DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Salary Cap Management

Figured this "convo" should be moved out of the player news thread.

Here is the YouTube Video

This is a great video.

34:00 is a great example breaking down contract restructures with players (49ers).
41:00 mark makes reference to what Cleveland is doing and the reasoning as to why.

1:01:00 mark has a Wyatt Teller contract example.

We "omit it" because it is self-evident and yet still has no impact on the "argument" that we're making. Are they supposed to account for all the money as they pay it and thus not be able to afford a team at all in the present? What are you wanting? You want to tell us "water is wet"/contracts will go up like that is something that contradicts what we're telling you rather than simply being a fact of NFL life. Yes contracts will go up and teams have to pick and choose who to pay. "Paying up front" (rather than your putting off paying BS) gives us flexibility/allows us to manipulate the cap to our advantage in the short and long-term.

It would be helpful if the Browns actually had the ability to draft a QB instead of having to buy one. So making the Browns owe tens of millions more in future years is allowing the cap to be "manipulated" to the Browns advantage? You mean for now, for this year for today. Paying the cash out now doesn't change the fact you're just putting it off for tomorrow in terms of the salary cap. I mean if you want to talk about BS.

Now if you want to say they're making a short term window to win a championship and will pay for it later by not having the cap room to keep it all together that's something that makes sense. But it is what it is.

I know you both (and a couple others) know this since you both post his tweets.

So this is for others. My go to person on salary cap information is Jack Duffin. He did an excellent job of breaking down/projecting the Browns roster moves this off season and into the future. Please read his information on the salary cap. There’s a reason Memphis, Bull, Fate, and etc are saying the things they are saying regarding the cap.

Funny enough, the day Duffin became a Browns fan was the day Depo was hired because he was a big fan of his book.

I have no problem buying a QB if that's what we need to do. I mean yes we all want great draft picks and for (insert top QB draft pick here) to work out for the Browns but given that it's hard to do I have no problem buying a QB. But when the contract you hand out is as big as Watson's and fully gauranteed, the guy needs to then be 'THE' guy. While the cap is managable - while it goes up every year - while it can be manipulated - the Cap means that at some point if you have a lot of talent on your roster, you can't keep all of it. And just like anything in life, if you overpay for one shiny object that you think you covet, and it isn't what you expected, there's consequences. Putting aside the aspect of what he was accused of - Watson simply needs to perform and be 'very good'.

There's watson the person and watson the player. The player side of him need to earn that contract or the entire thing is a bust. But yes, what this team has decided to do is hurt the long term implications of the salary cap for a temporary window with watson. It will either pay off or it won't.

Just an FYI on the damage "kicking the can down the road" can do - Conklin's injury may be career ending. If that is the case, the Browns will need to absorb the 27.438M in dead cap next year or split over the next two since Berry has him scheduled out with prorated bonuses until 2028. When you're already scheduled to be 27.841M over the cap next year, an unfortunate injury could double that debt in a wink of the eye when you're just playing "Kicking That Can Down the Road."

On a side note, I'm still worried about Ward and his concussions. Not only is that concern about the health of the man himself, he also carries a dead cap hit for the "Kicking the can down the road" all the way to 2027 if he's forced to retire after this season of 42.044M accounted for either all in 2024 or split between 2024-2025.

After a great win yesterday, it's scary to think a couple of career ending injuries could take this team down in a hurry.

Even if you draft one, if he's any good, you'll end up paying a QB sooner or later. Basically we gave Watson the contract Baker would have gotten if he had actually been good. We spent the money we planned on spending, just on a different QB.

Paying out cash now increases cap space which rolls over affecting the salary cap in the future, too. It doesn't just make room now. If you have the cash, you can keep making room now and for the future. And the room in the future is already naturally increasing without this. It's also good from the players perspective as they can put the full value of their contracts to work for them sooner which could help us entice players at potentially lower overall numbers. If you start making interest now, you'll have more money later.

By the time players get to the point that we "won't be able to keep them together," they will probably be due to be replaced anyways. The average career length in the NFL is only 3.3 years. Its a physical game and players' bodies don't last forever.

Succession planning is a thing we have to worry about. Being able to afford to keep players on the downside of their careers at some undetermined point in the future not so much.

Plus, we may have lucked into a QB with DTR. Jones may help us at OT, too.

Its not kicking the can down the road. Its straightforward planning. Yes, injuries can require changes to the plan, but the approach they are taking does have flexibility to handle/mitigate such a situation baked in.

If the ~$35M in cap space they have now rolls over, are they really $27.841M over the cap next year? Predicting trouble in the future for something they are already addressing now seems a bit Chicken Little-ish.

A couple career ending injuries could take any team down in a hurry.

Damn. Thanks to you and Bull Dawg.

I cringed before I even hit play because all this stuff is very complicated. I only watched from 34:00 on to about 1:10 and learned a lot, not only nuts and bolts, but how it pertains to Haslam, Berry and the Browns.

Bottom line is that there is no real need to get caught up in all the details. The accounting tools made available by the NFL salary cap would make Enron jealous.

The difference between us and other teams is not in the details, but in the approach. The 39:00 mark, and talking about the differences in approach by a team like the Saints and the Browns, exemplifies the difference between Berry's cap management and other teams around the league.

Strong fiscal management = way more flexibility, flexibility means you are never in danger of painting yourself into a corner. Maintaining liquidity, maintaining carry-over cap, walking a fine line with restructures means you're never in danger of choking the life out of available cap.

