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

[RashanGary]

I'm not saying one approach is inherently better than the other. I am saying they aren't equivalent.

Agree. Depends on the situation.

Signing your own sends a message of loyalty
Signing your own is less risky because you have medicals and a clearer picture of what their assignments are
Signing your own, you know how trust worthy the person is

For a number of reasons, you don’t want to be signing UFA and letting your guys go.



There are as many unique situations as there are stars in the sky. Sometimes your guys you drafted are ass holes. No one in the lockerroom blinks when you let an ass hole leave. So ALWAYS signing your own doesn’t make sense.

Nor does NEVER dipping in UFA. Everyone knows when Oren Burks is holding the team back. No one’s gonna be offended if you brought in Fred Warner.

I think the method that would give you the best chance is to draft well. But no one can do that consistently. It’s just never happened. Same way a hitter in baseball doesn’t go 2 for 2 or better every game. It’s just never happened and I’d bet everything I have it will never happen.

So you draft well first. And then you sign your best players (good people, high performance, all the things that go into “best”.) If you have a bad draft or two, I think you’re better to front load a little than to bring in a bunch of UFAs. Maybe you aren’t quite as good one year, but youll be able to sign all your good ones that come up a year or two later.

So kind of bounce between front loading or backloading depending on the opportunities available. And by opportunities, I mean opportunities to sign your own as priority number 1.

If you don’t draft well, ever, and you just suck, sure, sign a bunch of UFAs to try to save your job. But you getting fired either way. My game plan only works if you can perform in the draft more often than the average.

[RashanGary]

It’s really adaptability and flexibility with tendencies to lean toward the processes that give the highest probability for success. Any contract is rolling dice. But if it’s a guy you’ve seen for 4 years it’s more like rolling 3 dice instead of only having 2. If you only get to throw dice a limited number of times, you want to be rolling 3 dice as often as you can. And you might even wait a year to roll again because you’d rather when you do roll, you get the best chance.

But even that’s not absolute. If you feel like you’re soooooo close, maybe you’re like fuck it, I’m rolling 2 dice. I like my chances of a title right now with 2 dice more than my chances next year with 3. There are scenarios when taking the lower probability roll pay off too. Or you’re just feeling nervous and you jump the gun and get lucky.

It’s never ending scenarios, but there are some things that are proven to give you a better chance. Drafting well and signing your own should be the centerpiece of your operation.

[texaspackerbacker]

Dontcha just love theoretical shit? hahahaha

Yes, RG, you probably do need a hobby. It is admirable that you "did the math" as they say. It's also admirable that you concluded that I'm right - although you coulda just taken my word for it. Honestly, though, it's not merely "my" idea. It's what most successful teams/GMs do most of the time. Teams not doing it are not maximizing things. Sometimes, you can get by with that not maximizing - Ol' Ted for many years with GOAT QBs or KC as somebody pointed out, also with a GOATish QB. Probably other examples could be dug up too, but in general, maximizing is better than not maximizing.

It's also true that this whole topic is simplistic if you don't include context - like whether you have enough good players worth keeping that the cap even becomes a factor or if you're blessed with a lot of first contract talent that the cap isn't a factor (maybe the current Packers) or whether some free agent pops up that will make a difference, and you don't have cap space without doing something creative (maybe also the current Packers).

[sharpe1027]

I don't think you'll find many people that think you should never backload a contract. When people say things like the cap doesn't mean anything because you can just keep kicking the can down the road, well yeah, they start disagreeing. It's just not entirely true.

[RashanGary]

I don't think you'll find many people that think you should never backload a contract. When people say things like the cap doesn't mean anything because you can just keep kicking the can down the road, well yeah, they start disagreeing. It's just not entirely true.

Agree. Not true at all. This exercise shows that after a few years of kicking the can down the road as far as you can kick it, you have no advantage at all because the dead cap offsets whatever kicking you try to do.

