Current Redskins Salary Cap Status - 2009

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by GMScud

Yeah, I can live with it. It just kind of makes me shake my head and sort of sarcastically laugh every time I see it happen. Like I said, it's what we do.
Then again, we could just stop putting ourselves in situations like this and we wouldn't have to piss away a chunk of our cap on guys not on the roster year in and year out.

You say we portion out X amount of space each year for deadcap in order to remain competitive. Gotta wonder how much more competitive we'd be if X amount of deadcap space actually went to a player of that worth....

"So it's a calculated approach to wasted cap space, if that makes sense." That's got signature written all over it.

I think a lot of the media is going to be eating their words when the Redskins are 5-2 and offering $70 million to Jason Campbell by Halloween, in that, it will look like the Redskins bought their way to unsustainable success. But that's only part of the story.

The Redskins have a remarkably team-friendly contract with the best defensive player in football, with only one caveat: the Haynesworth contract comes with a simply unfathomable amount of risk to the team. As of right now, before any restructure, the amount of money the Redskins can go after should Haynesworth get himself suspended is a whopping: not one dime.

Out of the $41 million guarenteed figure, or otherwise put, the combined total of money owed to Albert Haynesworth for his first three seasons here, not one cent is paid out in a signing bonus, or a non-guarenteed salary. About $22 million of that is subject to be restructured next offseason, which would give the team the ability to reclaim that if Haynesworth does something stupid. But Haynesworth will stay a Redskin through 2011 no matter how many games he's actually healthy enough to play.

But in exchange for that risk, the Redskins get the best defensive player in football at relatively cap-friendly prices for the remainder of the prime of his career. Taking the risk was necessary to get Haynesworth in with a reasonable cap number, but ultimately, this gamble will be the reason the team will win in the near future.

There's no other team in football who would have taken a risk like that. Any argument for Snyder being a great owner has to start with the Haynesworth contract.