Why Do You Love Cap Space?

[TuscanyTile2]

2 hours ago, Waka Flocka Flacco said:

"Explain how!"

[ZachWilsonRightArm]

It gives me hope for a better tomorrow. 

Having the cap space gives me glimmer of excitement; a reason to believe that maybe one day we’ll be at a level where on any given Sunday the Jets will have a shot to win a football game. 
 

Having the actual talent on your team, that’s easy… having the cap space however, that’s intrigue, suspense; it could be great and unite us all, or it could cause division within the fan base. 

Screw the player, give me cap space. 

[Jetsfan80]

My preference is for the Jets to spend cap space on players the team drafted.  Otherwise you're spending a lot of money on mercenaries, many of which who were rejected by their own teams for good reason, without having an established core.  That tends to lead to disaster.

Unfortunately those homegrown players worth re-signing here are few and far between.  Hopefully that will change quickly.  

[Sonny Werblin]

The bottom line is NOT having cap space is bad unless you have a superbowl quality team. The Jets ain't even close and signing high ticket free agents now, before their is an answer at QB would not make them a superbowl team.

[Dunnie]

Cap space is a good thing for bad teams... watch the Browns implode over the next 2-3 years hamstrung by their ludicrous contracts and revel in the fact that JD has a higher IQ.

Cap space is good if you did not overspend on average free agents or cripple your future with exorbitant dollars handed out to aging vets.

Essentially, you save cap space until your competative window is open and even then you only pay contracts that equal the value coming back.

[Fantasy Island]

Crap space.  It means nothing.

[Scott Dierking]

25 minutes ago, Fantasy Island said:

Crap space.  It means nothing.

Unless...... You don't have it.

Ask the Giants how they have loved their offseason free agency spending to improve their team and fill spots.

[PackerNation]

I love when fan bases of teams that your team steamrolls on a regular basis, come back with: "Your team is good, but you gonna be in cap hell for years."

Funny how that never seems to change things. There are always ways to move money around and manipulate the cap. The cap will also be rising again significantly over the next few years. 

[Sperm Edwards]

16 minutes ago, Scott Dierking said:

Unless...... You don't have it.

Ask the Giants how they have loved their offseason free agency spending to improve their team and fill spots.

Or the Jets after burning through it in recent years to spend on “mercenaries” (e.g. Trumaine Johnson) and “home grown” players (Mo Wilkerson).

@Beerfish alluded to it best. It’s not a matter of using it or not using it for the sake of doing so; it’s that this team hasn’t had/drafted anyone for whom it’s worth using it. It’s not like the team is saving it for the sake of saving it (triggering bitonti here to tell us about the NYJ’s cash-poor owner), so much as there’ve been so few this team has drafted who’ve been worth using it towards these major extensions.

The last one who was able to land a major contract is Adams - a safety ffs - and he not only sucks but the team got those two 1sts (and more) for him. People who were bitching about it then are mostly now silent about dumping him onto a team that then had to part with its HOF QB within a year of that Adams contract. 

[Dcat]

20 hours ago, Barry McCockinner said:

 

I need cap space because I have a large head.

[Biggs]

Teams with lots of cap space generally can't draft or develop good players.  Having a lot of cap space is the sign of a failing organization.  

[Scott Dierking]

1 hour ago, Biggs said:

Teams with lots of cap space generally can't draft or develop good players.  Having a lot of cap space is the sign of a failing organization.  

That is a great oversimplification, ant only partly true. Cap space can be reflective of many things:

-The relative age and maturity of the roster (and yes, this can be reflective of poor drafting in the past).

-How much they have "kicked the can down the road" (restructuring contracts in the past, and finally have to pay the piper).

-Lumping some structures into specific years, knowing that they can face one lean year, with a huge ability to fill need in the next year.

-Poor free agent pick-ups and having to eat guarantees that went unfulfilled through the life of a contract.

And more.

In the NFL, as in life, a fool and their money are quickly parted. The Jets have been that fool in the past, pinning hopes on luck and catching the right wave. Usually a fruitless exercise (although I must say the Rams did it well this year--but they were well positioned).

Douglas recognizes where this team is, and he has invested in young players, leadership types that is they work out, can remain with this roster past their initial free agent contract. That is needed because of the poor drafting in the past.

Yes, you are correct to a degree, but there is much more, and a lot of it should depend on where your roster is at any particular point in time. 

[Sperm Edwards]

21 minutes ago, Scott Dierking said:

That is a great oversimplification, ant only partly true. Cap space can be reflective of many things:

-The relative age and maturity of the roster (and yes, this can be reflective of poor drafting in the past).

-How much they have "kicked the can down the road" (restructuring contracts in the past, and finally have to pay the piper).

-Lumping some structures into specific years, knowing that they can face one lean year, with a huge ability to fill need in the next year.

-Poor free agent pick-ups and having to eat guarantees that went unfulfilled through the life of a contract.

And more.

In the NFL, as in life, a fool and their money are quickly parted. The Jets have been that fool in the past, pinning hopes on luck and catching the right wave. Usually a fruitless exercise (although I must say the Rams did it well this year--but they were well positioned).

Douglas recognizes where this team is, and he has invested in young players, leadership types that is they work out, can remain with this roster past their initial free agent contract. That is needed because of the poor drafting in the past.

Yes, you are correct to a degree, but there is much more, and a lot of it should depend on where your roster is at any particular point in time. 

This season the Jets are not merely using up their entire cap (or within a couple million that every team carries for in-season moves). They're also doing so with a bare minimum of current "dead" cap space i.e. it's all going towards active players/contracts.

Plus how much of these new signings are backloaded; if they were split more evenly that'd have used up another $25MM more this season.

• Tomlinson hitting the cap at $5MM this season and $17MM/yr the next 2 seasons;
• Reed hitting this year $4.6MM and then $14MM/yr the next 2 seasons;
• Whitehead $4MM this year $10MM next year;
• Conklin $3.6MM this season and $8.4MM/yr the next 2 seasons;
• Berrios $3.7MM this year $8.2MM next year;
• Uzomah $3MM this year, $10MM/yr the next 2 seasons;
• Jake Martin $2MM this year, $6MM next year (& $5MM in y3 if he's still here).

While it isn't unconventional, it's also true those contract structures kept more cap room this year artificially, as a just in case (e.g. an opportunity like Hill). There are also plenty of outs, which I'd expect him to exercise based upon performance and whatever other contracts & opportunities present themselves.

In looking at the above backloaded contracts, plus making an offer to trade multiple high draft picks + a $30MM/yr contract for Hill, there's another take-home lesson this offseason, about the types of things claimed to be surely known that this GM will not do, based upon his first two full offseasons.