Bills Bench EJ Manuel and Bring in Kyle Orton

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The Buffalo Bills have benched starting QB EJ Manuel in favor of journeyman Kyle Orton in an attempt to stabilize a season that may have been slipping away. The decision was somewhat notable because Manuel was drafted in the first round of the 2013 draft and was expected to be the future of the organization.  Such moves often spell the end of a player’s run with a team as a viable option as a starter.

The move again shows the importance of the new CBA in the role QB decision making,. Though Manuel would not have been very highly compensated under the old system there would have been more hoops to jump through to benching him and holding him as a potential trade piece. From 2011 through 2013 there were nine quarterbacks drafted in the first round. This season we are now down to just three starters from that group- Cam Newton, Andrew Luck and Ryan Tannehill. Of the other players, Blaine Gabbert and Brandon Weeden were given up on by the organizations and moved, Robert Griffin III has battled excessive injuries and ineffective play, Christian Ponder was benched and Jake Locker has been consistently injured in his run with Tennessee. It is almost a given that five of the nine players will not make it to a fifth season with the team that drafted them. The jury is still out on Tannehill and Griffin getting that far.

The last time we had a movement rate this quick would have been the 2005-2007 draft classes, which saw the uncapped year help teams move on from their draft mistakes. In 2010 Jason Campbell, Jamarcus Russell, Brady Quinn and Matt Leinart were all cut or traded. The year before the Broncos traded away Jay Cutler. The only players to see a 5th year with their team in that timeframe were Alex Smith, Aaron Rodgers, and Vince Young.

The Bills are one of the more strangely constructed and managed teams in the NFL. At almost every turn they send mixed signals about where their team is. A few years ago they signed Mario Williams, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Stevie Johnson to big contracts. They parted ways with the latter two and seemed prepared to become a younger team. The Bills selected Manuel in the first round of the 2013 draft and this year traded up to draft a receiver, a position that usually pays dividends two to three years down the line, not right away.

Their financial decisions resemble seat of your pants management. They paid Johnson a large roster bonus to turn around and change their minds and trade him for peanuts later. He is not the first player where they have paid the player offseason bonuses only to change course weeks later and release them. They put the franchise tag on Jairus Byrd but never made a real attempt to keep him in Buffalo.  At the end of the day they received nothing for him.

The decision to bring in Orton when they did likely signaled another one of their changing courses of action. I have to believe that they sent feelers out to Orton when he was under contract to the Cowboys and it was clear they never would have pushed so hard for Orton if they believed in Manuel. There was nothing on the Bills season that really hinged on the health of Manuel. They were never going to win because of him that made it so imperative to have a quality backup. There is nothing in Orton’s game or history that would indicate he would be a good mentor to the young QB. This was about replacing the QB from day 1.

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Their timeline was likely diverted when Manuel won the first two games of the year, but after back to back losses it was time to make the move. It’s not as if Manuel had shown anything of merit last season or in those first two games to make someone think they could win because of him. I’m not sure any team can win because of Orton, but the team will likely have more confidence in him which is important when you get down in the second half of a game.

I think this was a move made to try and help make one last push at the playoffs. The Bills have the longest playoff drought in the NFL and with the decline of the Patriots and general ineptitude of the Jets and Dolphins the division was wide open for the taking for the first time in a very long time. Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, Jackson, are not getting any younger.  Mike Williams and CJ Spiller may be in their last seasons with the Bills as may Jerry Hughes. Their offensive line has its fair share of older veterans and two of their corners will make the turn past 30 next season. For half the team this is probably about it and an opportunity to make a push for the playoffs.

Dumping Manuel does not impact any of the other young players on the roster moving forward. If the organization has effectively thrown in the white flag and is likely going back to the draft to grab a QB in the future it’s a no lose situation. If Orton is passable they may be relevant for a season. If Orton is passable and they are not relevant then there are no excuses that it’s the QB and it’s an easier to task to blow up the team. If Orton fails the team still gets a strong draft pick in the future.  EJ Manuel isn’t so damaged that the team cant trade him, which may have happened if he continued to start.

