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

[RashanGary]

You're missing the point. if you push out cap into future years with signing bonuses, you'll have less money in those future years than if you don't. This gets worse when you factor in that when you don't push out cap you can get rid of underperforming players and bring in better players with the money you have extra due to less dead space. Add to that injuries and trades as being more problematic because they can accelerate cap and you start to see why large signing bonuses to push out cap are riskier.

That is true if you’re willing to push out at some point. If you’re in “keep cap health” mode and you intend to always stay there, you absolutely do not have more to spend. The very nature of that is to take hits earlier than late. That offsets the dead money of always pushing forward.

Whether you always keep a healthy cap or always max it out, I have no doubt you are wrong that you end up having less to pay for talent.

However, the moment you switch strategies, for a couple years you will have more or less.

[RashanGary]

I believe the best strategy is a flexible strategy that is driven by “opportunity”

You can’t choose when a specific position drops to you in the draft
You can’t choose when an ideal free agent class drops to you
You can’t choose which guys lose their health
You can’t choose when you land a particularly good couple drafts, nor can you choose when you have a tough stretch



If you’re always pushing forward to max, you can’t choose when to make an extra splash that takes advantage of an opportunity, nor can you choose to do that if you’re rigid in staying in a certain cap health situation.

However, your cap health is 100% something, as a GM, you have complete control over. So I believe using that flexibility to surf the wave of opportunity is the way to go.

[bobblehead]

Here's the bottom line. A team needs to stretch the cap a bit WHEN THEY HAVE TALENT ON ROSTER. Its fine to make sure you lock up players who are successful in your system and extend windows. My gripe is thinking you can pay every FA on the market and buy championships. It doesn't work for a variety of reasons. And when you get carried away with it you end up with a cap situation that forces you to jettison valuable talent. 5-6 years from now, aprh and assuming progression rather than regression we will have a lot of talent up for contracts. I have no problem stretching the cap to keep them. An occasional FA signing to fill a hole even makes sense. However the Smith contracts went 50%. Turner ended up costing us for an average player. I forget who the 4th signing was that year which leads me to believe it cost us. Maybe not, I don't recall.

We tried to buy a title and came up short. Then we way overpayed our QB because he was upset. We won't be clear of that issue until after next year, but we really could use a FA safety this year. You can kick the cap, but there are limitations.

[RashanGary]

Here's the bottom line. A team needs to stretch the cap a bit WHEN THEY HAVE TALENT ON ROSTER. Its fine to make sure you lock up players who are successful in your system and extend windows. My gripe is thinking you can pay every FA on the market and buy championships. It doesn't work for a variety of reasons. And when you get carried away with it you end up with a cap situation that forces you to jettison valuable talent. 5-6 years from now, aprh and assuming progression rather than regression we will have a lot of talent up for contracts. I have no problem stretching the cap to keep them. An occasional FA signing to fill a hole even makes sense. However the Smith contracts went 50%. Turner ended up costing us for an average player. I forget who the 4th signing was that year which leads me to believe it cost us. Maybe not, I don't recall.

We tried to buy a title and came up short. Then we way overpayed our QB because he was upset. We won't be clear of that issue until after next year, but we really could use a FA safety this year. You can kick the cap, but there are limitations.

Yes. With the attention spans of people (me included) it’s hard to get people to invest time reading the amount of words it would take to explain a bunch of the factors. Unless they’re a proven professional, you just don’t want to spend the energy reading some fans opinion.

But, right.

Adrian Amos was the 4th and nobody wants to keep him for some reason, so he can’t be that good. Maybe it’s personality because his play seemed fine.


When you draft a guy, you have his whole medical history from 4 years in the NFL. You know what kind of guy he is. You know what his assignments were so you have a better gauge on his play. It always looks scary when someone puts their hand in a lions mouth, but when you raised the little guy, you have enough information to make an informed decision on whether it’s safe to put your hand in his mouth.

Huge contracts that go bad for a GM are about as bad for your career as getting your arm chewed off by a Lion is for your physical health. You better be sure Simba has your best interest before you start letting him playfully chew your forearm.


So, was Ted a coward who wouldn’t spend in UFA or was he the guy holding the camera while his buddies got their arms chewed off petting the lions through the cage at the zoo? The world may never know.

But whether the world knows or not, I agree. UFA is dangerous. Not the kind of dangerous where you call your buddy a pussy for chickening out, but the kind of dangerous where maybe you get your arm chewed off. I’d rather be holding the camera.

[sharpe1027]

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

[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.