Official Packers 2023 Free Agency Thread

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Uncool Pack fans seem to think “dead money” is cold, hard cash. Cut Cletidus Clark and the Packers get hit with $21M in “dead money.” Uncool Pack fans think that’s $21M down the drain. Truth is, cutting Cletidus actually frees up $18M in cold, hard cash to spend on other players, preferably a Wu-Tang rock catcher. Not to mention, the Packers save $3M against their cap!

I, a minimum-wage burger flipper (who has passed the Wisconsin CPAs), might’ve pissed away $10,000 at the poker tables in the last two years. That 10K is indeed “dead money,” money already burnt. And yes, that is a fucked opportunity cost issue for yours truly, as I constantly earn a real wage of below $7.25/hr ($7.25 + 2% annual raise, minus 5-15% inflation).

But suppose ThunderDan hires me today for an entry level CPA position with a starting salary of $60,000. Suddenly, with the increase in income, I have more spending power. Suddenly, that 10K is no longer an issue.

The NFL salary cap is not constant. So long as revenues continue to soar in the NFL, the cap will, too, continue to soar. Thus, “dead money” ain’t a fucking issue. The cap, therefore, merely serves as an excuse for the pig owners to cut labor expenses. The cap can always be cooked.

Btw, the only reason the Aints are drenched in the ILLUSION of a so-called “cap hell,” is because of, well, let’s just call it an abnormality - an abnormality that not even the NFL’s hotshot economists could forecast. Things are getting back to normal. Revenues continue to soar. And Bezos is gonna make it rain soon.

Mic drop!

[NewsBruin]

You're looking at it like it's a finite situation - even if you extend it and talk about a ten year period instead of just the current one. It's not. By the end of that ten year period you're talking about, you start spending well on into the next five or ten years, and so on and so on. You can keep on kicking the can down the road as long as you need to. That would be the case even if the cap wasn't increasing - which, of course it is. Not doing that would put you at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the league - which has experts who realize exactly how to take advantage that way - call it cooking or whatever you want to call it.

That's true that you could continually bonus-and-extend players season over season, but there will come a time where you really want to have that cap room available for some purpose, such as when your cheap 1st-round QB gets his first big-boy contract extension, or your 6th-round CB makes his 2nd pro bowl in a row, or when there's a crop of WRs who are set to be free agents. Or when you see there's a year with no advertising/broadcast contracts being renewed and your cap stagnates or drops from last season.

Like I said earlier, if you bonus-and-extend, you had better do it for players you expect will be around for those contracts. Otherwise, you have to watch the free-agent parade from a closed window, or, like the Saints, you have to cut players with unguaranteed salaries to cover the players who have already gone.

[bobblehead]

You're right. They don't get cut. They become free agents and the void years are paid out over several years instead of accelerating in 2023.

So the 2023 cap hits for players with void years would be:

Adrian Amos (2.25 million)
Dean Lowry (622K)
Mason Crosby (335K)
Marcedes Lewis (525K)
Robert Tonyan (500K)
Jarran Reed (373K)
Randall Cobb (1.4 million)

Those are all very manageable. The larger problem is that by doing the guarantee thing they are locked into a huge number for Bak. He has a pretty big salary, and a really big hit for the signing bonus, plus that converted to signing bonus. It bit them in the ass with Z. IIRC we entered this season with 24.5 million dead cap money and next year is worse. The only solution is more voidable years to "soft land" or one really rough year to course correct. Personally, now that Bak is looking good again, I would course correct by trading him and Rodgers. Suck it up and be below average in 2023, but enter 2024 with a healthy cap and a lot of young talent both currently on the roster and from the trades of those 2 for picks.

[bobblehead]

You're looking at it like it's a finite situation - even if you extend it and talk about a ten year period instead of just the current one. It's not. By the end of that ten year period you're talking about, you start spending well on into the next five or ten years, and so on and so on. You can keep on kicking the can down the road as long as you need to. That would be the case even if the cap wasn't increasing - which, of course it is. Not doing that would put you at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the league - which has experts who realize exactly how to take advantage that way - call it cooking or whatever you want to call it.

Yes tex, you can continue to carry dead money and kick it down the road so you are "even" currently almost indefinitely. The problem comes when 19 other teams DON'T do it and de facto have more room than you because they have kicked nothing down the road so its a lever they can currently pull. When you pull that lever you gain a roughly 2 year cap advantage over teams that aren't pulling it. Then you are simply pulling the lever to stay even. (or worse)

Its fine to do to keep a group together, or add a missing piece to a superbowl roster, but when you pull it over and over for a decade, every team that built up during that time frame that hasn't pulled it yet has an advantage over you. That is where we sit right now, where pulling the lever again simply gets us back to even....maybe not even back all the way at this point, while the Bengals haven't pulled it, have a ton of talent and cap room. Another 15 teams haven't used that method yet, like the eagles. Anyone you are bidding for in free agency you simply can't pay what those teams can since you ALREADY are carrying the dead money from using that future leverage the past few years.