Berry uses the salary cap like an interest free credit card. He maintains it's interest free status by staying fiscally sound. Staying fiscally sound allows him to easily navigate the future with future money because he's never in danger of paying the bills of now. The Saints could have signed Watson, but that shiny new toy would have been parked in front of a trailer with a leaky roof, mostly because they have put themselves in paycheck-to-paycheck mode.

Combine Berry's next-level understand of the cap that with an owner that can (and is willing to) write any check, and some may say (and have) that you're gaming the system.

It's not Chicken Little-ish when the thought process is the Browns have 35.3M in cap space when in reality 27.8M of that pie is earmarked to cover the 2024 shortfall. That actually only leaves 7.5M for any additional moves this year, FA, and the draft next year plus if they actually lose Conklin add another 24.378M in dead money charge. Keep in mind, the Browns have 11 open roster spots at a minimum to fill too.

The Browns have already restructured Watson, Garrett, Wills, Bitonio, and Njoku in 2023 adding years of prorated bonuses to the future cap charge. Eventually those all come to roost and will affect the Browns ability to keep their players.

As of now, prorated bonuses due in 2024 (which cannot be restructured) has 10 players - Watson 17.977M, Garrett 15,16M, Bitonio 3.6M, Cooper 3.776M, Chubb 4M, Ward 7.68M, Conklin 7.467M, Teller 5.21M, Njoku 4.577M, and Tomlinson 5.042M for 74.489M in prorated bonus with only Watson and Ward having any 2024 salary left to restructure (Cooper and Chubb are in the final year of their contracts and I do not expect Berry to give either player new deals for more money than they make now - Chubb 12M and Cooper 20M).

The 2024 Browns Unrestricted FA's: 6 Starters = People-Jones, Delpit, Walker, Elliott, Takitaki, Bojorquez and 11 backups = Hurst, Phillips, Ford, S. Harris, N. Harris, Adams, Bryant, Forbes, Kunaszyk, Goodwin, and McLeod.

Chicken Little-ish - I don't think so.

Chicken Little didn't think so either. *shrug*

A bunch of (replaceable) players may have to get replaced with younger, cheaper options. That's how the NFL works. Keeping the ones that are irreplaceable is the hard part (including getting them in the first place.)

I see it as we have good players to pay. To me, it's a good thing. Players we don't bring back might actually be good enough to net us some compensatory picks. You and Pit seem to be of the opinion that having good players to pay is somehow a bad thing. You're like, "oh no, we're paying these good players the money they're worth however are we going to find the space to add extraneous good players that we don't actually need because we already have good players."

j/c...

Good read from Jack Duffin on why dead cap is not a bad thing.

Fans and the media worry far more about dead cap than they should. It isn't very relevant if I am honest in terms of previous years' signing and option bonuses. I would rather my team is spending much more than my rivals in a sustainable way in the pursuit of winning. It is like buying something on an interest-free credit card, you have more buying power but you then need to pay it off next year. If you spend 20% of your budget next year every year it is perfectly sustainable as long as your earnings (the salary cap) keep going up.

What you don't want to be doing is eating any guaranteed salary like they had to with Baker Mayfield to facilitate a trade. This is the type of dead cap you want to avoid as you are paying him cash not to play for your team.

My two thoughts.

1. Leave the cap management to the people who actually know what they are talking about. They are paid a lot of money and know how to work and massage the process.

2. Be concerned about your team spending very little money. That leads to a roster with inferior players.

Nice typing job- content great too. JMHO, Jones cost Chiefs one game- he was under contract, yet, PRIDE- and getting his valid worth cost the TEAM one game. Loyalty- it is nice to say, but there is no/little loyalty on either side of the coin. Management wants to get job done- least amount of money- employees want as much as they can get.

Funny, I'm of two minds on this subject- glad FO knows how to use system, players get WAY MORE than they are worth.

In real world, workers normally paid to little and management paid toooooo much. GO Browns!!!

I'll just wait until it all catches up to the browns and let you explain it to me then.

I don't think you're that good at waiting. It could be awhile, and most likely a new GM/owner would be involved.

It's probably true that when that happens the current regime will be fired for the mess they put the team in. You have no idea at how good I am at waiting. But when i do I'll be accused of doing nothing more than saying I told you so. I know how this all works.

That is how it is supposed to pan out. When the window to winning closes you bite the bullet and cut high price players, trade some older players of value for draft picks, pass on free agents and eat the cap hit that hopefully brought your team a Championship or at least a run or two, or three at one. Then start over and hopefully the salary cap has gone up enough that the rebuild is in short order.

I believe that's the way it works too. It seems some have an issue with that line of thinking and feel the dream goes on forever.

There is a difference between waiting and holding on to something forever while constantly bringing it up. We know you can do the latter.

You're right about not knowing how good you are at waiting. I don't think we've ever witnessed you doing it.

And we know that when you can't address a point that is that is brought up you'll consistently shoot the messenger. As I said, we all know how this works.

No, some people see that line of thinking as a fact of NFL life and others see it as an issue.

There is also some debate over the line between rebuilding and reloading. We're used to being in permanent rebuilding. Some teams are able to reload. How long can the window be extended? The method Berry is using seems to be the one that can keep the window open the longest and with good drafting it could be a good long while.

Is there uncertainty there? Of course. Things happen. Still some methods will always be the best you can use, and there's no point complaining that those methods aren't infallible. If the highest paid players on your team all get hurt, your team is going to suck no matter how you handle the cap.

We all know you'll say things like this while all you do is belabor the obvious and pretend people are avoiding addressing it when it has been addressed so many times that people are sick of you repeating it.

Reloading and retooling is just a manner of using a more palatable way to sending the message to your fan base that you're rebuilding. It just sound so much better than being straightforward and honest with them.

As Haslam has said, "It's a marketing world".