Spending to the Cap

[Cheesebeef]

Most of those players cut, Graves and Green knew they would cut. So, why not add that extra money into their Free Agent budget back in March?

here's joke #2 - what would have been the response had we cut LJ in March? Here - let me guess:

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY TRY AND GET ANYTHING FOR HIM?! THIS TEAM IS SO CHEAP AND IDIOTS!

Sound about right? Steve - you put them into a lose-lose scenario, when in reality - they did what is best for the long-term future of the team - as well as the short term future IMO - Just because Shelton at one point started on a woeful O-line doesn't mean that makes him good depth - same goes with that piece of garbage Ray Thompson.

 

[Lex]

LJ was on AM 910 this morning with Dickley and the Cardinals Outsider. They TRIED to get him to bad mouth the orginization and Denny, but he wouldn't bite... because he's honest.

He says he's now in the best shape of his career, lighter, stronger, and quicker than he has been, ever. He said he LEARNED last year, from Denny, that he needed to do this, said he never had any conversations with Denny that would lead him to believe he was in Denny's dog house, but LJ said he could tell the team was heading in a different direction. (Denny believes in building through the draft, AND paying high dollar for skill players, not offensive linemen. Taking Leonard Davis #2 overall should have put him at LT from day 1, and LJ makes too much for any other o-line position.)

LJ also said 3-4 teams have contacted him, and he is GRATEFUL to the Cardinals for letting him go early, even though it cost the cap this year.

He said he'd love to play for the Lions, but his home is here in the Valley, all of his family is here, and this will remain his home.

I've always respected LJ, and wish him nothing but the best of luck in the future, but if I had to pick one LT over the other, I'd take Big at this point, and I totally agree with the current direction the Cardinals are going, including the management of the salary cap.

Pete Kendall sucks.

 

[Duckjake]

PLAYERS LOST: OT Anthony Clement; CB Renaldo Hill; TE Freddie Jones; QB Shaun King; RB Emmitt Smith; CB Duane Starks; CB Michael Stone; LB Ray Thompson; DE Kyle Vanden Bosch; WR Karl Williams; LB LeVar Woods.

Add the other Levar and now LJ Shelton. How are the Cardinals going to eat with the "Belly" of the team gone? Maybe they'll just get french fries from Mark Smith.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Pete Kendall sucks.

that's classic - agree with the everything you wrote.

 

[Russ Smith]

LJ was on AM 910 this morning with Dickley and the Cardinals Outsider. They TRIED to get him to bad mouth the orginization and Denny, but he wouldn't bite... because he's honest.

He says he's now in the best shape of his career, lighter, stronger, and quicker than he has been, ever. He said he LEARNED last year, from Denny, that he needed to do this, said he never had any conversations with Denny that would lead him to believe he was in Denny's dog house, but LJ said he could tell the team was heading in a different direction. (Denny believes in building through the draft, AND paying high dollar for skill players, not offensive linemen. Taking Leonard Davis #2 overall should have put him at LT from day 1, and LJ makes too much for any other o-line position.)

LJ also said 3-4 teams have contacted him, and he is GRATEFUL to the Cardinals for letting him go early, even though it cost the cap this year.

He said he'd love to play for the Lions, but his home is here in the Valley, all of his family is here, and this will remain his home.

I've always respected LJ, and wish him nothing but the best of luck in the future, but if I had to pick one LT over the other, I'd take Big at this point, and I totally agree with the current direction the Cardinals are going, including the management of the salary cap.

Pete Kendall sucks.

That all makes sense and LJ is a good guy but how does signing Oliver Ross for more money than LJ makes = building through the draft and not paying high dollar for offensive linemen?


I agree releasing him now is good for LJ, it gives him some more time. Teams may wait for June 1 to see who else is free, or they may snap up LJ now before June 1.

The point is the caproom is only valuable if you use it at some point. Hopefully next year we'll use it in a combination of extending key players, and bringing in a difference maker or two.

 

[CardLogic]

Can anybody please tell me why LJ is not a team player?

