Redskin Salary Cap Question - NLTBE Credits

[Bill B]

Do any of the salary cap gurus on the site know of how much the Redskins use NLTBE (Not likely to be earned credits) to help augment their cap? I would hope the Redskins use this rule to their advantage:

Below is a summary I saw on how these credits can be gained from a site called Niner cap hell:
NinerCapHell.com | Salary Cap Home

Q: What do LTBE and NLTBE stand for?
A: LTBE stands for Likely To Be Earned. NLTBE stands for Not Likely To Be Earned. These phrases are in reference to incentives, and how these incentives count towards the cap. An incentive is considered LTBE if the specified performance was achieved the previous year. This goes for an individual or a team incentive. Therefore, if the performance was not achieved the previous year, the incentive is considered NLTBE. All LTBE incentives are counted against the cap, while all NLTBE incentives are not counted against the cap.

Q: How do LTBE credits work?
A: LTBE credits can be used to transfer cap room from one year to the next. The CBA states that if the LTBE credits that weren't actually achieved are greater than the NLTBE credits that actually were achieved, the the difference will be added to the next year's salary cap. Even though all LTBE incentives are counted against the cap, not all of them are actually achieved. Since using up cap room for money that ended up not even being paid is unfair, teams can get a credit for the next year. However, if the NLTBE incentives that are earned are greater than the LTBE incentives that are not earned, the team will have its salary cap decreased the following year. So while there is a starting salary cap each year, almost every team ends up having a different salary cap after the incentives are calculated.

Q: So do teams just get lucky? Or is there a way to control this?
A: The key to the whole thing is on page 124 of the CBA, which states that "Any new or altered incentive bonuses renegotiated in a pre-existing contract after the start of the regular season in which they may be earned automatically will be deamed "likely to be earned" during that season". This means that a team could write any incentive into a contract, and it will still be considered LTBE and counted against the cap. So if a team has 3 million in cap room at the end of the season and knows they won't use it, they can write bogus incentives into player's contracts to create LTBE incentives that won't be achieved. This makes the LTBE incentives not achieved greather than the NLTBE incentives achieved, so the team's salary cap is raised the following year.

[over the mountain]

interesting post, never new about LTBEs and what now . . . one question thoo, you say " they can write bogus incentives into player's contracts to create LTBE incentives that wont be achieved" . .what is a bogus incentive that would still be consider a LTBE? i.e jason campbelll gets 3 mill bonus if he makes 100 tackles? or jason campbell gets 3 mill if he throws 70 tds . . . both dont seem likely to be achieved so why would they be classified as a LTBE? real curious as to just how the skins rework contracts so much, open up just enough cap room to slip under every year and if they use this as one of many cap tools/strategies . . .

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

interesting post, never new about LTBEs and what now . . . one question thoo, you say " they can write bogus incentives into player's contracts to create LTBE incentives that wont be achieved" . .what is a bogus incentive that would still be consider a LTBE? i.e jason campbelll gets 3 mill bonus if he makes 100 tackles? or jason campbell gets 3 mill if he throws 70 tds . . . both dont seem likely to be achieved so why would they be classified as a LTBE? real curious as to just how the skins rework contracts so much, open up just enough cap room to slip under every year and if they use this as one of many cap tools/strategies . . .

Basically, if we restructured Casey Rabach to have a 5 million dollar LTBE incentive this year to play 95% of the teams' special teams plays. Because it's technically LTBE, we would have to admininster an extra $5 million to this years' cap for Rabach's LTBE bonus. However, when Rabach inevitably doesn't hit his LTBE (because, ya know, he doesn't actually play special teams), we get a $5 million cap credit for next season. Pretty sly stuff.

On the contrary a NLTBE incentive would be something thats statsistically unexpected such as "Jason Campbell gets an extra $7 million if he throws 40 TDs". In this case, we do NOT have to make room under the cap for Campbell's $7 million NLTBE bonus, but if he does hit it somehow, we lose $7 million in cap space for next season.

[Daseal]

Golston got a big check for playing over his draft status. Is this the same thing? Golston got something like 200K I think. What's the deal with that and the cap?

[MTK]

Here's an article on the NFL's performance based pay system

NFL.com - NFL News

Golston received $247,445 from last season under this program, not too bad.

NFL Notes: Baltimore rookie Dawan Landry tops list of performance-based bonuses

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Here's an article on the NFL's performance based pay system

NFL.com - NFL News

Golston received $247,445 from last season under this program, not too bad.

NFL Notes: Baltimore rookie Dawan Landry tops list of performance-based bonuses

To me this is a great system. Guys like Golston should get rewarded for coming in and contributing early on when their draft status wouldn't predict it. This was a good one the NFLPA finagled into the CBA several years back I believe.

[CrazyCanuck]

Originally Posted by Bill B

So if a team has 3 million in cap room at the end of the season and knows they won't use it, they can write bogus incentives into player's contracts to create LTBE incentives that won't be achieved. This makes the LTBE incentives not achieved greather than the NLTBE incentives achieved, so the team's salary cap is raised the following year.

I think you summed up the LTBE and NLTBE stuff pretty well. The Skins received $522K in cap credits this year most likely from these incentives.

As for sticking in some bogus LTBEs to fill up the current year's cap and save money on the following year's cap, it is a good idea that I'm sure the Skins are aware of or have used in the past. The problem is the Skins are usually pushed right up against the cap limit anyways, so there's rarely any excess cap room to push to the future.

[skinsfan_nn]

Originally Posted by CrazyCanuck

I think you summed up the LTBE and NLTBE stuff pretty well. The Skins received $522K in cap credits this year most likely from these incentives.

As for sticking in some bogus LTBEs to fill up the current year's cap and save money on the following year's cap, it is a good idea that I'm sure the Skins are aware of or have used in the past. The problem is the Skins are usually pushed right up against the cap limit anyways, so there's rarely any excess cap room to push to the future.

Yep. Cap room, WHAT'S THAT?