You can not wait until 0-4 to make this move. That is a backwards way to approach the situation and why the New York Jets at this point should not bench the young QB for a veteran. The reason to insert a veteran into a lineup is to avoid falling out of the playoff race. At 0-4 you are out of the playoff race and there is no reason to put a veteran out there. There is nothing for the veteran to salvage except some pride. At 2-2 Orton can still make a difference in the Bills season before it slips away.

It may not be the most popular approach in many circles but the timing was right to give this a chance. How it works out is anyone’s guess but in the future the Bills need to stabilize their business planning if they want to have a more consistent approach to roster management. Maybe then the franchise can get back to where they were in the Jim Kelly era.

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Cowboys to Release Kyle Orton

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According to NFL.com, the Dallas Cowboys will finally move on from backup QB Kyle Orton and grant him his desire to be released. Orton’s situation was a strange one, which I had discussed a few weeks ago. He was paid as one of the top backup quarterbacks and Dallas was going to rely more on him this season with Tony Romo recovering from injury. When Orton informed the team of his desire to retire Dallas fought back and claimed they would force him to repay signing bonus money that they had paid him to honor a three year commitment to the team. Orton skipped all offseason activities to affirm his desire to not play this season.

Dallas may have come to the realization that it would be difficult to recover money from Orton if Orton did indeed never play again. A teams best course of recovery is to withhold payments due to a player, but Dallas’ only salary commitment to Orton would be a minuscule amount of performance based pay as well as any responsibilities they may have for severance pay. Orton’s contract is also complex due to voidable years and restructures of the contract, which may make any grievance process drag on for some time.

It should be noted that no transaction for the release of Orton has been made official. I would think that is because of the nature of the situation. Once the Cowboys release Orton, they relinquish their rights to recover bonus money and Orton would be free to sign with another team.  In order to protect their rights they would need to move him to the retirement list or something like a “left squad” list. For Orton to protect his rights on the bonus recovery he would likely want his contract renegotiated to include a clause that would prohibit the Cowboys from recovering the bonus in the event of retirement. Basically this prevents either side from backing out on the deal in the near future.

Releasing Orton should save the Cowboys $3.25 million against their salary cap immediately, something they could not do following through with a long process throughout the summer of convincing him to come back. With some big extensions on the horizon, specifically for WR Dez Bryant, that money would be helpful towards an extension this July or August. Dallas will still need to account for $2.255 million in cap charges next season for Orton.

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Kyle Orton, the Cowboys, and Retirement

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I’ve received a few questions concerning Kyle Orton’s potential retirement from the Dallas Cowboys. It is definitely an interesting situation in that Dallas clearly want’s Orton to play and is holding it over his head that they will invoke their rights under the CBA to recover forfeiture provisions of his prior signing bonus money if he retires.

When a player receives a signing bonus it is essentially a prepayment of salary that is contingent upon the player fulfilling his contract. If released from that contract he keeps the signing bonus because he fulfilled his obligation and the team chose to terminate the deal. This is common in the NFL. However in some instances a player chooses to walk away from the NFL and not fulfill his obligation to the team. When this occurs a team has the right to demand repayment of the remaining salary cap charges attributed to signing bonus money for the current league year as well as all future league years covered by the contract.

Usually teams do not go after bonus money when a player retires. Most of the time they know that the player could retire when they sign him and thus the bonus is looked at as the cost of doing business. Brett Favre, when traded to the New York Jets, tweaked his contract to protect himself from any forfeiture. While the Packers never would have looked to recover money the Jets were an entirely new situation for him so he wanted protection. His outlook may have been molded in part due to Jake Plummer being traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the year before and refusing to play for the team, opting instead for retirement. Tampa Bay immediately wanted to recover money.

Dallas would have never suspected Orton to be considering retirement when they signed him to a three year contract in 2012. Orton was just 30 years old at the time and, as a backup, the physical workload should be minimal barring injury to starter Tony Romo.  Orton was to be the highest paid backup in the NFL, making this a very lucrative situation for Orton. Nothing would point towards a potential retirement.