But Tex is absolutely right that you’re never in “cap hell” and have to start over. You can always continually kick and be no worse off than a team that refuses to kick.

But a team that wasn’t kicking and then decides to kick at an opportune time, they do have an advantage over either of the above teams.

[RashanGary]

What’s more important than “when you pay” is “who you’re paying.” Whether you pay 80M in 4 years or 80M in 5 years for 4 years of service, you still paid 80M for four years of service.

If you’re always willing to pay later you pay no more so have no less.

But if you sign bad contracts (Bakh after injury,) that’s a different story.

[RashanGary]

If there’s anything we should really put our energy into analyzing, we should be analyzing if the player is worth the paycheck, not when the money gets doled out.

[RashanGary]

A core difference in this aspect of “paying later” that I think makes it hard to understand is that unlike the credit we’re used to getting in real life, this credit has no interest. It’s not the same as credit cards or loans.

Each year is a new cap so you’ll always have somewhere to push it if that’s the route you want to take, you’ll never be in “cap hell”, you’ll never have to “start over” and you’ll never pay a penny of interest. In fact, if two teams pay 80M for 4 years for the same player, but one team pays later…. Neither team paid a penny more and neither team is worse off for it.

[sharpe1027]

Player contract #1
Signing bonus $5M
SALARY
Y1 $10M
Y2 $15M
Y3 $20M
Y4 $20M
Total= $70M

Contract #2
$40M signing bonus
Y1 $1m
Y2 $4M
Y3 $10M
Y4 $15M

$70M total compensation.

Player can't stay on the field due to constant hamstring problems and sleeps with the star QBs wife.

Contract #1 you cut him year 2 and he's only counting $4M against your cap. Contract #2 he counts $30M. It doesn't happen every time thst you want to cut or trade a plaher before the contract runs out. But it does happen and you'll pay more on average with the second approach.

[texaspackerbacker]

Agree. Not true at all. This exercise shows that after a few years of kicking the can down the road as far as you can kick it, you have no advantage at all because the dead cap offsets whatever kicking you try to do.

But Tex is absolutely right that you’re never in “cap hell” and have to start over. You can always continually kick and be no worse off than a team that refuses to kick.

But a team that wasn’t kicking and then decides to kick at an opportune time, they do have an advantage over either of the above teams.

Exactly. I would absolutely HATE it if a team I'm a fan of tore down to rebuild, as a few occasionally have done in the NFL as well as in MLB and other sports.

Sharpe's example is valid too, but it would be rare enough to be irrelevant.

[sharpe1027]

Exactly. I would absolutely HATE it if a team I'm a fan of tore down to rebuild, as a few occasionally have done in the NFL as well as in MLB and other sports.

Sharpe's example is valid too, but it would be rare enough to be irrelevant.

Bahktiari could have been cut last year if not for his accelerated cap hit being enormous. Instead we were forced to carry $21M in wasted cap that could have been used elsewhere. We can cut him this year but it's $20M dead cap wasted.

Rodgers cost over $20M last year that we wouldn't have had to deal with if not for a huge signing bonuses.

It happens plenty.

[ThunderDan]

Player contract #1
Signing bonus $5M
SALARY
Y1 $10M
Y2 $15M
Y3 $20M
Y4 $20M
Total= $70M

Contract #2
$40M signing bonus
Y1 $1m
Y2 $4M
Y3 $10M
Y4 $15M

$70M total compensation.

Player can't stay on the field due to constant hamstring problems and sleeps with the star QBs wife.

Contract #1 you cut him year 2 and he's only counting $4M against your cap. Contract #2 he counts $30M. It doesn't happen every time thst you want to cut or trade a plaher before the contract runs out. But it does happen and you'll pay more on average with the second approach.

This is exactly what the cook the cap group doesn't understand. As soon as you have to cut a player who you kicked a contract down the road you are screwed.

