away the best in the business. i have no worries until the sky IS actually falling