Current Redskins Salary Cap Status - 2009

I don't even pay attention to the cap anymore. It's almost useless. For the most part we sign anyone we want and never go into cap hell.In many ways though, we have been in cap hell for the last three years. The veteran purge in 2006 that Peter King spoke of never, ever came to reality, but that doesn't mean the cap hasn't helped shape our refocus on the draft.

It seems though, that the cap affects the Redskins much more subtlety than anyone would have thought. The cap this year ultimately didn't prevent us from getting Haynesworth, chasing Cutler, or releasing Jansen, but we went almost exclusively defense in the draft because we created a majority of our cap room by parting ways with Springs, Washington, Evans, and Taylor, and at least three of those players would still be on the team if 2009 were uncapped.

It's also led to poor planning. If I told you we could keep Washington simply by keeping Jansen, you'd obviously take that. But we released Washington figuring we'd need that cap room in some way. Turns out, we didn't need it, so we used it to eat Jansen's cap hit. So now, we're down two veterans: one half cap casulty half personnel decision, and one personnel decision. We probably would have been better off with Marcus though.

Plus, we haven't been able to offer market value extensions to young talent on our roster like McIntosh and Rogers because of cap constraints, not to mention that Montgomery could have easily gotten away if another team had been daring enough to offer him a competitive contract. We would have gotten a 5th rounder in compensation for a 25 year old nose.

The thing is, if we continue to draft will, the salary cap is not designed to prevent us from competing. If we draft poorly, the free agency structure isn't sufficient to save us from the bottom of the barrel. It's just life in the NFL; our hand is often forced by cap constraints. Just not so overtly.

Not to quote my self, but....

We restructure a 30 year old with a new deal that will run until he's into his mid-30's, and I suspect a year or two before said deal is up we'll probably be talking about whether or not we should cut him (especially if Thomas and Kelly come around), he's lost a step, etc etc etc.

Although I guess if we don't have a salary cap moving forward it won't matter.To the Redskins credit, they do budget a part of their cap every year to deadcap in order to remain competitive. I deem this the CrazyCanuck Principle in honor of the man who first observed this trend.

Recently, the Redskins have been really, really obvious about this. Starting with Brunell, and adding in Moss, Griffin, Carter, and Randle El, the Redskins have been writing automatic voids into contracts, essentially picking a date at which the deadcap will accelerate. So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense.

It's like saying, "yeah, we're going to waste a bunch of cap space on players not on our roster, but we're going to go about it responsibly, goddamn it!"

To the Redskins credit, they do budget a part of their cap every year to deadcap in order to remain competitive. I deem this the CrazyCanuck Principle in honor of the man who first observed this trend.

Recently, the Redskins have been really, really obvious about this. Starting with Brunell, and adding in Moss, Griffin, Carter, and Randle El, the Redskins have been writing automatic voids into contracts, essentially picking a date at which the deadcap will accelerate. So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense.

It's like saying, "yeah, we're going to waste a bunch of cap space on players not on our roster, but we're going to go about it responsibly, goddamn it!"

Yeah, I can live with it. It just kind of makes me shake my head and sort of sarcastically laugh every time I see it happen. Like I said, it's what we do. Then again, we could just stop putting ourselves in situations like this and we wouldn't have to piss away a chunk of our cap on guys not on the roster year in and year out.

You say we portion out X amount of space each year for deadcap in order to remain competitive. Gotta wonder how much more competitive we'd be if X amount of deadcap space actually went to a player(s) of that worth....

"So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense." That's got signature written all over it.

Yeah, I can live with it. It just kind of makes me shake my head and sort of sarcastically laugh every time I see it happen. Like I said, it's what we do.
Then again, we could just stop putting ourselves in situations like this and we wouldn't have to piss away a chunk of our cap on guys not on the roster year in and year out.

You say we portion out X amount of space each year for deadcap in order to remain competitive. Gotta wonder how much more competitive we'd be if X amount of deadcap space actually went to a player of that worth....

"So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense." That's got signature written all over it.I think a lot of the media is going to be eating their words when the Redskins are 5-2 and offering $70 million to Jason Campbell by Halloween, in that, it will look like the Redskins bought their way to unsustainable success. But that's only part of the story.

The Redskins have a remarkably team-friendly contract with the best defensive player in football, with only one caveat: the Haynesworth contract comes with a simply unfathomable amount of risk to the team. As of right now, before any restructure, the amount of money the Redskins can go after should Haynesworth get himself suspended is a whopping: not one dime.

Out of the $41 million guarenteed figure, or otherwise put, the combined total of money owed to Albert Haynesworth for his first three seasons here, not one cent is paid out in a signing bonus, or a non-guarenteed salary. About $22 million of that is subject to be restructured next offseason, which would give the team the ability to reclaim that if Haynesworth does something stupid. But Haynesworth will stay a Redskin through 2011 no matter how many games he's actually healthy enough to play.

But in exchange for that risk, the Redskins get the best defensive player in football at relatively cap-friendly prices for the remainder of the prime of his career. Taking the risk was necessary to get Haynesworth in with a reasonable cap number, but ultimately, this gamble will be the reason the team will win in the near future.

