There's no June 1 designation anymore

[GTripp0012]

Came across a really interesting blog post tonight:

Q. Now that 2009 is the last capped year, are there rules that impact player contract negotiations and a club’s salary cap planning?



A. Yes. Here are the key differences:


§ After the last game of the 2008 regular season, signing bonus proration is reduced from a maximum of six years to a maximum of five years.


§ In 2009, there is no June 1 rule for Signing Bonus acceleration. If a player is removed from the roster or his contract is assigned via waivers or trade at any time in the 2009 League Year, any unamortized signing bonus will be immediately included in Team Salary.


§ There is no year-end netting of incentives in 2009. Not-likely-to-be-earned incentives are charged to team salary immediately when earned, and likely-to-be-earned incentives are deducted when they are no longer possible to earn.


§ Guaranteed salary from 2010 and beyond is reallocated to capped years unless the entire 2009 salary is guaranteed.


§ 50% of guaranteed salary in any League Year beyond 2012 is reallocated to capped years.


§ The 30% increase rule restricts salary increases from 2009 to 2010. For example: a player with a $500,000 Salary in 2009 would be limited to annual salary increases of $150,000 ($500,000 x 30%) beginning in 2010.


§ A team can include only three veteran team incentives in a player contract covering 2009 and beyond. These incentives must also be coupled with a playtime requirement. Previously, clubs were limited to eight team incentives and no playtime requirement.

The main points here is that there is a clear, concise reasoning to the Redskins cap madness, such as guarenteeing Portis' 2009 salary to him.

Here's the main points: Any free agents the Redskins sign in 2009 will have to have their ENTIRE 2009 cap number guarenteed. That's not going to be a big deal.

What is going to be a big deal is that ANY player the Redskins have under contract past next season, their entire signing bonus proration hits the cap next year unless we guarantee their entire 2009 salary to them. Since the Redskins obviously don't have enough room under the cap to watch all their long term SB prorations hit the cap, they'll have to restructure deals in order to guarentee the entire 2009 salary to the player. Doesn't change a whole lot, but it does seem like a lot of work.

The 30% salary increase rule means we really can't backload free agent contracts anymore.

The SB proration of any contract signed in 2009 will have 1.5 times the yearly proration value in 2009, if the contract exceeds four years.

And of course, anyone we cut sees their entire unpaid prorated SB hit the cap in 2009.

So this is going to greatly limit what we can do in free agency, but given how restricted the uncapped market will be, I fully expect the Redskins to be players in the free agent market anyway, as the players who hit the market this year will be considerably younger, on average, than the players who will hit the open market in any other year.