Sperm: Question about Payroll

[nj meadowlands]

Where is a site where I can see the most accurate numbers, and what does it mean when the Patriots' payroll is $115M, the highest in the NFL. What does that cover, etc.

[Sperm Edwards]

Where is a site where I can see the most accurate numbers, and what does it mean when the Patriots' payroll is $115M, the highest in the NFL. What does that cover, etc.

aec4 & I forget who else both used to keep sites. Neither one has made an update in over a year. I was starting to put a database together & then I lost interest (takes a while to gather everything & extrapolate it for each year).

So for team totals, you're on your own. For individual player totals, use the nflpa's website and google. NFLPA active player search (http://www.nflpa.org/Resources/ActivePlayerSearch.aspx) shows only BASE SALARIES. It does NOT include signing bonuses, roster bonuses, or incentive bonuses (LTBE or ULTBE). For those, you have to hit google & look up, for example, "Thomas Jones" + "signing bonus" or "Thomas Jones" + "contract" + "Jets" or stuff like that.

A player's cap # is the sum total of:

- the signing bonus (SB) divided by the # of years ($10M SB on a 5-year deal means $2M comes off the cap each year)

- the player's salary

- roster bonuses (if any)

- any incentives tied in to playing time or performance. Likely to be earned (LTBE) incentives count against the current year's cap whether they're met or not. Unlikely (ULTBE) count against next year's cap if met. If LTBE incentives are not met, the team gets that much in extra cap room the following year. For example, say CP had a $1M incentive bonus for 2007 if he started 16 games. Since he started 16 games last year, it's considered LTBE. But we know already that he hasn't/won't. So next year, the Jets' cap limit would be $1M higher since they were unjustly penalized the prior season.

When a player is cut prior to June 1st, his salary no longer counts. If he was paid any roster bonus it still counts (like we gave Kimo a $700K or so roster bonus in March then we cut him anyway; that $700K still counted against our 2007 cap). Then you have to calculate the accelerated cap hit.

Use an example of a player given a 5 year contract with a $10M SB. Each year $2M comes off the cap for the signing bonus. But if we cut him after year two, then only $4M of the $10M had come off the cap so far. Since we paid it to him & he cashed the check, it has to come off our cap. So that would leave $6M left. If he's cut (or traded) before June 1st, the entire $6M accelerates to the current season. If he's cut after June 1st, I think only the $2M that was scheduled to come off counts for this year & the other $4M would count the following season. (I believe teams are now allowed to allocate a player or a couple of players as "post-6/1 cuts" even if done before 6/1, meaning the team gets to choose. Was probably part of the new CBA as it helps teams out & usually helps players out by letting them hit FA before every other team has busted its nut on other FA's already).

So now you read that the Patriots have the highest "payroll" in the league this year. If you got it from the site that posted it for each team in the past few months (might have been NY Times but can't remember), there were a LOT of errors on it. But say for the sake of argument that NE does have the highest payroll this year at $115M. Technically it means that's how much they're writing in checks to players from the beginning of March 2007 through the end of February 2008 (the end of the '07 season). A number like that (I'm guessing) would include both salaries & bonuses paid. So if they gave out $30M in signing bonuses in this example, it appears they have a higher payroll than another team. They can still stay under the cap b/c as I illustrated above, the signing bonus money gets amortized over the length of the contract. So while they may have paid out $30M in signing bonuses this year, only $5-6M of it might count against the cap this year. The catch is that the $5-6M will come off the cap each year for the next 5-6 years (depending on the specifics of those deals).

That's how you wonder how a team can seem to be in such lousy cap shape even though they don't seem to have any (or many) players with exorbitant base salaries. If they paid out a lot in SB's and then cut/traded the player, it creates a LOT of dead cap space. This is what makes certain players virtually "uncuttable" unless they are a total cancer/disruption to the team (Charles Rogers; Mike Williams - both of them, lol; etc). Either that, or even though the dead-cap space is high, the player's scheduled salary was so high that taking a huge one-time hit may still be cheaper in the short run (and infinitely so in the long run); this is what happened with Randy Moss, though they look pretty stupid (as usual) right about now.