Peter King on The Skins - Future Cap Trouble

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

That is a good way of putting it. But can we get another year out of KM and Thrash as our # 3 and 4 wr's?

KM looks darn good this year. He's not burning anybody, but he's still running sharp routes. I can't say I'd mind having him as my 3rd WR next year, he can move the chains.

I'd prefer a young guy with some talent, but I recognize you can't get everything you want in a single offseason, and we may have more pressing needs. KM would be a good stopgap if it came to that.

[12thMan]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

KM looks darn good this year. He's not burning anybody, but he's still running sharp routes. I can't say I'd mind having him as my 3rd WR next year, he can move the chains.

I'd prefer a young guy with some talent, but I recognize you can't get everything you want in a single offseason, and we may have more pressing needs. KM would be a good stopgap if it came to that.

Who would have thought KM would come here an contribute like he has. This is the kind of wily vet that will be very valuable if we can make it to the playoffs.

[Bill B]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I'm going to list the ways to get the cap number down. You can debate the merit of making certain moves on this list, but if we don't cut a certain player, you can bet we'd restructure them, which would also save some money.

Expected Roster Cuts:
Phillip Daniels - $3.0 million saved
Mark Brunell - $3.4 million saved
Total Savings for Cuts: $6.4 million

Keeping These Players, Restructuring 2008 Base Salary, Prorating over Remaining life of Contract:
Randy Thomas - $4.3 million saved
Clinton Portis - $3.8 million saved
Jon Jansen - $3.7 million saved
Chris Samuels - $3.4 million saved
Cornelius Griffin - $2.8 million saved
Santana Moss - $2.4 million saved
Casey Rabach - $1.8 million saved
Total Salary Restructure Savings: $22.2 million

Keeping These Players, Restructuring 2008 Roster Bonuses, Prorating over Remaining life of Contract:
Ladell Betts - $1.7 million saved
Clinton Portis - $0.4 million saved
Andre Carter - $1.9 million saved
Antwaan Randle-El - $1.2 million saved
Total Bonus Restructure Savings: $5.2 million

So I see ways to reduce our 2008 cap number by about $34 million. So do I think armageddon is coming next year? NO.

But I wouldn't go making ALL of the moves I listed above, either. We're starting to push a little too much into the future. And if we get rid of Brandon Lloyd, that move will eat up some more space.

Bottom line, we won't have to dismantle the team, but we won't have lots of flexibility, either. We'll need to draft very well.

Schneed - thanks for the update.

One question here though - I heard on the radio that Brandon Llyod's 2008 roster bonus of $1.5 million is due on March 1, 2008. I know that cutting Llyod post June 1st will spread the cap hit over 2 seasons instead of taking the entire $7.1 million all in 2008. My question is if you are going to cut the guy is the cap spread more important than giving him $1.5 million? I know the Danny is rich, but if you are going to cut him anyway that is a lot of money to just give to a guy who will be gone anyway. Why not just take your lumps and get it all overwith like they did with Arch Deluxe?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Bill B

Schneed - thanks for the update.

One question here though - I heard on the radio that Brandon Llyod's 2008 roster bonus of $1.5 million is due on March 1, 2008. I know that cutting Llyod post June 1st will spread the cap hit over 2 seasons instead of taking the entire $7.1 million all in 2008. My question is if you are going to cut the guy is the cap spread more important than giving him $1.5 million? I know the Danny is rich, but if you are going to cut him anyway that is a lot of money to just give to a guy who will be gone anyway. Why not just take your lumps and get it all overwith like they did with Arch Deluxe?

Additionally, if he is cut prior to March 1, 2008 under the new June 1 cut rule, do we still have to pay the roster bonus?

Or since March 1 is the first day of the league year, we pretty much have to pay this roster bonus...don't we.

[Bill B]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

We could save $1.6 million by cutting Griffin. This would take him off our books for the future.

Or we could save $2.8 million by restructuring him. This would not only keep him on our books for the future, but would increase the cap charges in that year. So definitely a catch 22 with him.

On Daniels, he's probably a goner. There's opportunity to save $3.0 million by cutting him. Or save $1.4 million by restructuring him.

Schneed - if we cut Daniels wouldn't it be safe to say that the Skins would most likely use their 1st round pick on a DE? If they didn't than who starts at DE for the departed Daniesl - Demitric Evans?

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Bill B

Schneed - thanks for the update.

One question here though - I heard on the radio that Brandon Llyod's 2008 roster bonus of $1.5 million is due on March 1, 2008. I know that cutting Llyod post June 1st will spread the cap hit over 2 seasons instead of taking the entire $7.1 million all in 2008. My question is if you are going to cut the guy is the cap spread more important than giving him $1.5 million? I know the Danny is rich, but if you are going to cut him anyway that is a lot of money to just give to a guy who will be gone anyway. Why not just take your lumps and get it all overwith like they did with Arch Deluxe?

Given the choice between the two, I would be a proponent of sending him packing before March 1, and biting the bullet on his cap hit. This would avoid the $1.5 million bonus payment you're referring to. When you think about it, if the Skins spread Lloyd's dead money over two seasons, they'll just end up restructuring fewer players in '08. If they take the entire hit in 2008, they will be forced to restructure more guys in '08. So you might as well just get him off the books.

But the ideal situation would be to find a taker for Lloyd, kind of like we did with Arch. With Arch, we convinced the Bears to take a $5 million bonus off our hands, which significantly dropped the cap hit we needed to take.

