CrazyCanuck
01-13-2005, 06:28 PM
I stole these quotes from the Arrington thread cuz I think there are a lot of good points here about the cap:
I am not the resident cap expert in in these here parts (that would good ole Canuck) but I do believe I have a rather sound grasp of the way the cap works and how teams get around it. I have written in the past about this and I believe it to be true...the redskins manage the cap better than anyone in the league. In fact they probably blaze the trail on just about every good way to avoid cap difficulties. They have for years been discussed as going into cap hell next year or the year after or whenever and they never end up getting blown up like the 49ers. I actually think they'll be fine in 2006 but there will clearly be some reworking which I am hoping is a bad thing in that we were successful in '05 and making changes after that would be difficult.
I agree with you that the Skins manage the cap very well (which may come as a surprise). We always hear about Danny this and Danny that but at the end of the day we are the ones signing all the free agents every year. You never hear about teams like the 49ers and Titans, until they are actually deep in cap hell. Not to metion all the teams out there who purposely don't even try to reach the cap limit, preferring to stay closer to the cap minimum than the cap maximum. Where's all the press cursing these teams out for shortchanging their fans just so they can pocket an extra few million? Keep in mind the minimum cap this year was about $60M. So if a team chose to only pay the minimum they could pocket up to $20M extra a year. Mr. Snyder owns the most valuable franchise in sports, with an exceptionally loyal fan base. If he was really in it just for the money, I'm sure he could pay the league cap minimum without losing much of the fan base. But he has shown he wants to win, and backs it up with his wallet.
The three year window is the they way I believe Joe Mendes adn Cerrato
divised the handle the cap when Mendes was the cap expert for Danny Boy.
Mendes was regarded as the best cap manager int he game and realized that you could basically float money around and put it off over and oevr again for long periods of time. It's akin to getting 2 credit cards and passing the balance back and forth to avoid finance charges and having to ever really pay the bill. What they do is attempt to move as much money into the future as possible. Ideally the cap blows up in the projected 4th year from what I can tell. Then every year they do various restructurings and post-june cuts to fix any upcoming problems. Inevitably they'll end up with some high priced guys that get cut based on performance which always fixes the cap for the future.
Another point is the Skins have a much better idea than we do about the cap raises coming in the future. They see the revenues and can probably get a pretty clear picture of what the cap number will be in coming years. I'm sure they factor this in when making cap decisions.
It looks to me like they build in dead money now. This may seem stupid to give up cap space ever year but when you think about it it is actually ingenius. They figure they can get a better and more talented roster by signing free agents which require big contracts that are usually back loaded in terms of the cap. This allows them to get a lot of talent in the follwoing year for less money on the cap than it really costs. The dead money is just the price you pay but you end up with more talent. There problem has not been in managing the cap but in eveluating talent.
This is a great point and I agree. I would guess the Skins use a "deadcap budget" each year. Meaning they allocate a % of the cap amount to dead money each year. Like FRPLG said, this may sound dumb but actually I think it's quite smart. The deadcap is the only real way to get some cap flexibility. It gives good teams the ability to bring in free agents at good short term cap numbers to make a run at the title, though it might hurt them down the road.
Take 2004 for instance. We had $10M in deadcap. This is more than 10% of our total cap budget. So how can we compete? Because the dead money is offset by "bargains" in the short term. Some of these bargains may include (2004 cap hits):
Portis - $3.7M
Jansen - $2.6M
Coles - $2.4M
Springs - $2.4M
Brunell - $2.2M (I know, I know but it could have been a bargain)
Taylor - $2.2M
Thomas - $2M
Griffin - $1.9M
Washington - $1.7M
Ramsey - $1.6M
Barrow - $1.2M
Harris- $900K
Smoot - $760K
Pierce - $628K
Royal - $415K
Cooley - $400K
We can all argue as to which of these are actual bargains. But if you add up all these cap hits and compare them to the total value provided by the players, I think we'd all agree there is significant savings compared to these players' market value. This is how the deadcap is offset.
Your point that managing the cap has not been the problem evaluating the talent has been the problem. Hit the nail right on the head. This is what has haunted us for the past several years and I feel that gibbs will stop this trend. He made his one bad call with brunell and I am coffident he will not repeat this error.
AGREED. This is a great point. I think our cap "problems" have arisen more because of bad talent choices, not bad cap choices. Compare our moves from the "old days" to our recent moves.
Old Style:
Big Daddy
Bruce
Deion
Trotter
Armstead
New Style:
Coles
Washington
Griffin
Portis
Instead of bringing in high-priced old vets with their best years behind them the Skins are finally bringing in young guys who still have room to improve. This way the acquisitions can become both a short-term and long-term solution, and hopefully result in less dead cap in the future.
