Contract Year Series, Jay Cutler

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Jay Cutler #6 QB, Chicago Bears

by Paul Carrozzo

Marc Trestman has been brought in as the new head coach of the Chicago Bears this off-season. Although Trestman has never been the head man at this level, his resume is impressive especially in the area of quarterback improvement. Only Bernie Kosar, in his injury/ heavy drinking part of his career, declined under Trestman’s tutelage. Whether Steve Young, Scott Mitchell, Jake Plummer, Rich Gannon or their CFL cohort Anthony Calvillo, each player’s productivity spiked when playing for him.

The Bears offensive line struggles were well documented in 2012. The additions of Jermon Bushrod and Matt Slauson in free agency along with the 20th pick in the 2013 draft, Kyle Long, significantly improved a line that allowed Cutler to be sacked 38 times last year. Slauson is known as a much better pass blocker than run blocker and the Bears were comfortable with the trade off in an effort to keep Cutler upright. Bushrod comes over from New Orleans where he has spent much of his time protecting Drew Brees.

The skill positions will see an upgrade with Alshon Jeffery looking to take a giant leap forward in his sophomore season. Pairing Jeffery with the Brandon Marshall and the addition of Martellus Bennett at TE places Culter as the recipient of an upgraded crop of receivers. Matt Forte will be another year removed from knee surgery and will also be a threat in the new Trestman passing offense.

The surrounding cast is set for Cutler to showcase his skills this year. For the Bears, forcing Cutler to play out the final year of his contract makes absolute sense, considering no one really knows how he will fit in Trestman’s offense. Maybe more importantly is the Bears salary cap situation which will almost force a liquidation of the Bears roster at the conclusion of the 2013 season. When a big market franchise needs to rebuild, they tend to re-sign fan favorites. Cutler, like Trestman, rubs people the wrong way and is not at the top of the fan’s list. One thing that would vault him there is a Super Bowl victory which has eluded this franchise since another pair of eccentric personalities ran the show.

Estimated New Contract: 4 years, $58mm

Contract Year Series, Brian Orakpo

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Brian Orakpo #98 OLB, Washington Redskins

by Paul Carrozzo

Potentially the most sought after free agent at the end of this season. Orakpo combines supreme production with the pedigree of the #13 pick of the 2009 Draft. A Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate in ’09, Orakpo racked up a Redskin franchise record 11 sacks and added 51 tackles. In 2010 the Redskins moved to a 3-4 defense and he responded with very similar numbers in 2010 and 2011 (8.5 sacks, 56 tackles 2010; 9.0 sacks, 60 tackles 2011). In the Week #17 loss to Philadelphia, Orakpo tore his left pectoral muscle. Consistently drawing double-teams, he dedicated the offseason to come back stronger in 2012. The Redskins took it easy on their prized OLB in the preseason but to no avail as Orakpo re-tore the left pectoral muscle only two games into the 2012 season.

A healthy Orakpo is a Top-10 OLB in the NFL. If he produces on his stated goal of Defensive Player of the Year he stands to bring in a haul of $11mm+ APY. That is a big “if”, however, head coach Mike Shanahan feels that his 27 year old star “looks good as ever”.

Estimated New Contract: 4 years, $41.5mm

Podcast: Steelers, Extensions, Cap Planning & More…

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In this weeks podcast we take a look at the Pittsburgh Steelers future caps, extensions for players, a bit on cap planning, and a few other items including which Twitter handle to follow….

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Explaining the Minimum Salary Benefit

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Imagine for a minute that you are an NFL GM who knows that cap dollars are limited when building a roster. On one hand you can sign a veteran who is likely on the downside of his career, perhaps well on the downside, for around $1 million or instead sign a relatively unproven young player for around $500,000. The young player has more upside and can play special teams but could also be a total flop. In many cases the deciding factor is simply money. The $500,000 gamble on the older player still being capable isn’t really worth the time of the NFL team.

Veterans at the end of their career would likely play for less money just to get a chance to keep playing but the CBA mandates that they make a minimum salary level, ranging in 2013 anywhere from $715,000 to $940,000. Essentially the veteran is hurt by the CBA. To try to level the playing field, the NFL and NFLPA agreed on a clause called the Minimum Salary Benefit (MSB), essentially taking the salary cap consideration out of the equation. What the MSB does is bring the veteran players salary cap charge attributed to his CBA mandated P5 base salary down to that of a player who has been in the NFL for just two seasons with the difference being charged to Player Benefits.