I have no doubt he doesn't buy into Green's system, but to say he's not a team player is comical, he's done EVERYTHING the Cards have asked of him since the day he was drafted.

As I wrote in the Shelton / Diamond released thread...

LJ did everything expected of him, except to play the game with passion! You want to be exceptional at football, you have got to love to play the game. I think LJ sees the NFL as a career, Green is looking for players with passion for the game.

 

[Russ Smith]

As I wrote in the Shelton / Diamond released thread...

LJ did everything expected of him, except to play the game with passion! You want to be exceptional at football, you have got to love to play the game. I think LJ sees the NFL as a career, Green is looking for players with passion for the game.

Fair enough, can you explain how you know this? A guy who sees it as a career doesn't continually play with injuries and put off surgery until the season is over year after year. remember that's why Lex hates Kendall so much he says every year Pete waits until we're out of the playoffs and then has a surgery so he can sit the rest of the year. Shelton didn't do that, he played hurt.

Big is no more passionate about the game than LJ is, he's a better player today (because LJ wasn't himself last year) but not more passionate.

I have no doubt Shelton's in better shape because of his experience with Green, another example of him not bucking the system. LJ is a finesse player, seems to me Green is building a power run blocking OL, I suspect that's the disconnect. IN the end I think Green thinks Shelton is one of the guys who turned him in last year, that's why he got mad at LJ in the first place imho.

I knew this was coming, I'm fine with it, but I do think we lost a guy who could have really helped us if Big or Ross got hurt. And if salary was the problem, we could have redone his contract.

 

[CardLogic]

Fair enough, can you explain how you know this?

Can't say that I know it; but based upon what has transpired along with my own observations I suggest that it might have been the case. You alluded to the same idea yourself with the statement, "LJ is a finesse player"... But football is not best when played as a finesse game but rather when it is played with a "smash-mouth" attitude!

Beerz posted a thread "Solid Read" which refered to a USA Today article in which the following was written:

"Dennis Green and staff viewed both players as underachievers who just didn't have the demeanor he wants."​

I stated on another thread that I believe that Green would rather employ a player with less talent, more passion over one with better ability, but not as great a heart for the game.

Anquan Boldin loves football, didn't want to be away from it even during the dull difficult days of summer. I just don't see the same fire in Shelton. Frankly, I am not sure whether L. Davis has the passion either...

I do think that the Cardinals should have kept LJ on the roster. He would have been an excellent backup at either tackle slot. And I agree that Shelton has class, he did and said all of the things one would expect of a professional, i.e.- played hurt, never dissed the Cards organization etc. Looking at his total career to now, I think that his actions/performance stem from a rational approach to football as a profession and he has conducted himself as a professional.

I have always believed that at it's best football is a game of emotion!

 

[ajcardfan]

And if salary was the problem, we could have redone his contract.

Well, this was not an option IMO. No way Shelton would (or even should) take a cut in salary. And, the only other way to reduce the cap hit would've been to extend him with yet another bonus. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen either!

 

[Russ Smith]

Well, this was not an option IMO. No way Shelton would (or even should) take a cut in salary. And, the only other way to reduce the cap hit would've been to extend him with yet another bonus. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen either!

Why not, nobody is going to pay him his current contract now. Odds are he'll get 1 to 1.5 million a year, the Cards could have offered him similar money. Maybe not as much since I'm assuming someone will sign him as a starter,but if not, we could have offered him less money to stay. No guarantee he takes it but it's clear we made no effort to keep him because Green didn't want him.

All I'm saying is I don't think LJ's salary had a lick to do with him being gone, he's just not on the same page as green, so he's gone. If the salary was the problem we wouldn't have cut him before June 1 and took the bigger cap hit.

 

[Mulli]

Well there you get into a whole new debate about what buy into the system means. LJ didn't show up for camp out of shape because he was lazy, it was because he'd had 2 surgeries. He admitted he should have watched his weight better, but he also said he'd been in contact with the Cards all along so his condition shouldn't have shocked them.