For Dallas this might not be an issue if Romo was healthy, but he isn’t. Romo is coming off another back operation and while all signs point to him being ready the realization is there that they need another viable option to keep the offense moving. This is the exact situation they signed Orton for and they do not want to see him bail out. If Orton walks away the Cowboys are left with Brandon Weeden, a bust with the Browns, as perhaps the best option to play the position. So Dallas will flex whatever power they can to force Orton to earn that money they paid him in the past.

Due to the Cowboys salary cap situation they often use high signing bonuses for their players to reduce cap hits. This was no different for Orton who received $5.9 million in salary in 2012 of which $5 million came in the form of a signing bonus. Overall 47.6% of Orton’s entire contract was paid in that 2012 bonus. While the contract was initially panned as overspending just for the sake of overspending, Dallas may have assumed that in the worst case scenario Orton would be called into action for one full year. The $10.5 million total contract value would have been on par with signing a lower level starter like Ryan Fitzpatrick, so one season of play justified the entire three year investment. They expected him to be a Cowboy for three years for that purpose.

In addition to the $5 million bonus, Orton also converted $510,000 of his 2013 salary into a signing bonus to provide the Cowboys cap relief. As far as I know this bonus, which was paid as a signing rather than a guaranteed roster bonus, should be subject to forfeiture as well.  If so that was a mistake by his agents to not receive the bonus using a different mechanism. Other types of prorated signing bonuses are usually only subject to forfeiture in the year they are earned rather than in the future years as well. Perhaps this bonus was protected but for the sake of this we will assume it is not.

Had this been a standard contract, Orton would have been deemed to have “earned” $3,588,332 of his bonus money. If he retired he would then be forced to repay the Cowboys $1,921,668, which is a pretty large sum of money. That number would represent about 26.5% of his earnings for the last two years. However, Dallas often does not use standard contracts and, for cap purposes, uses void seasons which are used as placeholders for signing bonus prorations.

Even though Orton would technically be a free agent in 2015, his contract is valid through 2016. The way the forfeiture rules are written Dallas should be able to recover money attributed to 2014, 2015, and 2016. That number is a whopping $3,382,500, or about 46.7% of his earnings over the last two seasons. If forced to repay back that money he would essentially have played the last two seasons for $1.9 million a year, which is a low wage for a capable veteran backup.

For salary cap purposes the retirement of Orton would work just like a cut. Once placed on the Reserve/Retired list Orton’s bonus money will accelerate onto the salary cap. Considering this would not occur until after June 1 the resulting cap charges would be $1,127,500 charge in 2014 and $2,255,000 charge in 2015. Orton’s current cap charge is $4,377,500 so in no way would a retirement hurt the Cowboys cap.

Following his retirement Dallas can seek repayment of his money tied to this season and the next two voidable seasons. Future money would not actually be repaid until the following June and once repaid Dallas will receive salary cap credits. Usually there is a one year delay in these credits so they would receive a $1.1275 million increase in their available cap space in 2015, 2016, and 2017 rather than 2014, 2015, and 2016. If Orton retires and refuses to pay the money back to the Cowboys the Cowboys can take the case through the Arbitration process. I’m not really sure what defense Orton could have other than the fact that money attributed to 2015 and 2016 should not be recollected from Dallas.

Orton has not attended workouts this offseason so his base salary will reduce by $75,000 in 2014 if he honors his contract.  Supposedly both sides are talking and I would imagine that he will receive the $75,000 if he can be convinced to return. Other discussion points are likely concerning the size of the forfeiture, which Dallas will consider non-negotiable as long as they want Orton to be on the team.

The timing of Orton’s retirement is certainly odd. While Orton was not necessarily a winning quarterback in Kansas City and Denver he put up numbers that would land someone in a spot to either compete for a job (similar to Mike Vick)  or take a placeholder job with some upside incentives (Chad Henne). Instead he opted for a safe situation with good pay and an entrenched starter. With Romo injured this would seem to be his big chance to get back on the field and make himself more money in free agency in 2015. Perhaps all along Orton was playing things safe and doing all he could to protect his body while earning a very good living. There is nothing wrong with that but it certainly is a question that some might ask about his decision in 2012.

