@NealCoolong, formerly of Behind the Steel Curtain, now runs a Steelers website under the USA Today banner named SteelersWire.USAToday.com, which is now the #1 spot for Steelers information on the Internet. He recently contacted me about answering some cap related questions about the Steelers for a piece. It’s a very interesting move by USA Today to have a site like this for each team and I think it’s a great idea for them to help build a credible voice in each marketplace, so I hope they continue to expand on this.
After expanding on a question about Cameron Heyward, we realized that the 5 question piece would be too long to run as one thing. With that, we realized that we could make it an Over The Cap feature over on SteelersWire.USAToday.com whenever he has any cap questions for me, which should be fun.
This question about Heyward helped me put some of the stuff I’ve been writing about in Caponomics: Understanding NFL Roster Building through Super Bowl Champion Salary Cap Analysis into practice as I saw an interesting comparison between Heyward and Aaron Smith from the last two Super Bowl champion Steeler teams.
In doing this, it helped me create a bit of a system for looking at contracts in the context of how great organizations build their rosters because, so often, I see the Patriots, Steelers, and Ravens do the same things that have worked for them in the past to build their teams. It’s a simple and effective strategy because they already have a formula for success, it’s about just finding new players to input.
So, here’s the final product and there will be more to come in the future!
If you work for a team themed site or any other kind of football site and you have some cap questions you want answered, always feel free to reach out to Caponomics@gmail.com!
Tweet me: @ZackMooreNFL
If you liked the kind of cap analysis that went into this article, please e-mail me at Caponomics@gmail.com, so that you are added to our e-mail list and get some bonus finished chapters as they become available. A couple weeks ago, I sent out our chapter analyzing the 2000 Ravens. Coming soon will be the 2014 Patriots, 2014 Lions and 2014 Steelers.
Caponomics is a book that analyzes the Super Bowl champions from the last 21 seasons, creates theories based on this analysis and then uses those theories to discuss why 2014 teams were or were not successful.