If you don't reset at some point, the dead cap money puts you at a disadvantage year in and year out. The time to reset is probably right now, with Love in his 3rd year and 2 major pieces aging, but still having trade value. Oh....and I don't think the Dolphins have used any leverage either.

As I say in another forum, math must be harder than it seems to me, because a lot of people simply don't get it.

[bobblehead]

Teams certainly are accepting more dead money than they have in the past. Packers have over 28 million in dead money in 2022. That sounds like a lot. But it's only 16th in the NFL. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space Maybe this is a permanent trend. Maybe teams are still trying to dig out of 2020 and 2021 when reduced revenue due to Covid led to lower salary caps. Whatever the case, teams are doing things differently than they used to. It is true that most of the teams with the most dead money are doing poorly, with the exception of Philadelphia and N.Y. Giants. Whether there is a direct cause and effect is debatable I suppose.

Ok, I looked at your list and it seems I was way off on the Eagles. Didn't realize they were that bad off, and with a QB on a rookie deal no less. How will they ever resign him? But what you say is true about Covid messing up the cap when guys were on deals according to the theory its always going up. And then teams felt obligated to sign new deals based on old deals instead of the new cap. However if you look at the list, most of the bad teams are near the top and good teams are near the bottom. There are some outliers though and again, its a multi year picture. Next year we are actually in pretty good shape as it stands, but we won't be after we extend Gary, and when Rodgers call it, we will be in hell for a season or 2. I actually really like the "effective cap space", however it would be nice to combine that with people that will need to be extended that won't be on rookie deals.

Again, its all a big picture equation. Right now, according to your chart, the chiefs and bengals are in incredible shape going into this upcoming off season.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Yes tex, you can continue to carry dead money and kick it down the road so you are "even" currently almost indefinitely. The problem comes when 19 other teams DON'T do it and de facto have more room than you because they have kicked nothing down the road so its a lever they can currently pull. When you pull that lever you gain a roughly 2 year cap advantage over teams that aren't pulling it. Then you are simply pulling the lever to stay even. (or worse)

Its fine to do to keep a group together, or add a missing piece to a superbowl roster, but when you pull it over and over for a decade, every team that built up during that time frame that hasn't pulled it yet has an advantage over you. That is where we sit right now, where pulling the lever again simply gets us back to even....maybe not even back all the way at this point, while the Bengals haven't pulled it, have a ton of talent and cap room. Another 15 teams haven't used that method yet, like the eagles. Anyone you are bidding for in free agency you simply can't pay what those teams can since you ALREADY are carrying the dead money from using that future leverage the past few years.

If you don't reset at some point, the dead cap money puts you at a disadvantage year in and year out. The time to reset is probably right now, with Love in his 3rd year and 2 major pieces aging, but still having trade value. Oh....and I don't think the Dolphins have used any leverage either.

As I say in another forum, math must be harder than it seems to me, because a lot of people simply don't get it.

You either suck at math, or you are clueless about the current NFL CBA.

Per the CBA, each team must spend at least 89% of the cap over a 4 year period, or any player on that team over that period of time gets free frogskins up to the 89% threshold. Moreover, all NFL teams as a whole must, on average, spend at least 95% of the cap over the 4 year period. Otherwise, free frogskins to the players.

Thus, there is no such shit as “the problem comes when 19 other teams DON'T do it and de facto have more room…” The current CBA forces the pig owners to spend frogskins on players or be penalized. “Dead money” is inevitable.

Again, dead money is money already spent. And the Cap is NOT constant. With soaring revenues, revenue sharing and a CBA that forces the pigs to spend, Jerry Jones with 40M in dead money ain’t at a disadvantage competitively against Mike Brown with only, say, 3M in dead money. Do the math.

[run pMc]

I don't think GB will be players in FA.
I think Rodgers will be back next year -- he's not walking away from that $58.3M option. Trading him would be difficult, and they would likely be selling low on who I believe is a still-good (if overpaid) player.

As far as re-signing or extending their own goes, besides Jenkins, Lazard, Rudy Ford, Nixon, Njiman and maybe Barnes the rest can probably go. I'd consider letting Lazard and Tonyan test the market; neither should break the bank in even semi-sane free agency. Hollins flashed a little against PHI but you'd want to see more over the next few weeks before determining if he's better than La.Hamilton or Garvin.

[texaspackerbacker]

Again with the trading shit, run pMc? I say again, Rodgers' contract is great BECAUSE it for all practical purposes, prevents a trade. He is strongly likely to be the Packers QB for the three years, which is a Good thing - make that a GREAT thing. Hopefully, he gets extended well beyond that.

I don't mean to pick on you, because others have been far more idiotic about the Rodgers situation.

[run pMc]

Again with the trading shit, run pMc? I say again, Rodgers' contract is great BECAUSE it for all practical purposes, prevents a trade. He is strongly likely to be the Packers QB for the three years, which is a Good thing - make that a GREAT thing. Hopefully, he gets extended well beyond that.

I don't mean to pick on you, because others have been far more idiotic about the Rodgers situation.