All players with at least 4 credited seasons are eligible for the MSB. However, to qualify for MSB treatment your contract has to meet specific criteria, explained as follows:

  1. The contract must only be 1 year in length
  2. Additional compensation can not exceed $65,000 in 2013 (this number rises by $15,000 every 3 years, with the next increase set for 2015), and that includes bonuses from other teams
  3. P5 guarantees can not exceed the P5 salary of a 2nd year player, which is $555,000 in 2013

Now there are some more technical rules as well in regards to being cut and re-signing with your old team but very rarely (if at all) does that come into play. A player can also sign multiple MSB contracts over the course of his career and even within a season with multiple clubs if he is cut. Most MSB players in 2013 will have a salary cap count of $620,000 as its pretty standard for the players to receive $65,000 in bonus money, but cap hits vary.

So how many teams are using the MSB?  Whil I don’t have an exact count I have a pretty good estimate from my records as to how many MSB players and how much money is being saved in the teams current top 51s. The Giants look to lead the way with 10 players and over $2.5 million in cap savings with the Saints lose behind with 8 players and just over $2 million in savings. Neither should be a surprise as both teams have cap problems but view themselves as win now teams.

Really lack of cap room is a major factor in signing such players. Of the top 8 teams all were teams with cap issues heading into free agency. The Chiefs who I ranked 9th created their own cap issues and need these players to fill out their roster. Of the teams in the top 10 I would say only the Jets and Bears are teams that are likely using the MSB not just for cap relief but because they don’t want to add multi-year contracts to teams in the need of a makeover. The other squads all think they can win now.

On the other side of the spectrum, surprisingly I don’t have any records of the 49ers or Falcons, both win now teams very tight on cap room, using it for any players. Overall I have 104 players qualifying, which is likely a few players off, but I’d say its safe to say the MSB saved around 100 jobs this year. Here is the full listing per my estimates which should be close but by no means will be perfect.

Team

Players

Savings

Giants

10

$2,525,000

Saints

8

$2,005,000

Bears

8

$1,690,000

Lions

6

$1,435,000

Steelers

5

$1,375,000

Panthers

6

$1,275,000

Jets

5

$1,275,000

Redskins

4

$1,240,000

Chiefs

6

$960,000

Vikings

5

$925,000

Buccaneers

4

$890,000

Seahawks

4

$765,000

Patriots

3

$730,000

Cardinals

3

$730,000

Titans

3

$670,000

Chargers

3

$605,000

Bengals

4

$605,000

Ravens

3

$605,000

Raiders

3

$605,000

Cowboys

2

$570,000

Bills

2

$545,000

Browns

2

$545,000

Texans

2

$445,000

Eagles

1

$285,000

Rams

1

$285,000

Colts

1

$160,000

49ers

0

$0

Broncos

0

$0

Packers

0

$0

Dolphins

0

$0

Falcons

0

$0

Jaguars

0

$0

Total

104

23,745,000

Average

3

742,031

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The Dismantling and Rebuilding of a Team

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While the trade of Darrelle Revis seemed inevitable I think there was still a sense of shock when it finally went down and he became a Buccaneer. The situation illustrates one of the most difficult parts of building and, more importantly, maintaining a high quality team in a salary cap sport. This was clearly the issue at large between the Jets and Revis. I don’t think that there was anyone in Florham Park that disagreed with the fact that Revis was the best cornerback in the NFL. Im not even sure anyone disagreed that he was the best defensive player in the NFL. But this isn’t baseball and there was clear disagreement between what the value of the best defensive player in the NFL should be worth.

There will be many who state that the Jets poor decision to extend Mark Sanchez created a salary cap nightmare that forced them to deal Revis due to cap problems. Others might point the finger at David Harris or Santonio Holmes. None are really true. All will likely be gone in 2014 with minimal cap penalties. Sanchez this year counts for $12.853 million nowhere near the top of the NFL. The Jets could have fit Revis without issue. The question becomes at $16 million a season is it worth doing?

Assuming the salary cap grows at about 2% a year, Revis will occupy an average of 12.6% of the Buccaneers cap over the next 4 seasons.  Everyone agrees that this is a QB driven league and, unless you plan to just use draft picks on your QBs, they are paid highly. Joe Flacco, who has never thrown for 4,000 yards in a season just received over $20 million a year based on a playoff run. Matt Schaub who has won nothing got over $15 million. For the Revis move to work the Buccaneers are expecting Josh Freeman to take that next step. You are not spending that high on your secondary to bring in a rookie to take over. So lets be conservative and say he barely passes Schaub and earns $16 million. Receivers still make a good chunk of change and they have a Grade A player in Vincent Jackson. Jackson earns $11.1 million a year. So essentially you have now made the choice to invest around 34% of your allocations in 3 players. If you had one of the next best corners making just under $10 million the number changes to 29%. That’s a major difference.

