Good cap article

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

We're always "going" to be in cap hell down the road with the likes of Pastabelly and his commrades in arms doing the reporting. The best is when they quote "anonymous officials from other teams" who always predict gloom and doom. There were numerous reports that the "Skins might have to field 20 or more rookies" if there was no new CBA. These reports were of course bogus as the Skins we in line to be under the cap by only cutting 5-7 non-starters. Does anyone really believe that the cap guys from other teams (the ones bets suited to understand enough to evaluate cap situations well) spend their time diligently evaluating other teams caps for no good reason? What a crock. Skins = cap geniuses. Not one cap hell has ever occured.

While I agree that the "no CBA/20 Rookies" scenario was overblown, no CBA would have been brutal even with restructuring simply b/c we would have only prorate bonuses over four years and certain bonuses would not have been convertable as they had been in the past. The 5-year bonus proration, the ability to convert certain roster bonuses to proratable signing bonuses, and the removal of the LTBE incentives are huge for the Skins because those are the mechanisms through which Danny and the crew manipulate the cap.

Add these factors to the lower cap and, while it may not have been cap hell, it certainly would have been cap heck. I am not sure who would have been cut and I am glad we will never have to find out b/c there was undoubtedly going to be SOME pain in such a scenario. I mean, c'mon, Gibbs was asking us to pray for a CBA - and he wasn't speaking figuratively. I personally was sacrificing goats and virgins to the football gods (Complete non-sequiter: Are goat virgins a particularly powerful sacrificial item?)

With the CBA, all the old mechanisms click into place and, as long as we make relatively smart moves in who we sign (no Bruce Smith's or Deion's) we will be fine (a couple of Marcus Washington's and a Cornelius Griffin or two with a side of Salave'a please).

Thanks for the link Matty.