There's no other team in football who would have taken a risk like that. Any argument for Snyder being a great owner has to start with the Haynesworth contract.

Yeah, I can live with it. It just kind of makes me shake my head and sort of sarcastically laugh every time I see it happen. Like I said, it's what we do. Then again, we could just stop putting ourselves in situations like this and we wouldn't have to piss away a chunk of our cap on guys not on the roster year in and year out.

You say we portion out X amount of space each year for deadcap in order to remain competitive. Gotta wonder how much more competitive we'd be if X amount of deadcap space actually went to a player(s) of that worth....

"So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense." That's got signature written all over it.
We would probably be the same because we are always pushing money into future years which evens out the deadcap. So we get to spend money that we don't even have yet basically. Since the cap goes up every year we can sustain this as long as we don't go too crazy with it.

We cut somebody which accelerates the cap hit, but then we extend or restructure somebody else. So on this, from a cap perspective, we took money from Moss this year to give to Jansen, but then we gave the money that was owed to Jansen later to Moss.

I think a lot of the media is going to be eating their words when the Redskins are 5-2 and offering $70 million to Jason Campbell by Halloween, in that, it will look like the Redskins bought their way to unsustainable success. But that's only part of the story.

The Redskins have a remarkably team-friendly contract with the best defensive player in football, with only one caveat: the Haynesworth contract comes with a simply unfathomable amount of risk to the team. As of right now, before any restructure, the amount of money the Redskins can go after should Haynesworth get himself suspended is a whopping: not one dime.

Out of the $41 million guarenteed figure, or otherwise put, the combined total of money owed to Albert Haynesworth for his first three seasons here, not one cent is paid out in a signing bonus, or a non-guarenteed salary. About $22 million of that is subject to be restructured next offseason, which would give the team the ability to reclaim that if Haynesworth does something stupid. But Haynesworth will stay a Redskin through 2011 no matter how many games he's actually healthy enough to play.

But in exchange for that risk, the Redskins get the best defensive player in football at relatively cap-friendly prices for the remainder of the prime of his career. Taking the risk was necessary to get Haynesworth in with a reasonable cap number, but ultimately, this gamble will be the reason the team will win in the near future.

There's no other team in football who would have taken a risk like that. Any argument for Snyder being a great owner has to start with the Haynesworth contract.

I don't think Haynesworth will get suspended for any reason in the near future, so I'd have to agree. Of course if it goes in the other direction, any argument for Snyder being a terrible owner will be highlighted by the Haynesworth contract. However I don't see that happening.

And I hope you're right about Campbell. I feel that way about it as well. I think he has a very nice year upcoming.

We would probably be the same because we are always pushing money into future years which evens out the deadcap. So we get to spend money that we don't even have yet basically. Since the cap goes up every year we can sustain this as long as we don't go too crazy with it.

We cut somebody which accelerates the cap hit, but then we extend or restructure somebody else. So on this, from a cap perspective, we took money from Moss this year to give to Jansen, but then we gave the money that was owed to Jansen later to Moss.

I get what you're saying, but pushing money into future years doesn't really even out the deadcap. It actually creates bigger deadcap numbers down the road. It's kind of a version of short term thinking. It's almost like we've accepted the fact that every season there will be a player or two whose contract(s) we've blundered so badly that we have no choice but do this kind of stuff.

Sure the Moss restructuring evens out the Jansen thing for 2009, but what does "even" mean? If by even you mean on par with what we always do, then sure. All it really does is rectify Jansen's cap hit for 2009 by creating another Jansen-like situation for Santana in 2011 or 2012. And around and around we go.

I get what you're saying, but pushing money into future years doesn't really even out the deadcap. It actually creates bigger deadcap numbers down the road. It's kind of a version of short term thinking. It's almost like we've accepted the fact that every season there will be a player or two who's contract(s) we've blundered so badly that we have no choice but do this kind of stuff.

Sure the Moss restructuring evens out the Jansen thing for 2009, but what does "even" mean? If by even you mean on par with what we always do, then sure. All it really does is rectify Jansen's cap hit for 2009 by creating another Jansen-like situation for Santana in 2011 or 2012. And around and around we go.
Well hopefully next year will be uncapped and we can somehow push all kinds of money into that year, so we won't have to do this anymore.

After Jansen's release and most of the signings (not including draft picks) I have us at $2.071M of cap room.

The draft picks are already accounted for in the cap with the rookie pool, and the remaining signings will likely all be at the league min so they won't affect the cap situation cuz of the rule of 51.

Does this include the Moss's restructure we keep hearing about lately?

Some really good comments here, thanks CC, Schneed & GT.

Does anyone remember when all this restructuring started? The reason I ask is that it seems it really became a hallmark of Gibbs' tenure. He valued veterans & wanted to keep those guys on the roster when other teams might've just cut them.

So, since Gibbs has been gone are we likely to see less restructures pushing bonuses forward?
Of course there have been restructures since Gibbs left, but assuming the cap remains in a new cba, I'm thinking that gradually vinny will build through the draft & try to substantially reduce restructuring deals that push cap space to the future.