From that point on he did everything Green asked, he played hurt, worked hard, played a new position, hell he was trying to get to play when Green was holding him out saying he wasn't healthy yet.
When SHelton realized that none of that mattered and Green still didn't like him, he asked to be traded, which is what I meant when I said didn't buy in, if you buy in, you don't ask to be traded.

Not a team player is Travis henry, sabotaging your own trade value by shooting off your mouth.

I agree with the thing about Travis Henry. I also think that based on what LJ has said publically since the trade I have no problem with him. Seems like both sides wanted to part ways. Good enough for me. I take back what I said about him.

 

[conraddobler]

Well, this was not an option IMO. No way Shelton would (or even should) take a cut in salary. And, the only other way to reduce the cap hit would've been to extend him with yet another bonus. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen either!

This LJ thing I think goes even farther back than that, before any camps I seem to remember right after being hired DG basically stated he wasn't happy with some of the extensions done right before he got here.

I don't think LJ turned him in I think DG simply dosen't like his style of blocking.

LJ dosen't seem to be the turn him in type but if he did he got what he deserved. I am almost 100% sure Green broke the rules to see who would confront him so he could get a head start on cleaning out the roster.


Back to the cap space thing, I see both sides here, on the one hand it seems to me as if they did a nice job in the offseason, on the other hand they always seem to find ways to look as if they spent close to the cap without spending real $ to get there.

Now what you have to ask yourself is would that money done anything for us so far other than blow up our future cap. I'd say no.

We are set up for a real run at this for two or three years and if we need someone, anyone and they sit on their hands like this then I will be howling to high heavens about it.

 

[Russ Smith]

LJ dosen't seem to be the turn him in type but if he did he got what he deserved. I am almost 100% sure Green broke the rules to see who would confront him so he could get a head start on cleaning out the roster.


.

Ooh now there's a theory that peaks my natural tendency to look for a conspiracy!

I like it, the only issue is he has no idea who turned him in because it's confidential, but maybe he figured he can still tell?

 

[JasonKGME]

A few cap lessons

Every offseason, I read a post with those words in it. Well, it's not true. It's a lie. In the last 5 years including this year, the Cards have pushed money into the current year to "look" like they are spending to the cap.

For 2005, just for Thompson, Clemment, and Shelton, the team has purposely cut them before June 1st to push money into 2005's cap just to look like they are trying to spend to the cap. How much much cap space could the cards saved? $3.6M just for those 3 players alone.

Cutting them before June 1st cost 2005 and Extra :
Thompson - $625,000
Clemment - $425,000
Shelton - $2,500,000

I would like to figure out a list of the rest of the players under contract for more than 1 year that were cut and figure out how much more money the Cards actually tried not to spend this year.

The Cards should have tried to bring in one more high profile player instead of saving for the future.

In the NFL, the future is always now.

So please post a few player names of 2005 cuts and help my memory.

I don't know why so many people have a hard time understanding how the cap works. Let me explain a couple of things... (gonna work with more managable #'s so this is just an example not the actual cap here)


Lets assume your salary cap is $100 and it stays flat for the next year (meaning no increase from year to year, yes I know the NFL continually increases the cap each year but like I said this is to make following the #'s easier.


So assuming the above is true then I would have:

2005 $100
2006 $100
total $200 for the 2 years to spend.


Now lets also assume I have spent $90 of my cap and have $10 left, and I choose to cut 3 players who's accellerated bonus costs me the extra $10 making my total cap for the year $100 right? Leaving me another $100 to spend the next year since I wont have those bonus's sitting there if I wait until after june 1st.

Means above I actually "spent" $190 not $200 but for cap purposes my #'s are $200.





Now lets go the other way and say I spent $90 of my cap and have $10 left, and I choose to cut the 3 players AFTER JUNE 1st and push that $10 off to next years cap, I use the $10 this year to sign another player, meaning I spent my total cap of $100 this year, HOWEVER next year I only have $90 left to me to spend because I pushed the cap hit to next year, so I spend the $90.

