Next Year's Cap Situation

[redskin37]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I thought this would be an effective way to show how constantly restructuring can bite ones team in the balls.

I obtained all the following information from Canuck's Cap Sheets:

For the 2008 season, I removed the value of all players who are likely to be cut from the 53 man roster in this 2007 season. I came out with a total cap number of 119 million. The projected cap for 2008 is 116 million.

On the surface that seems fine. We were three mil over this year and cut some dead weight and restructured some guys and ended up about 10 million under. Not that hard right?

Heres the big issue. After removing 20 players who are likely to miss the 53 man roster in 2007 from the 2008 cap total, that leaves the Redskins with 33 players under contract for the 2008 season who combined are costing us more than the salary cap allows. In that 33, we do not have a Punter, a Kicker, or a long snapper.

Now, we still have to draft two classes worth of players and resign key guys like Cooley. So I estimate that 119 figure will be in the ballpark of 130 million before free agency next year. I am estimating that we will be adding about 9 players to that 2008 total before we hit FA next year (Cooley's new deal + First round pick this year + 3 day 2 picks this year + 3 or so guys to fill out this years roster [TE, LB, OG]).

So if my projections are to be accurate, we will have to free up 14 million in cap space (just to comply with the league office) by March 1st. There will be numerous veteran cuts and probably a few restructures. Not only are we going to have to free up 14 million, but most likely 20 million to put us 6 million under so we can fill out the remaining 9 roster spots PLUS a roster spot for every cut we make to get under the cap. The cuts will likely include any veteran whose net cap gain would net us 1.5 or more million.

-Brunell's contract automatically voids, saving us 3.5 million.
-If Springs makes it this far, cutting him saves 2.5 million.
-Cutting Griffin saves 1.5 million.
-Cutting Daniels saves 3.0 million.
-Cutting Marcus Wasington saves 2.5 million.
-If we get desperate, cutting Betts and Rabach save about 1.3 million each.
-Guys like Lloyd and Arch and Carter still deliever sizable cap hits, meaning they will be Redskins through 2008 guarenteed.

As always we can restructure or make post June 1st cuts to save even more money in 2008. To a degree, we will have to do some of this. We can only free up 13 million by releasing the top 5 guys on that list. We will be forced to restructure (or declare our cuts as post June 1) to free up the final 7 million.

But that 7 million is going to be pushed into future years, and the 2009 cap situation is going to be even worse than this abomidable 2008 one.

It is imperitive that we keep our entire slate of 2008 draft picks. We are going to need to capitalize on those picks to help fill those empty (presumably 14) roster spots. Draft picks are always cap friendly in their rookie years and that's the main source of talent this team will have.

The only way this is going to go down easy is if we win a championship this year. It's not like the 2008 team will be completely void of talent, but I'm near certain that guys like Washington, Daniels, Griffin, Springs, Brunell, Saleve'a, Wynn, Marshall, Collins and Prioleau will not be on the roster come this time next year.

So imagine our current roster without those guys on it. Those are the holes we need to fill in our next two drafts.

I really am not trying to be a doom bringer here, but I wanted to prep you guys as to what the future holds.

But hey, if you didnt like the way the FO was going about things, maybe you see this in a postive light (if you are seeing this in a positive light, ask yourself when the last time you saw your physician was).

I thought we were under the cap presently alot more than your stated 10 million?

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by love them hogs

I have a question.If for some strange reason we dont use up all of our cap space this year,could we give that extra money to players now to lower there cap hit for next year?

yeah, you can rework their contract and move base salaries or roster bonuses up or cut and resign or whatnot to take the remaining pro-rated money hit immediately etc.

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by redskin37

I thought we were under the cap presently alot more than your stated 10 million?

nope. just 10mill, and a lot of work was put into getting the skins that far under.

[Rajmahal33]

It's great that we are currently under the cap by ~10 mill and i don't think we are going to use a significant amount of that to sign any more FA's but one thing to consider is out draft picks. If we trade for more picks (which I hope we do) then we may need to sign as many as 7 players. Even at the rookie minimum for some of those picks they are going to take a chunk out of that 10 mill. Also don't forget that we need a TE and possibly a starting OG (thru FA possibly). So if we do use any excess money left after all these factors we aren't going to have much to help us prorate salary hits for next year.

[dmek25]

good read, but don't we go over the same paranoia every year? the skins capologist is far and away the best in the business. i have no worries until the sky IS actually falling

[Skinz4life]

I have been hearing about this for years now - I am sure someday it will catch up with us, but i am also sure that our FO has a plan in place, just like last year they had a plan in place in case the new CBA wasn't signed. Until we actually see it all happen I wouldn't be to concerned over it.