It is possible as well that this is posturing for a new contract in 2014. While I stated that Dallas might view this contract as a $10.5 million one year deal to cover for emergency, Orton probably sees himself having earned good backup money for two years and he fulfilled all his obligations. With Romo hurt the situation has changed and the risks go up for him.  Maybe the salary he has his not worth the job. Maybe his opinions will change if you throw in incentives for games started, wins, yards, etc… He may want a chance to earn that $10.5 million for just this year if he has to play 16 games on a playoff contender. Maybe that is the only way to chance the injuries that happen in the NFL.

I’d imagine nothing will be resolved with this until training camp begins. Dallas can carry him on the roster and Orton should keep things status quo while trying to work out a financial settlement, whether on forfeiture or a raise for 2014. Orton will need to attend the mandatory upcoming camp to avoid fines, but again those are things that can be negotiable. I don’t think either side will make a rash move other than reiterating their points through the media in a relatively harmless manner, but odds are the financial ramifications for Orton will be pretty steep if he opts to walk away from the NFL.

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Today and Tomorrow: The Cowboys Salary Cap Woes

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I had a question/request from Scott last week in regards to the Dallas Cowboys. I planned to do a podcast on the topic but just didn’t have time to do it so instead we’ll write this out and examine some of the harsh criticism I have and others have for the Cowboys handling of their salary cap. I’ll break it up into two parts, one of which deals with a cap violation and the other of which deals with future cap issues.

The Cap Penalties

First of all I should state that I don’t think either team really deserved the penalties that they received. There were plenty of teams that took advantage of the uncapped year in ways that may not have been exactly “within the spirit” of the rules, but the Cowboys and Redskins I believe got singled out because of who their owners are. It should be noted that two other teams received semi-penalties- the Saints and the Raiders. While their cap was not adjusted downward they did not receive any of the prize of the Cowboy/Redskins troubles. The Saints many of us always felt was because of the use of something called a completion bonus and the Raiders due to their handling of JaMarcus Russell, plus the fact that the league I think was done with Al Davis at that point. In hindsight I now question whether or not this was the first slap on the wrist for the bounty scandal in New Orleans, but that’s another topic.

The question here was why I often discuss the Redskins penalty, but rarely discuss the Cowboys one as a reason for the cap issues.  The basic reason I discuss the penalty for the Redskins is because the number itself was so high that it has a material impact on any cap planning that a team can do. The Redskins never tried to “band aid” the team together to deal with the penalties, at least not to the extent the Cowboys have, but really it just comes down to overall cost. An $18 million downward adjustment kills your team. A $5 million one doesn’t come close to that. That said the actual penalties themselves were overblown for both organizations. Had the NFL done the right thing and not allowed the deals to be accepted, the actual cap charges would be very close to the penalty amounts.  The penalties kind of brought the salary caps back to where they should have been had no violation occurred.

The damage that happened to both teams was not the penalty itself but the fact that they never could have planned on receiving them. The league allowed the contracts in question to be approved and then waited a full season before hurting both teams. That is not right. If the league informed the teams in 2011 that they would be taking action against them they could have planned accordingly, but instead they were blindsided by the decision.

Playing the “what if” game we can see how the penalties are not so severe in reality had they been able to plan for the penalties. The Redskins most likely never would have traded Albert Hayesworth if the league had not allowed them to make the change in his contract. IMO, the Redskins would have voided his guarantees in 2011 and designated him a June 1 cut.

No Contract Change

Actual Charges

Gain/(Loss)

2011

$5,200,000

$0

$5,200,000

2012

$14,600,000

$10,500,000

$4,100,000

2013

$0

$10,500,000

($10,500,000)

2014

$0

$0

$0

Total

$19,800,000

$21,000,000

($1,200,000)

All in all the Redskins only lost about $1.2 million in cap room due to the penalties, assuming that his guarantees would have voided due to his personal conduct. Had they been aware of this in 2011 it would not have been nearly as tough a blow.