Means above I actually "spent" $190 not $200 but for cap purposes my #'s are $200.





Wow, what do you know in both scenarios I end up "spending" the exact same amount of money, its just a matter of when it counted against my cap.





All teams spend about the same amount of money over the long haul within a million or two each year. Its just a matter of HOW you spent it over that long haul, IE did you do the Titans and SF route and spend over a 5 year period with payrolls of $150, $150, $100, & $50 & $50 of actually money "spent" in each of those 5 years but because of the way the contracts are written/payed they come out to cap hits of $100, $100, $100, $100, $100. or do you do like the Cards do and spend $110, $90, $110, $90, $100 all right around even #'s each year.


Now you can say they are not spending the money in the right way and i have no problem with that argument, but to say they are just trying to make it "look" like they are spending to the cap is off base. They do spend the cap each year just like every team does.

 

[conraddobler]

Ooh now there's a theory that peaks my natural tendency to look for a conspiracy!

I like it, the only issue is he has no idea who turned him in because it's confidential, but maybe he figured he can still tell?

There were rumors Fitz might have been a snitch etc. I'd say someone did and I'm not saying I know who it was but it's likely that any of DG's new players could have been the one that did it.

Still I am convinced that was the plan, just my opinion but seems to fit.

 

[Pariah]

They do spend the cap each year just like every team does.

You gave a great explaination of how that cap works, but it didn't support this conclusion, IMO. Show me the Cardinals actual numbers instead of hypotheticals and that will support it; but I thought there was even a year here recently when the Cards were in danger of being fined because they hadn't spent enough money.

 

[Russ Smith]

Now you can say they are not spending the money in the right way and i have no problem with that argument, but to say they are just trying to make it "look" like they are spending to the cap is off base. They do spend the cap each year just like every team does.

Spend in the right way is the key, the bonus was paid to Shelton ~ 2 years ago but all hits the cap now because it's before June 1. So we already paid the money, but we're taking the hit now.

Had we deferred the hit to next year, and signed a replacement with the money, the argument is you spent the money to help the team. The question is can we get a player for Shelton's caphit(even if he's not an OL like Shelton)?

That's why Steve was saying if you know upfront you're probably going to cut Shelton, you may as well bank on doing it after June 1 and use that money as part of your FA budget. I just think its' naive to think Green and Graves didn't know months ago there wasn't much trade market for LJ, hell when we benched him last year my biggest complaint was that we just killed any future trade value for him because now everyone would assume we'll either accept low value in return, or cut him. That's precisely why nobody traded for him, teams don't think he sucks, they just don't think it was necessary to give up a player or pick to get him.


If Shelton's trade value is a surprise, we weren't doing our homework and I think Green and Graves do their homework.

 

[Russ Smith]

You gave a great explaination of how that cap works, but it didn't support this conclusion, IMO. Show me the Cardinals actual numbers instead of hypotheticals and that will support it; but I thought there was even a year here recently when the Cards were in danger of being fined because they hadn't spent enough money.

That was the year we extended Shelton, Thompson, Gilmore et al, that's why we accelerated cap hits that year so we'd spend to the minimum and avoid fines.

To be fair, we weren't "trying" to hoard caproom, we'd put aside money to sign Boston, possibly (shudder) Jake, and to sign key FA's. But the key FA's all chose someone else, Boston revealed himself to be a problem child, and we decided to cut ties with Jake, and suddenly we had ton of caproom.

 

[conraddobler]

That was the year we extended Shelton, Thompson, Gilmore et al, that's why we accelerated cap hits that year so we'd spend to the minimum and avoid fines.

To be fair, we weren't "trying" to hoard caproom, we'd put aside money to sign Boston, possibly (shudder) Jake, and to sign key FA's. But the key FA's all chose someone else, Boston revealed himself to be a problem child, and we decided to cut ties with Jake, and suddenly we had ton of caproom.

I'd agree to a point but the synic in me also thinks it was planned for the new stadium.

They had to know through talking to these guys what their chances of signing them were and it just seemed to me that the plan was to let them go while making a cover my butt offer.

