Andrew Brandt leaves Packers' front office

[Patler]

When Favre signed his contract, it was among the biggest, if not the biggest in the NFL. What Favre has done is honor the contract he signed, and has not demanded that it be renegotiated as others passed him by.

[The Leaper]

When Favre signed his contract, it was among the biggest, if not the biggest in the NFL. What Favre has done is honor the contract he signed, and has not demanded that it be renegotiated as others passed him by.

Patler is 100% correct.

What hurt other teams was having remaining bonus dollars accelerated onto their cap when their stud QB retired...because teams kept reworking their deals and pushing more and more money to the back end of the deal, which caused a problem when they retired. On a side note, guys like Elway and Young were doing their deals very early in the free agent era...which probably contributed to the mistakes made by the teams.

Green Bay was smart and they signed Favre to a lifetime deal when he was still relatively young (31?) so that they could spread his bonus out over the likely years he would be playing...probably with the knowledge that Favre wasn't likely to seek any future renegotiations. Green Bay also had more experience with the cap by the time they signed Favre's last deal...which was well after guys like Elway and Young had already retired.

Favre was the NFL's first $100M player, which is the contract he is still working under. It was a 10 year deal for $100M with a $10M signing bonus, but the signing bonus was accelerated over 6 years...not 10 years.

I believe 2007 was the final year the bonus was prorated into his cap number...so going forward, whenever Favre retires, he will cost nothing against the cap and his entire base salary will become immediately available as cap room.

[pbmax]

Wow, there is a lot to go through. First though, I'd like everyone to dig into their long term memories and remember the days of Mike Reinfeldt, capologist. Dorsey Leven's holdout (and the resulting ankle injury that should haunt Holmgren to this day), Ross Verba's holdout.

While many people could master the intricacies of the cap given time and study, signing players has nearly as much to do with persuasion as with dollars.

Agents and players need something to toot their horn about, especially since agents land players based on the total dollar number and the guaranteed number. Several publications claimed Reinfeldt wanted a public win in negotiations and Brandt, a former agent, was less confrontational.

Whether the player will get that money is often secondary. That's why roster and option bonuses (weekly or yearly, falling off the log or impossible to attain) were a nice feature for the teams. Agents and players could leak huge sums to the media and claim they were guaranteed, when in reality, the team had significant protection.

This job is not as tough as talent evaluation, but it can still be done badly. Just ask Russell and the Raiders or Quinn and the Browns.

[HarveyWallbangers]

I think the point is that teams have gotten better over time. Many teams are projected to be well under the cap, and not just because they cap has gone up. Teams are better at managing the cap. Before, you needed a good one. Now, you just need not to have a bad one. I'm sure there are people that can adequately replace him. Now, it's up to Thompson to find one of those people. He seems to have a lot of connections around the NFL, so I trust he will do so.

[MJZiggy]

Is it Thompson's job to replace him or Murphy's?

[The Leaper]

Is it Thompson's job to replace him or Murphy's?

Brandt's position would report to Murphy, not Thompson.

[vince]

Leap that contradicts what is in the article GB posted above.

As salary-cap manager, Brandt worked directly under General Manager Ted Thompson and had advanced as far as he could on the football side of the organization.

Thompson today was attending a college all-star game for NFL prospects in El Paso, Texas, and was unavailable for comment, though he said in a statement released by the team that he has people to handle the cap until he hires a new cap manager.

[pbmax]

Agree, I think Reinfeldt, when he was CFO reported to Harlan, but when they went to negotiator/capologist, that fell under the GM.

Leap that contradicts what is in the article GB posted above.

As salary-cap manager, Brandt worked directly under General Manager Ted Thompson and had advanced as far as he could on the football side of the organization.

Thompson today was attending a college all-star game for NFL prospects in El Paso, Texas, and was unavailable for comment, though he said in a statement released by the team that he has people to handle the cap until he hires a new cap manager.

[Rastak]

I will give Brandt (or whoever had the idea) credit for the latest clever approach, giving weekly bonuses based on being on the active roster. for players with injury histories at was a very creative approach.

Wasn't Rastak talking about how the Vikings were already doing a lot of these things that Brandt did? I don't know whether it is a big loss or not. Like people have said, once a couple of teams had a cap guru who started finding all the loopholes, they weren't a lot of secrets left. Most teams are now exploiting these loopholes.

I mentioned tje LTBE stuff a while back but not the weekly bonuses thing. That's Brandt. The Vikings did use the LTBE trick before most teams.

I did think all along and have said so on many many occasions that Brandt was pretty good at hammering out contracts that seemed to benefit the Packers more than the players. That actually may have caused some rifts in the past. Maybe that will be avoided in the future.

[GBRulz]

Is it Thompson's job to replace him or Murphy's?

Brandt's position would report to Murphy, not Thompson.

that is incorrect, please try again.

TT and the executive committee reports to Murphy.