DeAngelo Hall likely would have been a June 1 cut this year or at the very least would see his prorations charged that way since he ended up back with Washington on a minimum salary deal. Here are the differences with his deal:

No Contract Change

Actual Charges

Gain/(Loss)

2011

$8,300,000

$5,000,000

$3,300,000

2012

$9,800,000

$14,000,000

($4,200,000)

2013

$3,300,000

$7,500,000

($4,200,000)

2014

$3,000,000

$0

$3,000,000

Total

$24,400,000

$27,400,000

($2,100,000)

Again the actual loss is not as great as people believe, but these charges greatly impacted the way the Redskins could plan for the cap taking far more losses in 2012 and 2013 than they would have had the void provisions not be accepted by the NFL. In this respect the penalty for Hall was much more severe than the one for Haynesworth despite Haynesworth’s deal being larger.

The Cowboys were assessed a $10 million dollar penalty, which I would assume was the determination of what past history said they should have paid Miles Austin in a signing bonus.  Going back to his original untouched contract you would get the following cap changes.

No Contract ChangeActual ChargesGain/(Loss)

2011

$10,540,000

$8,540,000

$2,000,000

2012

$3,150,000

$6,150,000

($3,000,000)

2013

$8,732,000

$11,732,000

($3,000,000)

2014

$2,000,000

$0

$2,000,000

Total

$24,422,000

$26,422,000

($2,000,000)

Its actually more of a penalty than the Haynesworth deal and pretty close to the Hall one. It is not as bad on the front end as the Hall penalty, specifically in 2013, but the overall impact is close.

All told the effect of the penalties is actually small on both teams, with the disclaimer being that they had some idea of them coming in 2011. The Redskins have made noticeable changes in their contracts and negotiations due to the penalties in order to be cap compliant. The Cowboys have not, which is another reason why I often avoid the Dallas penalty effect.

Overblown Cap Problems

Scott also pointed me to a link over at Blogging the Boys, going over the Cowboys salary cap. It’s a good article and worth a read so please read it if you get an opportunity. That said one of the difficulties in working with the salary cap is thinking short term. Decisions made in 2013 and 2014 impact you years down the line. The Cowboys 2014 salary cap is a problem but not as much of a problem as the 2015 one. Really when I talk about “paying the piper” or “bills coming due” that is the period of time we should be looking at, not the immediate future.

So since I’m not as familiar with the Cowboys roster as I am the teams of say the AFC East, I decided to use the BTB articles roster decisions to look ahead at Dallas’ salary cap for the upcoming years. Based on the projections made the Cowboys should enter the 2013 season with around $10.5 million in cap room. You would need to adjust for the Practice Squad ($1 million) and some misc costs ($1 million) to come up with the final cap total which we can guess to be $8.5 million if they avoid the injury bug.

While the original article mentioned signing Sean Lee we’ll just leave that be for the time being. In 2014 the suggestion was to cut Mackenzy Bernadeau and Justin Durant so I did that.  We would then restructure Tony Romo’s and DeMarcus Ware’s contracts. I just assumed a reduction to a minimal type salary of $1 million with $12.5 million being prorated over 5 years for Romo and $11.25 million over 4 years for Ware. That creates $18.4 million in cap room. All of those savings now become potential dead money in future seasons. Assuming the cap rises to $124 million and they carry over the $8.5 million, the Cowboys will have around $18 million in cap room going into the 2014 League Year.

That assumes Dallas signs no futures contract players as the $18 million is for a 41 man roster. The team needs to get to 53. If we earmark a rookie class of 7 that counts for around $4.5 million (right about the Cowboys total this season) and take into account the workout bonus money the Cowboys are looking at spending $13 million for 3 players to reach the 51 man limit. I’m not sure what Lee would cost (7 mil or so a year with a low year 1 cap?) but he will eat into that total a bit. Still I would call that a workable number after going further in on Romo (which is planned) and Ware (which likely is not).