Bottom line - I'm pretty confident that Mr. Snyder knows what he's doing.
I am not the resident cap expert in in these here parts (that would good ole Canuck) but I do believe I have a rather sound grasp of the way the cap works and how teams get around it. I have written in the past about this and I believe it to be true...the redskins manage the cap better than anyone in the league. In fact they probably blaze the trail on just about every good way to avoid cap difficulties. They have for years been discussed as going into cap hell next year or the year after or whenever and they never end up getting blown up like the 49ers. I actually think they'll be fine in 2006 but there will clearly be some reworking which I am hoping is a bad thing in that we were successful in '05 and making changes after that would be difficult.
I agree with you that the Skins manage the cap very well (which may come as a surprise). We always hear about Danny this and Danny that but at the end of the day we are the ones signing all the free agents every year. You never hear about teams like the 49ers and Titans, until they are actually deep in cap hell. Not to metion all the teams out there who purposely don't even try to reach the cap limit, preferring to stay closer to the cap minimum than the cap maximum. Where's all the press cursing these teams out for shortchanging their fans just so they can pocket an extra few million? Keep in mind the minimum cap this year was about $60M. So if a team chose to only pay the minimum they could pocket up to $20M extra a year. Mr. Snyder owns the most valuable franchise in sports, with an exceptionally loyal fan base. If he was really in it just for the money, I'm sure he could pay the league cap minimum without losing much of the fan base. But he has shown he wants to win, and backs it up with his wallet.
The three year window is the they way I believe Joe Mendes adn Cerrato
divised the handle the cap when Mendes was the cap expert for Danny Boy.
Mendes was regarded as the best cap manager int he game and realized that you could basically float money around and put it off over and oevr again for long periods of time. It's akin to getting 2 credit cards and passing the balance back and forth to avoid finance charges and having to ever really pay the bill. What they do is attempt to move as much money into the future as possible. Ideally the cap blows up in the projected 4th year from what I can tell. Then every year they do various restructurings and post-june cuts to fix any upcoming problems. Inevitably they'll end up with some high priced guys that get cut based on performance which always fixes the cap for the future.
Another point is the Skins have a much better idea than we do about the cap raises coming in the future. They see the revenues and can probably get a pretty clear picture of what the cap number will be in coming years. I'm sure they factor this in when making cap decisions.
It looks to me like they build in dead money now. This may seem stupid to give up cap space ever year but when you think about it it is actually ingenius. They figure they can get a better and more talented roster by signing free agents which require big contracts that are usually back loaded in terms of the cap. This allows them to get a lot of talent in the follwoing year for less money on the cap than it really costs. The dead money is just the price you pay but you end up with more talent. There problem has not been in managing the cap but in eveluating talent.
This is a great point and I agree. I would guess the Skins use a "deadcap budget" each year. Meaning they allocate a % of the cap amount to dead money each year. Like FRPLG said, this may sound dumb but actually I think it's quite smart. The deadcap is the only real way to get some cap flexibility. It gives good teams the ability to bring in free agents at good short term cap numbers to make a run at the title, though it might hurt them down the road.
Take 2004 for instance. We had $10M in deadcap. This is more than 10% of our total cap budget. So how can we compete? Because the dead money is offset by "bargains" in the short term. Some of these bargains may include (2004 cap hits):
Portis - $3.7M
Jansen - $2.6M
Coles - $2.4M
Springs - $2.4M
Brunell - $2.2M (I know, I know but it could have been a bargain)
Taylor - $2.2M
Thomas - $2M
Griffin - $1.9M
Washington - $1.7M
Ramsey - $1.6M
Barrow - $1.2M
Harris- $900K
Smoot - $760K
Pierce - $628K
Royal - $415K
Cooley - $400K
We can all argue as to which of these are actual bargains. But if you add up all these cap hits and compare them to the total value provided by the players, I think we'd all agree there is significant savings compared to these players' market value. This is how the deadcap is offset.
Your point that managing the cap has not been the problem evaluating the talent has been the problem. Hit the nail right on the head. This is what has haunted us for the past several years and I feel that gibbs will stop this trend. He made his one bad call with brunell and I am coffident he will not repeat this error.
AGREED. This is a great point. I think our cap "problems" have arisen more because of bad talent choices, not bad cap choices. Compare our moves from the "old days" to our recent moves.
Old Style:
Big Daddy
Bruce
Deion
Trotter
Armstead
New Style:
Coles
Washington
Griffin
Portis
Instead of bringing in high-priced old vets with their best years behind them the Skins are finally bringing in young guys who still have room to improve. This way the acquisitions can become both a short-term and long-term solution, and hopefully result in less dead cap in the future.
Bottom line - I'm pretty confident that Mr. Snyder knows what he's doing.