Packers free up nearly 25 million in cap space by doing nothing

[Warfish]

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, HawkeyeJet said:

The salary cap in the NFL is supposed to be their answer to competitive balance.

It is, better than any other professional sports league (esp. when combined with TV revenue sharing).

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, HawkeyeJet said:

As an average fan, I don’t think  it comes anywhere close to doing that.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I think most folks would agree you're wrong.

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, HawkeyeJet said:

Too many loopholes and ways around it.  If the Packers want nearly the same team back next year, they can find a way to do it.

Smart Management > Less Smart Management.

Just like with Tax Accountants.

Not seeing the problem here.  If a team is poor at managing the Cap, hire better Managers.

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, HawkeyeJet said:

At  most, it seems the cap just allows teams to kick the cam down the road until their window closes anyway, then they can just do what the Jets are doing now and start over from bare bones trying to amass tons of picks.  

Yes.  Not sure what the objection is here, honestly.

Are you saying the league would be better off if we broke up the Packers (or their equivalent) every year, and the Packers had no way to retain any of their star players?  

Also, "doing nothing" is not the same as "doing logistical switching of bonus money yada yada".  There is alot more to the yada, so much so that a yada is not appropriate.  It takes real smarts and effort to manage the cap, to know the rules, and to exploit it to the best interests of the team.  It's certainly not "doing nothing".

[Biggs]

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, HawkeyeJet said:

I have to preface this by saying I’m no cap and/or contract guru nor do I care to be.

That said, the NFL salary cap seems to be a complete farce and incredibly easily to manipulate.  

The Packers, who are anticipated to be about 50 million dollars over the cap, cleared out nearly half that amount by basically doing logistical switching of bonus money yada yada.

The salary cap in the NFL is supposed to be their answer to competitive balance.  As an average fan, I don’t think  it comes anywhere close to doing that.  Too many loopholes and ways around it.  If the Packers want nearly the same team back next year, they can find a way to do it.  

At  most, it seems the cap just allows teams to kick the cam down the road until their window closes anyway, then they can just do what the Jets are doing now and start over from bare bones trying to amass tons of picks.  

You are confused about why there is a salary cap.  It's to protect the owners revenue.  Rinse and repeat.  It is not about competitive balance.

The object of competitive balance should be to improve the quality of bad teams not shuffle the board.  There has to be some integrity of the game that rewards teams for discovery and development of talent that includes retention.   Good teams being forced to renegiotate contracts to retain talent is a huge plus for the integrity of the game by rewarding team building.   If teams simply had to cut good players who's value goes up the league would be in hard decline.  

[PFSIKH]

21 hours ago, johnnysd said:

The NFL has a "soft" cap. It is there specifically to allow these types of moves to let them keep players. It only can go so far and eventually it catches up with you but they are not doing anything different than all other teams can do. Doing this though really puts the entire team on the brink. If they start getting injuries to these overpaid players they can see themselves completely devoid of talent and a bottom dwelling team. Teams like NO and Dallas now essentially face fire sales to get under the cap.

I am not a fan of this approach. Tannenbaum used it and we would up with a very small window of being good.

That said in the case of someone like Schultz the Jets should consider doing things like this to allow them to overpay him but not really affect the cap for a few years.

The NFL has a hard cap. 

I agree there are mechanisms in place to allow teams to massage the cap, but unlike the NBA you cannot exceed the cap.

[rangerous]

On 2/26/2022 at 8:43 PM, JoJoTownsell1 said:

People were saying the same thing the last few years with the Cowboys when they kept restructuring players and giving out huge contracts to Dak/Zeke etc.. Now the Cowboys have to decide between cutting Amari Cooper or Gallup, possibly one of Lawrence/Gregory and/or letting Dalton Schultz walk.

If you have a narrow window (like the Packers with an aging Rodgers) it can definitely make sense but it's not as easy and it does have consequences for teams that don't want to just tear it down in a couple of years (see Dallas 2022). 

yep.  and before them the niners had some serious issues dealing with the cap but in their case i think eddie d was paying players under the table.  in any case the cap is real and needs to be accounted for no matter how many loopholes people perceive.

[JohnnyLV]

4 hours ago, PFSIKH said:

The NFL has a hard cap. 

I agree there are mechanisms in place to allow teams to massage the cap, but unlike the NBA you cannot exceed the cap.

You would be wrong about that. The NFL is definitely a very soft cap. And even softer than the NBAs

 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/25/nfl-nba-salary-cap-guaranteed-contracts-money-franchise-tag

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/03/02/business-of-football-understanding-the-salary-cap-dead-money#:~:text=The NFL does not have,all other sports leagues%3A proration.

 

[PFSIKH]

18 hours ago, johnnysd said:

You would be wrong about that. The NFL is definitely a very soft cap. And even softer than the NBAs

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/25/nfl-nba-salary-cap-guaranteed-contracts-money-franchise-tag

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/03/02/business-of-football-understanding-the-salary-cap-dead-money#:~:text=The NFL does not have,all other sports leagues%3A proration.

 

Yeah, but.....

We can agree to disagree on his defintion of an NFL hard/soft cap, but to say the NFL is softer is BS. 

9 NFL teams are over the cap, but need to be under the cap by the start of the league year.  Every team needs to be under the salary cap by the start of the league year.  No exceptions.  Teams over the salary cap limit will need to cut, trade or re-work the contracts of current players to get under the cap by that date.  Reportedly, the Packers are now only 28 million over the cap.  This is why A-Aron is driving sports radio and podcasts.  "The Packers have to do something.  What will they do?"  This is why the 10th best corner in the league is driving the sports media talking points in New England.  "Tag, extend or let him test the market....you choose."

29 of the 30 NBA teams are over the cap this year.  27 of the 30 were over the cap last season.  When was the last time the Wariors were under the cap?  There is a Bird Exception, Early Bird, Non-Bird, Mid-level, Bi-Annual, etc, etc, etc.  Yet, this NBA offseason, we will not see any reports pondering on how the Warriors will get under the cap.  Or the Nets, Lakers, basically everyone not named the Thunder.  There will be no "do the Warriors cut Steph, Klay and/or Wigggins?" stories.   The NBA offseason stories will be the draft and how do the best FA gets signed by one of the top teams which on average are 40 million over the cap.  

Yeah, to his point, the Patriots spent an NFL record last offseason in signing bonuses.  Hard?  Probably not, maybe softish, but it is a lot harder than the NBA's.

[bitonti]

Good teams manipulate the cap by paying their veterans money

the Jets, a bad team, have no vets on long money. Except for CJ, who no one wants to extend 

the Jets today could free up 20 million dollars by extending Fant (5th highest cap hit) and McGovern (6th highest cap hit). Just by spreading out that money, the free cap could be used for an Allen Robinson or a Dalton Schultz. 

instead the team pretends they are frugal by keeping cap unspent. Rarely extending vets. Rolling over unspent cap every year. And let's not forget trading assets (accelerating cap hits, making it seems like the team is spending more than it is). 

Meanwhile when the Jets actually play the Packers, on the field ,fans wonder why the Jets are so badly outgunned. It's not just because they draft better. 

spoiler alert it doesn't take 10 years to rebuild a roster - players only last 3 years on average 

a team that's committed to spending money can load up a roster with talent quickly. They can move on from their mistakes like how Carolina will do with Darnold. 

the Jets have figured out that losing cheaply makes them more profit than spending money and winning.

[Dunnie]

Eventually the tax man cometh ...you can only kick the can so far.