No worries tex. I'm not convinced trading him would be a good idea. The defense has lost them the last few games, just as the OL is getting healthy/better and offense appears to be slowly figuring things out. Rodgers injuries and the receivers have hurt things, but he's not playing like a $50M MVP QB should either.

All that said, I think his age and contract make him difficult if not impossible to move, and I also think he still has another good year left in him.
When you have a good QB you do what you can to keep them; I don't see how the team doesn't keep Rodgers.

I think Rodgers will retire before his contract ends, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he retires after next season. Just a feeling based on hints he's dropped in interviews.

[texaspackerbacker]

Yes tex, you can continue to carry dead money and kick it down the road so you are "even" currently almost indefinitely. The problem comes when 19 other teams DON'T do it and de facto have more room than you because they have kicked nothing down the road so its a lever they can currently pull. When you pull that lever you gain a roughly 2 year cap advantage over teams that aren't pulling it. Then you are simply pulling the lever to stay even. (or worse)

Its fine to do to keep a group together, or add a missing piece to a superbowl roster, but when you pull it over and over for a decade, every team that built up during that time frame that hasn't pulled it yet has an advantage over you. That is where we sit right now, where pulling the lever again simply gets us back to even....maybe not even back all the way at this point, while the Bengals haven't pulled it, have a ton of talent and cap room. Another 15 teams haven't used that method yet, like the eagles. Anyone you are bidding for in free agency you simply can't pay what those teams can since you ALREADY are carrying the dead money from using that future leverage the past few years.

If you don't reset at some point, the dead cap money puts you at a disadvantage year in and year out. The time to reset is probably right now, with Love in his 3rd year and 2 major pieces aging, but still having trade value. Oh....and I don't think the Dolphins have used any leverage either.

As I say in another forum, math must be harder than it seems to me, because a lot of people simply don't get it.

First of all, wait to step up, APB - defeating the king of Facts with what? FACTS!

Yes, bobblehead, you can continue to carry dead money and kick it down the road so you are "even" currently almost indefinitely. Glad you agree. You shoulda stopped right there.

Is it 19 teams that don't do that? Where did you get that number? Yeah, if true, they might be more competitive in free agency. But how many of those teams have been better than the Packers over the past decade or two or three? How many have better personnel now? And how many do you realistically foresee being better than the Packers over the next decade or so?

Also, it seems like you're conflating dead money with void years. Void years is a strategy in "cooking the cap"/beating the system. Dead money happens when somebody you invest in turns out to be a bust or gets a long term injury or some other unforeseen badness. It would, for example, take something monumentally stupid like trading or cutting Rodgers to get a shit ton of dead money. The can kicking I referred to is mainly but not limited to void years or prorated bonuses. If things procede normally or as expected, that works out just fine. It would even without the massive cap increase over time, but with that, even more so.

I'll leave your math skills to our resident CPA to dispute. I'll just ask you, if you know the difference between static analysis and dynamic analysis? As your posts here and elsewhere say you have a bit of a problem with that.

[run pMc]

With respect to the cap and FA, I'll be very interested to see what they do with Kenny Clark, Elgton Jenkins, David Bahktiari, Preston Smith, and Aaron Jones. I think they want to sign Jenkins to a long term contract and I think they need to do some maneuvering to make that happen. Exercising the 5th year option on Savage looks really bad right now; they could use that money elsewhere.

Devondre Campbell is probably safe for next season but I could see them cutting him or restructuring his contract eventually as well.

[texaspackerbacker]

The only sure thing I see there is Aaron Jones, and only then if he doesn't deteriorate before it's time for a decision on him. Clark may already have deteriorated - he only deserves big future money if he snaps back a lot. P. Smith is only marginally worth what he gets paid now, and I doubt he stays beyond his current contract. Jenkins really needs to show he is what he was before the injury. If not, he wouldn't be much of a loss. And Bakhtiari is what I've consistently said he is - overrated.

I don't foresee the Packers having any serious problem signing anybody they need to keep due to cap problems. Free agents from other teams? I wouldn't expect much, but then we've never done much there. If the opportunity came up, though, I bet they could manipulate the cap to make that work too.

[Joemailman]

Lazard is on pace for about 800 yards and 7 TD's. Any reason he shouldn't have a market value at least as great as MVS? ( 3 years, 30 million). How much should Gute offer him?

[Bretsky]

[QUOTE=Joemailman;1126749]Lazard is on pace for about 800 yards and 7 TD's. Any reason he shouldn't have a market value at least as great as MVS? ( 3 years, 30 million). How much should Gute offer him?[/QUOTElazard at 10 mil a year ? Hard pass

[RashanGary]

Lazard is on pace for about 800 yards and 7 TD's. Any reason he shouldn't have a market value at least as great as MVS? ( 3 years, 30 million). How much should Gute offer him?

This is his ceiling in an offense where he’s one of only two established pass catchers with the QB. And the other one isn’t a #1 or #2. So Lazard will never see a better situation. And he’s in his prime.

I don’t think they’ll keep him for MVS money. More potential in Watson, Doubs and Toure. And cheaper.