Due to salary cap constraints you can not build a team by purchasing high priced free agents and hoping to fill in the holes around them with low cost rookies and low cost players near the end of their careers. It simply doesn’t work. By the time the low priced rookies are really able to contribute the high priced veterans make that turn past 30 and the play typically begins to decline. Cap penalties for release ensue and the team spends a lot of money to never accomplish anything. In some ways that is what happened with the Jets as their drafts from 2008 thru 2010 all more or less busted making it impossible to maintain the success of 2009 and 2010 with the aging roster.

You have to work the other way around in the NFL. First get the building blocks in place on low cost rookie deals and then augment those players with veterans. The Jets were successful with that formula when they drafted their core and depth players in 2006 and 2007 and then paid high prices for players like Bart Scott, Alan Faneca, Calvin Pace, Damien Woody, and Kris Jenkins. It culminated in two back to back championship games. Tampa Bay has many of those young players from recent drafts making a move for Revis a reasonable risk, but the Jets are not in the same place.

The Jets have officially waved the white flag on the past and begun the complete tearing down of their team. This is what happens in the salary cap league. There is no real middle ground anymore when it comes to team building. Either you have the youth in place and spend  or you don’t. When you don’t you have to do everything in your power to rebuild your team as fast as possible from the ground up. You can’t overspend at that point at any position until you get the team ready to make that next leap.

While none of this means miracles cant happen as it pertains to the Jets season, the planning has been clear. The Jets have signed no long term contracts this season. No attempts were made to extend players like Antonio Cromartie beyond 2014 even though it would have yielded significant cap relief. The team did not rework  the contract of C Nick Mangold which would have made cutting or trading him more difficult in the future. With the way the market has turned the Cromartie and Mangold deals represent positional overspending, specifically Mangold. You have to protect your teams flexibility when that occurs.

With the trade of Revis official the Jets will have replaced 12 starters from their 2012 season. Some such as Scott were no brainers. Others indicate an age issue. Shonn Greene will be 28. LaRon Landry will be 29. Mike DeVito will be 29. Dustin Keller will be 29. You don’t want to get in deep and long term on players who will be over 30 by the time you think you are going to fix the ship.  You can find lower cost older players or more upside younger players to fill those voids.

By the time 2014 rolls around the Jets will potentially replace 17 of the 22 starters from the 2012 season. That is a dismantling of a team. If they jettison Sanchez, Holmes, and Cromartie their team salary, including this years draft, will only be $61 million for 40 players under contract. At a $124 million dollar cap that is nearly $51 million in cap space.  From a long term planning perspective you hope to have your young building blocks in Muhammad Wilkerson, Quinton Coples, and both of this years two number 1 draft picks in place. Maybe you get something out of Jeremy Kerley, Kenrick Ellis, Demario Davis, or Stephen Hill. At that stage you can begin to augment your team with veterans who will be 28 years or so of age in 2014 and meet the needs of the team based on your own personnel, coaching staff, and leaguewide trends not past preferences.

The NFL is very impatient and in order for GM’s and coaches to keep their jobs the long rebuild is not something that will be tolerated in most cities. What is good though is that most teams will give a new GM an opportunity to break things apart. The Jets did this in 2006 when they gave new GM Mike Tannenbaum permission  to trade the teams best player and cut Pro Bowlers like Kevin Mawae for the long term healthy of the club. John Idzik is getting that same opportunity and like Tannenbaum before him he is looking to do it quickly because he knows he will be out the door if he doesn’t get the job done.

You never say never in this league and maybe 2013 will see the Jets shock the world, but there is a clear path here to getting something in place in 2014 just 2 years into Idzik’s stint as GM. By 2015 they would definitely be in a place to make some noise with major cap room if they don’t use it in 2014. But it all relies on the draft. If Idzik misses on those two draft picks this year the Jets have a chance to fall back into pre-1998 obscurity by clearing a bunch of cap space for a team with no building blocks in place to drive the success of the team. If that happens the team could be faced with the same tough choice they just had with Revis as Wilkerson and Coples could seem to be too high of a cost on yet another rebuilding team.  That’s the vicious cycle of salary cap football.

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Future League Cap Estimates Now Online

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I know I have had a number of requests to add tables for future cap years and now with free agency slowing down (though Im still working through some teams), notably the Jacksonville Jaguars) I was able to sit down and add the tables. Under the cap space tab you can now jump to the 2014-2016 league years to see the current estimates for each team. The chart includes players under contract, active 51 salary, dead money, and estimated top 51 cap spending.

