Cap affect of paying as you go vs pushing out and having dead space

[Patler]

I couldn't let this fade away without commenting on it!

Trying to prove either side of this argument with just a couple theoretical contract scenarios never really works; the opposite side can always say, "But,... blah, blah, blah." So, instead of examples, I will simply state my conclusions from following what has actually happened over the past thirty years that the cap has existed. As some of you may remember, I followed the cap very closely long before "OverTheCap" "Sportrac" and others existed. I kept notes about Packer players contract details when they were published, because finding the information 6 mos later was next to impossible. I found, printed, and actually read the bargaining agreements going way back, and could answer salary cap questions back in the days of the Journal-Sentinel fan site long before Packerrats and its immediate predecessor existed.

- Contrary to what some have implied, for the most part GB has been conservative in it's cap management approach. Gute wandered from that starting a few years ago, but I think he is finding his way back. (The subject of another thread I will start in the next day or so.)

- GB has been innovative in finding ways to use the cap conservatively. Others followed, and in some instances salary cap rules were changed because of it.

- Can the cap be "cooked"? Sure, but that doesn't mean it should be routinely.

- Salary cap carelessness tends to be cumulative. Like tolerance stacking in machine structures, any one individual deviation can be tolerable, but the combined impact of numerous deviations can cause difficulties. The solution is never "more of the same". You must compensate or correct.

- GB was in such a correction last year and is again this year. They have made a lot of decisions necessitated by the salary cap situations. By and large these were decisions to rely on many more inexperienced players than a team competing for playoffs will do intentionally. Normally, as a result, this team would have been crap last year. With just average drafts it would have been bad. Fortunately for them they put together back-to-back rookie groups the likes of which I do not think I have ever seen. They essentially replaced 2/3 of their front-line players in just two drafts. They found capable players, more than just stop gaps. They didn't hit back-to-back homeruns, they hit consecutive grand slams in the drafts of 2022 and 2023; or so it seems.

- But for the vast number of first contract players performing much, much better than anyone could reasonably expect, salary cap hell would have been a real experience for a couple years in GB.

[Frozen Tundra]

- GB has been innovative in finding ways to use the cap conservatively. Others followed, and in some instances salary cap rules were changed because of it.

Is this one of the elements you're going to go into in greater detail a little later?

[Patler]

- GB has been innovative in finding ways to use the cap conservatively. Others followed, and in some instances salary cap rules were changed because of it.

Is this one of the elements you're going to go into in greater detail a little later?

Probably not, so I'll discuss here.

- In the early years of the salary cap, unused salary cap was "lost". It did not roll over from year to year.

- In calculating salary cap allocations, performance bonuses paid at the conclusion of the season were categorized as either "likely to be earned" or "not likely to be earned". Statistical categories included as "likely to be earned" were defined for the various position groups.

- A "likely to be earned" bonus counted against the salary cap of the year in which it could be earned. A "not likely to be earned" bonus did not have to be accounted for until the salary cap of the following year.

- If a "likely to be earned" bonus was not, in fact, earned, since it had been counted against the salary cap of the year in which it could have been but wasn't earned, the team received a credit for the bonus amount in the salary cap of the following year.

With that in mind, GB and I believe the Eagles were the first to revise contracts for one or two players each year to include bonuses within the category of "likely to be earned", but for players who would not earn them. These revised contracts were signed in the last couple weeks of the seasons. For example, with two weeks left in the season, the backup QB, who had not yet played, would be given a revised contract including a bonus for games played or pass attempts which could not be earned in the games remaining. The bonus amount would be most of their remaining salary cap that year. The player usually received a small signing bonus for cooperating.

In this way, the salary cap was "used" that year, but since the player wouldn't actually earn the bonus, GB received a credit against the cap the following year. In effect, they rolled unused cap from one year to the next.

Surprisingly, other teams were slow to follow this practice. A few did, but not a lot of them for quite a few years. Gradually they did, and eventually the league gave in, and allowed rollover of unused cap without the sham bonuses. It went through some goofy variations to get where it is today.