[724Skinsfan]

Honestly, I think their current plan is to win while Joe Gibbs is the head coach here. I mean to say that they are willing to make a huge sacrifice in order to try to win right now. The future consequences may be an afterthought for trying to win it all in 2007.

[skinsfan69]

We need to cut Daniels, Joe S., Springs, Wynn, Fletcher, Arch and Griff in 08. Regardless of the cap hits. Plus bring in a run stopping DE for Carter on run downs. Rebuilding the defense through the 08 draft and maybe a YOUNG FA or two is what we really need to do. It's time. We don't have anybody on our front 7 who scares the opposing offense and hanging on to some average 30 + players makes no sense. We need to get younger and cheaper and it's going to take time.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by Skinz4life

I have been hearing about this for years now - I am sure someday it will catch up with us, but i am also sure that our FO has a plan in place, just like last year they had a plan in place in case the new CBA wasn't signed. Until we actually see it all happen I wouldn't be to concerned over it.

The 'Plan' last year if the cba wasn't signed was to ask virtually 1/3 of the team to take pay cuts, not restructures as there was no cba & thus no cap in place for restructures to take place. If that didn't work, the plan was to pray & hope it worked.

Not to sound too cynical, but there was hardly a 'plan' in place last year if the cba wasn't signed. We were in cap hell. Not even Eric S. & the rest of the front office could get around that mess, we would've had to cut key players if the cba wasn't agreed upon.

There will be another year like that at the end of the current cba & I think the front office under Gibbs' direction, is addressing this now. They're attempting to restructure key guys & reduce salaries of others who they're prepared to cut.

Good post GT

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

We need to cut Daniels, Joe S., Springs, Wynn, Fletcher, Arch and Griff in 08. Regardless of the cap hits. Plus bring in a run stopping DE for Carter on run downs. Rebuilding the defense through the 08 draft and maybe a YOUNG FA or two is what we really need to do. It's time. We don't have anybody on our front 7 who scares the opposing offense and hanging on to some average 30 + players makes no sense. We need to get younger and cheaper and it's going to take time.

We are pretty much stuck with Archuleta, Lloyd, Randle El and Carter. Even with all of our cap room this year an 8 million plus hit for cutting any of the above guys (not that we'd want to cut Randle El) is just too much to swallow. They will all be Skins for the next two seasons guarenteed, and then maybe if we keep the cap space open, we can afford to cut 1-2 of those guys prior to 2009. Until then they have to stay on the 53 man roster, although if Arch and Lloyd continue to suck, we could make them inactive.

But you are absolutely right on one big thing: this defense needs a ton of fresh blood.

Of the defensive players we have right now, only the following are certain to be rostered come this time next year:

DE: Carter, Evans
DT: Montgomery, Golston
LB: Fletcher, McIntosh, K. Campbell
CB: Rogers, Smoot, Jimoh
S: Taylor, Arch, Fox, Doughty

You really can't make much of a defense out of that, and we simply aren't going to have the money to sign a starting caliber player. So any holes on that defense must be filled through the next two drafts. Obviously, that's gotta start with DT, but also DE and LB. CB and Safety are fine IF Carlos Rogers has a "rebound" season. It's a stretch to rely on him as a No. 1, but the only other choices we have would be to a) rely on Smoot as the No. 1, or b) draft a rookie CB with our 2nd rounder in 2008. If Rogers does pan out, we'll just have to address the nickel next year with, say maybe a 4th rounder.

Safety really won't be a problem unless Sean Taylor continues to play pass coverage with his head up his ass. Fox can start, but I'm going to gamble that Arch wins the starting job back.

I do have a feeling that they are going to keep Washington on board one more year than they should, but if they are wise, they will let his play in 2007 dictate whether he deserves to return.

[rypper11]

The only thing the front office has done well in the past 10years is spend outrageous amounts of money and get under the cap. I have no doubt that this will be the case in 08 and beyond. I'm more concerned about who is going to get a windfall of cash next year and not live up to the money or the hype (see lloyd, trotter, sanders, george, etc etc...). If we could figure out a way to get the same results out of the player development and personnel evaluation departments as accounting and we wouldn't just win the Super Bowl in March.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by love them hogs

I have a question.If for some strange reason we dont use up all of our cap space this year,could we give that extra money to players now to lower there cap hit for next year?