As always the numbers are not perfect and we are always looking for any info to help them become more accurate, bu these should give you a pretty decent idea of where teams stand in the future. I think it will also help better understanding of some of the long term planning teams are going through as they focus not just on 2013 but the next two years of the franchise.

All the table headers are sortable so just click on the header to relist the tables in the order you want. As always keep emailing any suggestions and I will do my best to work on adding them to the site.

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Sedrick Ellis Regrets New CBA (Via PFT)- My Thoughts

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It was only a matter of time before the things I have talked about here and on my other site regarding the new CBA began to filter through to the players.Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk pulled this soundbite from Sedrick Ellis when he appeared on Sirius XM:

And I think that’s what you’re seeing when people are saying [there’s] a little buyer’s remorse.  It’s because we’re expecting a lot more money on the veteran end, and it’s just been hard.  We haven’t seen as much of it as we thought we would have.

This quote was in reference to the acceptance of a rookie wage scale that was designed to put the money back into the pockets of the veteran players. There were numerous problems with that line of thinking. First and foremost was the fact that whatever projections were being made on the end of the union failed to realize just how much the new deal was going to limit the growth of the salary cap. Veteran players had grown accustomed to a cap that was skyrocketing around $6 million per year. I detailed the effects when looking at the great market correction of 2012, but here is the graph that shows the projected growth of the old CBA vs actual growth in the new CBA:

unadjusted cap

That is a load of difference in spending money for teams. Not only that but the new CBA numbers include a ton of funny money where owners are allowed  to keep millions of dollars in players “performance based” earnings to help lessen  the reduction of dollars going to active contracts.

To think that the rookie salary reductions would make this up is ridiculous. The overall reduction in rookie pool money on an APY basis between 2010 and 2013 is around $30 million total, less than $1 million per team. The reason its so small is because the rising minimum salaries and flat signing bonuses of the non first rounders offsets half of the gain in the first round. Even on a 1st round basis the savings are only around $1.8 million per team on a leaguewide basis. To believe that this would offset $20 million in lost cap room due to the new accounting methods is unrealistic.

The decision to remove the salary cap floor from the new CBA and replace it with a cash floor was a short term mistake. Long term we shall see, but with no penalties for failure to spend over a 4 year period other than paying money back 4 years down the line has now left a number of teams to do nothing but sit on cap space. Five teams are carrying more than $20 million in cap room and most of those teams are not spending money in cash on their players so its not an accounting trick. Its sacrificing todays players, who may have gotten paid with a cap floor, for future contracts in 2015 and 2016 where they make up the difference, saving the money for a star QB or other player to come off his low cost rookie deal. Sure there were tricks in the old CBA to use up cap room without paying money, but the NFLPA needed both cash and cap minimums per team to keep their veterans from completely falling by the wayside.

The decision to change the franchise tag formula to a smooth figure disrupted years of tag growth that protected players from being forced to accept the franchise tag by their teams. While the numbers are not perfect I wrote this article back in September of 2011 not long after the new CBA was signed that illustrated the millions the union was leaving on the floor by adopting this new formula. Here was the conclusion:

So for most positions this got the owners exactly what they wanted which is control over costs and more importantly control over the players. There is almost no possibility that the franchise tag can grow as quickly as it did under the old system which at least gave the players some leverage in negotiations. Over time we are probably going to see a scenario where more teams start using the tag on the positions that they were hesitant to in the past because of the price associated with it. Another new and interesting aspect to offseason planning in the NFL

Maybe some of it has been unrealistic for the union to project but most fans would have told you that regardless of what the salary cap is there was always going to be one or two positions that is an overpaid positions. About a decade ago it was the running back and left tackle Now its the quarterback and wide receiver. The difference is under the old system overpayment was reasonable because the cap grew. Now its salaries whose growth far outpaces the growth of the cap. Where does the difference come from?  All the other positions on the team that have been de-valued. 

While nobody is going to cry over players who make millions most of the players in the league dont earn that kind of money. I look at a player like Matt Slauson, a good quality guard that worked to become a starter with the Jets, who should have at least gotten a contract that gives him a little financial security for two years. Instead he had to settle for a 1 year deal that is great money for a guy like me but peanuts compared to what players like him earned 2 and 3 years ago. Not only that but now teams are going to get to hold his performance based pay for two years rather than giving it to him when he earns it so the union can artificially pump up cap space. Unfortunately his story is becoming the norm and it shouldn’t have been that way.

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