ESPN's redskins offseason overview

Honestly, I would rather we have a light preseason. Keep our starters rested as long as we can. I don't want anyone getting hurt.

Watch the June 2nd Media Session. It's long, but at the end, he goes over how they are avoiding injuries this year. It's a good 15 min.

http://www.redskins.com/news/multimedia.jsp

This concerns me.

I must note, that for some time I've been dubbed "one of the cap alarmists." So, just be aware that I have a more pessimistic (and in my opinion, realistic) view of the salary cap situation. Right now, we've got too much committed in about 15 players. Right now, we're going to hit the cap ceiling like a ton of bricks next year.

However, I don't know which players are amenable or have already agreed to restructure their deals in the future. I don't know which starters are going to be "releaseable" due to back-ups shining. I don't know as much about the cap as say, CrazyCanuck. So, take my predictions with a grain of salt. I'm not saying disregard them because I ruly believe we're headed for trouble (but not complete doom).

Basically, it's a little hard to tell how bad our cap situation is going to be until we get through several weeks of the regular season. By that point, it will become more clear what our future needs are, where we have excess talent (and thus at what positions personnel might be expendable), who got cut before the start of the regular season (i.e. Barrow), etc.

I'm still concerned. I don't want to be talking NEXT offseason about how we lost someone we all liked.

MC,

Players of note who might be expendable by 2006 could be Barrow (who has an 06' cap figure of $3.5 million and might be cut before 9/1/05), Brunell (06' cap figure of close to $5.5 million), Daniels ($2.6 million 06' hit), Noble ($2.6 million 06' hit), and Harris ($2.7 06' hit). Those guys should be expendable and should save us somewhere around $13 million in cap space (after signing bonuses of the "cut-ees" are accelerated).

We'll still have some cutting to do, we'll need to replace the above-mentioned guys (which, of course, adds to the cap), and some of it might be very painful - but it'll get done without wrecking the franchise.

Also MC,

Jansen, Patten, Washington, and Springs (who have a combined cap figure of $20+ million in 2006) are likely targets of restructuring. If you got three of the above four guys to restructure and we cut the players I mentioned above, we'd probably clear somewhere around $20 million in cap space.

patrick has to play better this year he has the role of the starting qb and has to prove that he was worht a first round pick. if don't play well and campbell is not ready we will not make the playoffs and be at the bottom of our division.

Haven't we faced Cap Hell every year since Dan Snyder took over? It always seems to get worked out.

Haven't we faced Cap Hell every year since Dan Snyder took over? It always seems to get worked out.

It's funny how we keep hearing about this cap hell the Skins are facing, but every offseason there's always a couple other teams in the league that end up slashing and burning their rosters to get under the cap. The Raiders last year, the Titans this year, etc.

Salary cap discussion, how I missed thee.

Dan Snyder and Eric Schaffer do not get NEARLY the credit they deserve in handling the salary cap. It all starts with the 3-year projections they run, projecting what they think the salary cap actually will be each year. The Redskins are the only front office that saw a higher salary cap coming in 2006. They felt comfortable stocking the roster with talented players, with a good deal of their bonuses and salaries hitting in 2006. Dan Snyder recognized that the leaguewide revenue streams would be increasing in 2006 with the new TV deal, causing the cap to go up, meaning he could grab more players. When Joe Gibbs says they have a long term plan and they're building towards the future, he means it. And it's NOT because he doesn't know the ins and the outs of the salary cap, it's because he has tremendous financial analysts in the front office in the form of Snyder and Schaffer, projecting what the cap will be. To a sportswriter like John Clayton or Len Pasta, with their untrained financial eyes they won't be able to see what Dan Snyder sees, and consequently they just assume that the Skins are headed for cap hell. And then of course, when the Redskins' cap situation works out fine next year, they'll write that Dan Snyder got lucky. NO WAY. Back in 2004, Snyder knew the cap was going to go up in 2006, and he planned for it.

On the specifics of our cap situation, we're in fine shape in my opinion. The salary cap this year is at 85 million. It is safe to expect at least a 10% increase in the cap next year, likely more, but if it's 10%, the cap next year will be 93.5 million.

According to Crazy Canuck's cap sheets, we have $112 million committed to players in 2006. Seems bad right? John Clayton would say so too. What he doesn't know is that $26 million of that $112 is tied up in Roster Bonuses (the biggest of which are Arrington, Springs, Portis, Griffin, Moss, Washington, Patten are the biggest ones). Roster Bonuses hit your cap all in that season, just like a base salary would. So if we pay LaVar a $4.5 million roster bonus next year, that counts $4.5 against our cap next year. But Dan Snyder knows this and has EVERY intention of renegotiating the contract to give Lavar his $4.5 million in the form of a signing bonus, which gets spread across the remaining life of his contract. And what does Lavar care? He gets his $4.5 million no matter what, he doesn't care if it's called roster bonus or signing bonus.

This is genius planning. The renegotiation of that $26 million in roster bonuses can take the cap hit from $26 million down to $8 million very easily, which would bring our cap figure of $112 down to $94 million, right around the projected cap. Of course, this spreads the remainder of those bonuses throughout the life of the contract, which makes us think of the phrase "mortgaging the future". Except that Snyder knows that league revenues are projected to keep increasing, and as long as that happens the salary cap will continue to go up each year, leaving enough cap room to keep his roster together, never having to tear it apart.

This still means we won't have room to go out and sign a bunch of guys. But Snyder's goal is no longer to buy a fantasy football team like in 2000. He's thinking continuity, he's thinking how can I keep my team together, because that's how the Eagles do it. They keep their team together. Snyder has given Gibbs the ability to assemble the talent he wants in '04 and '05, and keep them together for the long haul. If this continuity leads to winning seasons, in three years I guarantee you that Clayton and Pasta will be praising the Redskins for their salary cap management. But they're too hard-headed to realize that the Skins have a good thing going right now. Snyder knows what he's doing, he deserves major praise for realizing how to take advantage of a rising salary cap before all the other teams figured it out. There's a method to his madness, and team continuity will be the result.

I agree completely. They are masters of manipulating the loopholes of the salary cap.