This is kind of tricky from a human nature standpoint. If you frontload a players deal and he ends up outperforming that deal, and then he sees his pay cut the next year as a trade off for front loading the deal, he's going to feel like he's getting the shaft. Sure he signed his deal in good faith, but if there wasn't a human factor in it, holdouts wouldn't exist.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by rypper11

The only thing the front office has done well in the past 10years is spend outrageous amounts of money and get under the cap. I have no doubt that this will be the case in 08 and beyond. I'm more concerned about who is going to get a windfall of cash next year and not live up to the money or the hype (see lloyd, trotter, sanders, george, etc etc...). If we could figure out a way to get the same results out of the player development and personnel evaluation departments as accounting and we wouldn't just win the Super Bowl in March.

My inital post tries to show how this isn't possible. Sure some may want to do that, but it can't be done. It's because of the way the cap was structured before that we are in this mess. Our cap guys aren't any smarter than other cap guys, they are just willing to take measures that sacrifice the future to bail out of immediate cap trouble.

Here's the predicament we are in: we are still capable of further sacrificing the future, but we are NOT capable of avoiding all effects of our past actions any longer. Starting in 2008, we will not have money to sign a starting caliber FA. If we continue to restructure all veteran, 2009 will be a year where we can't sign any free agents nor will be able to resign our own players. By 2010 if we continue the restructuring everyone road, we won't have any veteran talent left. It's not going to get to that point though. We are going to either cut bait after this season (Which means all the vets I outlined in my first post go, minimal restructuring), or choose a more gradual, but longer, rebuilding process (we cut select vets, keep others, and have additional restructuring).

Either way, we already know that the 2008 shopping spree happened a year ago. Don't expect us to add any starting caliber players next year.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by dmek25

good read, but don't we go over the same paranoia every year? the skins capologist is far and away the best in the business. i have no worries until the sky IS actually falling

This year we were in a pretty good situation. I mean, the raw numbers looked bad, but all the players acquired in the 2006 spending spree still have low cap totals this year. Next year, every member of that class skyrockets.

[Schneed10]

GTripp, I'm going to respond to your first post in this thread, but I'm not going to quote it because between my response and the length of your first one, I think the Warpath will crash, LOL.

First, good post. I agree with the majority of what you said. I agree that because we're going to be up against the cap for the next few seasons, we really need to hit on our draft picks, especially 2nd and 3rd round type draft picks (ahem, we need to trade out of the 6th spot) because those 2nd and 3rd rounders tend to yield the greatest talent-to-cap space ratio of all draft spots.

Your analysis is good, but I think the following things are going to ease the 2008 situation:

1) First, the 'Skins would not have cleared $10 million in cap space at this point if they did not have a plan to use it. I can see people criticizing this front office's talent evaluation skills, but they definitely know how massage the cap. The fact that they've cleared this much cap room tells me that either:
a) They're planning to trade Springs and take his cap hit all this season.
b) They're planning to cut either Archuleta or Brandon Lloyd and absorb the entire cap hit this season.

Either one of those moves would save a good chunk from the 08 cap. Clearing Archuleta or Lloyd this year would save us approx 4 million each in 08. Clearing Springs, which seems extremely likely IMHO, would save us $7.3 million in 08. I guess you had him making it to 08, so the incremental benefit to your numbers would be $5 million.

2) And the big one, they have oodles of options to restructure players. In 2008, the following players are on schedule for more than a $4 million base salary (excluding Brunell cause he'll be outta here and Springs because of reasons already mentioned): Griffin, Washington, Samuels, Jansen, Thomas, and Portis. There's an opportunity to restructure all of these contracts and save up to $10-$15 million in 08 cap space just on restructures alone. Of course, as you say, we'd kick the hit into 09 and create more headaches down the road. And as I look at 2009, I can see that being the year we decide to either "sh*t or get off the pot" with our current core of guys. That would make 2008 our last year with our current core group. And it just so happens that 2008 is also the last year of Gibbs' current contract. But as for 2008, I can see the team creating plenty of space.

If we want to have any kind of foundation to move into 2009 and beyond, we need to trade down and hit on multiple picks now. And we need to keep our draft picks in the 08 draft, and hit on those as well. Because in 2009, we're quite possibly looking at saying goodbye to a few good players.

This is not to say the Skins won't be able to restructure and create more cap room in 2009. After all, at that point the cap should be about 125 million, which gives us leeway.

But all in all your post was great because as you look at the cap situation and begin to plan for the next three years, the only logical conclusion is we need to hit on multiple draft picks and start developing talent in-house. Seems to me the team has already realized this. Hopefully we hit it big on a couple of these rooks.

Good thread.