Just look at the 2024 Packers. If we hadn't dealt ARod to NY and took the cap hit last year, we would be $40,000,000 over the cap. You could cut Bacht, Jones, Smith, Clark and Campbell to get cap relief of $34 M. We would still be $6,000,000 over the cap.

Love walks because we have no cap room to sign him to a contract.

You can't extend players on their first contracts until the final year, so there are no games to be played there with our promising up-and-comers.

[ThunderDan]

And just so APB doesn't have to get his panties in a bunch, the Packers have plenty of cash to pay all of their players.

[RashanGary]

Player contract #1
Signing bonus $5M
SALARY
Y1 $10M
Y2 $15M
Y3 $20M
Y4 $20M
Total= $70M

Contract #2
$40M signing bonus
Y1 $1m
Y2 $4M
Y3 $10M
Y4 $15M

$70M total compensation.

Player can't stay on the field due to constant hamstring problems and sleeps with the star QBs wife.

Contract #1 you cut him year 2 and he's only counting $4M against your cap. Contract #2 he counts $30M. It doesn't happen every time thst you want to cut or trade a plaher before the contract runs out. But it does happen and you'll pay more on average with the second approach.

There isn’t an example in the last 20 years of the contract you listed first. Nothing even in the ballpark. So that’s not really something we should be considering in this discussion. The second contract had 41M guaranteed and the first had 15 million guaranteed. Those aren’t the same thing.

If you wanted to compare equal contracts that way, you’d have to knock team 2s signing bonus down to 14M

[RashanGary]

Im chilling with my son so don’t have time to draw up comparable 70M deals with comparable guaranteed money. But we really do have to set what you just typed up aside and move into something that actually applies to the NFL and also something with similar guarantees.

[sharpe1027]

There isn’t an example in the last 20 years of the contract you listed first. Nothing even in the ballpark. So that’s not really something we should be considering in this discussion. The second contract had 41M guaranteed and the first had 15 million guaranteed. Those aren’t the same thing.

If you wanted to compare equal contracts that way, you’d have to knock team 2s signing bonus down to 14M

Seriously? Your example is not real either. The purpose of my example just to show the difference between pushing money into later years using the signing bonus.

[CaptainKickass]

Yeah. I'm nitpicking. Since "simplistic" already means so simple that it denotes a lack of understanding of the issue, the use of "too" is, well, too much.

Next, try to teach what seems like the entire sports universe, the super important vocabulary lesson highlighting the proper use of Dominant vs Dominate which I maintain is a fool's errand - yet find their repeated misuse annoying as fuck.

Example of proper use:
Gute has been dominant in the two previous drafts.
Gute will dominate the upcoming draft.

For the sake of thread integrity here's some broad kicking the cap:






This has mostly been a simplistic public service message.

[RashanGary]

Seriously? Your example is not real either. The purpose of my example just to show the difference between pushing money into later years using the signing bonus.

There is a huge difference between what I did and what you did.

Taking cap hits earlier as one method happens. Likewise, structuring so the hits are taken later with void years to pay even later is another method. Teams really do use both methods.

Using simple contracts help illustrate a point. That’s not the issue I have. You used your example to surmise that paying later means you can’t get out of a contract as easy. I think we can both easily agree that what you actually showed was that guaranteeing less money makes it easier to get out of a contract sooner. So the actual difference is when you get a player to sign a horrible contract for himself, the team wins. And yes, I do agree to that. But it really has nothing to do with what we’re talking about here. This is about the cap hits, not about suckering players into horrible deals. We need a new thread for that.

[RashanGary]

Come back with similar guarantees and show the same money distributed the two different ways and then we can see if it’s easier to get out of in the second year. Hint, hint, it’s not. So you don’t need to waste your time.

[RashanGary]

And yes, I’m being a dick like bobble. I, too, am an asshole. But I’m a little insulted by the argument. It’s not genuine and I know you know the difference so I’m firing back.