Of course at this point it may be tough to convince a team that Lloyd is worth giving a $1.5 million signing bonus to, but hopefully somebody sees him as an under-utilized non-bum.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Additionally, if he is cut prior to March 1, 2008 under the new June 1 cut rule, do we still have to pay the roster bonus?

Or since March 1 is the first day of the league year, we pretty much have to pay this roster bonus...don't we.

Yeah I think we'd have to pay the roster bonus.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Bill B

Schneed - if we cut Daniels wouldn't it be safe to say that the Skins would most likely use their 1st round pick on a DE? If they didn't than who starts at DE for the departed Daniesl - Demitric Evans?

Good question. That probably plays into the decision to cut Daniels or keep him.

[#56fanatic]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

You and I have butted heads on this before, and I'm not going to get into a big thing again. You are right in that the general principle of restructuring players pushes money off into the future. But if you pick and choose which players you do that for, plus occasionally clear a disappointing player off your books, plus take into account the rising cap limit, you can manage your cap number without coming up against the cap hell. It's not smart to restructure ALL of your players, that's too much pushed into the future. It's also not smart to restructure NONE of your players, because then we'd have to cut a bunch of guys this year. The best approach lies in the middle, the Goldilocks syndrome, just right.

Remember, we shed a bunch of money from the awful Archuleta contract, clearing him off our books this year. Remember, the cap limit is going up by about $8 million in 2008. We weren't in dire straits last year like everyone said, and we won't be in 2008 either.

i wont get into a lenghty discussion on this either. The way things are done now is the reason we see our roster changes every few years. I hope things change in the near future. I am kind of tired of retooling the roster every few years. The signings of Cooley, Sellers, Betts is in the right direction. Keeping draft picks and using them next year will hopefully stop all the overpaid signings. I do think our FO does a good job of working the cap figures, but the costly signings of Lloyd, Arch, Brunell (money and picks) ect hurt us more in the long run because of dead money. cutting lloyd is like 7 million in dead money next year. Arch has to be costing some money too.

[SFREDSKIN]

Originally Posted by Bill B

Schneed - if we cut Daniels wouldn't it be safe to say that the Skins would most likely use their 1st round pick on a DE? If they didn't than who starts at DE for the departed Daniesl - Demitric Evans?

Don't be surprised if it's Chris Wilson, he'll bulk up after the season. The coaches like his upside a lot.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by #56fanatic

i wont get into a lenghty discussion on this either. The way things are done now is the reason we see our roster changes every few years. I hope things change in the near future. I am kind of tired of retooling the roster every few years. The signings of Cooley, Sellers, Betts is in the right direction. Keeping draft picks and using them next year will hopefully stop all the overpaid signings. I do think our FO does a good job of working the cap figures, but the costly signings of Lloyd, Arch, Brunell (money and picks) ect hurt us more in the long run because of dead money. cutting lloyd is like 7 million in dead money next year. Arch has to be costing some money too.

Can't argue with any of this, except to correct that Arch is costing us much. We farmed $5 million in Archuleta dead money off to the Bears. In the grand scheme, Arch is barely a blip on our dead-money radar.

I think the team needed to make free agent acquisitions mainly because Spurrier didn't manage to leave the team chock full of talent. The 'Skins had to make some free agent moves and make some trades to get the players they liked. Those 2004 moves were pretty solid, all in all. But they whiffed miserably on the Archuleta, Lloyd, and Duckett moves, which really hurt the team's depth.

From what I've seen, they now are liking the guys they've drafted, which wasn't the case when Gibbs first took over. Now they're managing the team quite a bit better, IMO.

[CrazyCanuck]

God bless Schneed.

[70Chip]

Aren't we in this situation every year? And don't we always fudge through it? Peter King needs to be more careful and do more research the next time an executive from another team puts him on to a "hot tip". This reeks of the Giants FO to me.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Given the choice between the two, I would be a proponent of sending him packing before March 1, and biting the bullet on his cap hit. This would avoid the $1.5 million bonus payment you're referring to. When you think about it, if the Skins spread Lloyd's dead money over two seasons, they'll just end up restructuring fewer players in '08. If they take the entire hit in 2008, they will be forced to restructure more guys in '08. So you might as well just get him off the books.

But the ideal situation would be to find a taker for Lloyd, kind of like we did with Arch. With Arch, we convinced the Bears to take a $5 million bonus off our hands, which significantly dropped the cap hit we needed to take.

Of course at this point it may be tough to convince a team that Lloyd is worth giving a $1.5 million signing bonus to, but hopefully somebody sees him as an under-utilized non-bum.

The CBA allows us to cut a guy prior to June 1 and designate him a Post June 1 cap casualty and therefore spread it.

We cannot cut him prior to March 1 because it would put us over the cap and cost us cap space next year plus penalties. So he'll most likely be cut March 1 and be designated a June 1 cut. Unless we can figure a way to trade him.

[GTripp0012]

A general rule to follow is NEVER--under any circumstances--restructure the deal of a guy who your team is not confident in at least for the next two seasons. Once you push his SB money into the next few years, it becomes almost possible to sever the deal for the next two seasons without a serious cap hit.

I was against the Jansen restructuring because I didn't know that he had two years left in him. The good news is that, by the time we find out if thats true, those two years will have passed and it will be possible to go another direction with JJ if he has a subpar or injury riddled 2008.

Once you convert base salary into a signing bonus, that is the ultimate vote of confidence in your guy. Do that to too many people, and you pretty much have no roster flexibility whatsoever.

Because of this, the 2008 Redskins are going to look a lot like the 2007 Redskins.