The problem is as we turn into 2015. In 2015 Doug Free and Kyle Orton will have their contracts void, immediately jumping into the dead money pool. I also made the assumption that the team will cut Jay Ratliff. If we throw the 7 rookies in the mix from the year before and assume they all stick at $5.5 million we have a roster with a $122.4 million dollar payroll with only 29 players under contract.  The Cowboys would likely be about $10 million below the cap limit after the 2014 carryover and need to sign 24 players with that money. The minimum salary in 2015 is $435,000, meaning they would not even have enough to sign 24 undrafted free agents to complete the roster.

Those totals don’t include Lee or WR Dez Bryant, who would be a free agent in 2015. It also doesn’t include the Cowboys 2011 first round pick who will either be on an option season or need to be re-signed. You can go to a 35 year old Romo for more cap relief (again his deal is designed that way) but where else are you going?  A 33 year old Ware?  Doubtful, though through all the restructures you are now at a $20.3 million dollar hit so maybe it’s a must. You can cut Austin and Orlando Scandrick to save $8 million. That’s still not enough to do anything but at least you can begin to field a team. Most likely the team is stuck reworking Romo’s deal again to free up $12.8 million or so. That gives you $30 million, give or take a little, to sign 26 players to the team. With at least three big free agents not counted in that figure that is a tall order to overcome.

The one constant in all of this is that there is never a point where I can look at Dallas thru 2015 and simply say “they can leave things alone”. Every season it’s reworking contracts for stars or deciding players that can save some money by being released. Even all the way out into 2016 the base roster would still have $72 million in cap charges for just 14 players. Throw in a Bryant and Lee and you may be looking $87 million for just 16. The 2014 and 2015 rookie classes can bring that up 28 players for $102 million. It is just not that much to work with.

There are few, if any teams, that have these issues year after year. Usually every team has a breakdown year. One year where you see a number of players come off the books with little or no dead money. The average dead money per club this year is $9 million. Just in our base assumptions that number is a starting point in three of the next four seasons just to “get by”.  That is going to put the Cowboys at a competitive disadvantage relative to the NFL each year. The lack of money to spend doesn’t allow them to get much better via any mechanism besides the draft. They will only be getting older on the top.

Maybe that’s not as bad as it sounds since successful drafting teams will be better than the teams built thru free agency, but it is often nice to be able to add some parts to complete the puzzle. I cant see ways for Dallas to do that.

That’s not to say Dallas is the only team in a bad cap position- the Panthers, Saints, and Lions are all a mess for various reasons as well- but Dallas is consistently in the worst position. They have also been a team that had various ways to avoid some of these charges. Franchising Anthony Spencer will cost Dallas over $10 million in cap that they could have put to better use. Signing Orton to a contract nobody in the NFL would have signed him to adds to the problems.  Adding void years onto players contracts with no regard for the future have led to unnecessary excessive cap charges. Overpaying Austin as a one year wonder and extending an old defensive tackle to a league high contract when he had two years remaining on an existing deal are typical of the Cowboys woes.Did the cap penalties hurt the team?  Sure but almost any other team would have made choices to take that into account. Dallas just kept on going as if nothing happened.

It might be one thing if this strategy ever worked, but the last time Dallas truly had a successful season Wade Phillips was the head coach. The last time people regarded Dallas as a legit threat for a title Terrell Owens was catching passes from a 27 year old QB with great potential. That 27 year old QB is now looked at as an overpriced failure more in part because of the Cowboys poor cap management and failure to surround him with a cohesive team than anything he has done to deserve that label.

If Dallas wins this year, and barring a game changing home run in the draft this to me is the year they have the best chance, it’s going to be in spite of the way they run their franchise. It’s not a sustainable business model and I’m not sure you could find one NFL executive outside of Dallas that would recommend running the franchise this way. Right now they are either on the path to having a Raiders like implosion in a few years or fielding the oldest team in the NFL.

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