I don't even have much of a problem with it, it was in a sense done knowing you wouldn't be retaining your coach and Graves did the best he could to get to a number he had to get too without spending any more on players the new guy might not like.

I just don't think you can dismiss the save money if possible scenario without a ton more proof than any of us are likely to have.

 

[MadCardDisease]

There are 2 reasons Shelton is no longer on this team:

#1: Shelton hasn't lived up to the hype. He never became consistant on our line and he makes too much to be a backup.

#2: Couple that with he has been on this team for so long that I believe Green thinks he has become numb to losing. Showing up to camp over weight was an indicator of this to Green.

 

[CardLogic]

riddle me this Steve...

Nice reference to Frank Gorshin.

 

[MadCardDisease]

If any year, this was the year the Cards would have pulled out all the stops and tried to build a fantastic team. Green has done pretty good with this years crop of free agents and draft picks, but the Cards had the money to do better and did not allow Graves/Green to do their best. I'm sure Green could have gotten a few more quality free agents with a bigger budget.

I think it is clear that the Cardinals targeted specific players in FA and went after them hard. They landed most of them and refused to over pay for a few of the others that they were interested in (Mili, Hartwell). I don't believe that the Bidwills held back Green or Graves in FA. I believe that G&G were spending their cap wisely on specific players that fit this team.

 

[slanidrac16]

Cap space, cap hits, Shelton cut, before June , after June, signed Ross, why, why not.

When a new regime takes over, it usually means change. If you are going to go to war with someone, you want it to be your guy. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.

This team has been a work in futility over the last 5 years, in fact make that 19 out of the last 20 years. The offensive line turns out, may have been the biggest under achieving unit of the team despite being very well compensated. Green didn't want to many of those participants.

Green is "growing " this team. When ( if) this team blossoms , I believe we will enjoy much more than 1 or 2 winning seasons. If this team keeps growing at the rate that it has been, we will be blossoming sooner than we think and talks about "the cap" will be a thing of the past.

 

[Russ Smith]

I'd agree to a point but the synic in me also thinks it was planned for the new stadium.

They had to know through talking to these guys what their chances of signing them were and it just seemed to me that the plan was to let them go while making a cover my butt offer.

I don't even have much of a problem with it, it was in a sense done knowing you wouldn't be retaining your coach and Graves did the best he could to get to a number he had to get too without spending any more on players the new guy might not like.

I just don't think you can dismiss the save money if possible scenario without a ton more proof than any of us are likely to have.

Oh I agree I don't buy for a second we intended to keep Jake although I do think we intended to keep Boston when that year started. but we saved room to do that and when it didn't happen, we planned to spend that money on FA"s like Colvin, but they didn't take our offers so we were left holding a lot of caproom and facing a fine so we extended guys.

But who knows what really happened, Graves I guess.

 

[AntSports Steve]

KGMEJason, I understand completely how the cap works.

If you are looking at actual cap dollars, and the cap is 100, here's how the Cards have spent their money the last 5 years.

90, 90, 85, 90, and this year 90. Even if they spend 100 every year, they would still be behind most of the NFL. Why? Because here's how a good portion of the NFL spend : 95, 100, 110, 120, 65. Many of the teams go along near the cap and sooner or later push the envelope and make a run in the years with 110, 120. If the Cap doesn't increase enough, they eventually have to have a down year and strip their team like SFO or TEN. If the cap keeps going up, you can spend 110, 110, 110 for quite a while like the current Eagles and New England. Teams that only spend 100, 100, 100 or like the Cards 90, 90, 90 are at a disadvantage.

I'm not saying that Green and Graves are not building a good team. I'm saying that in 2004, if they added a qualtiy vet OG, they would have probably made the playoffs, and in 2005, if they added 1 more quality vet, they would have gone deep into the playoffs. We could be entering the 2006 new stadium year with 2 years in a row of playoffs and a solid superbowl contender.

Instead, I see a possible playoff team, maybe even a div winner. I see a team that still has RG issues, and one injury away at CB or OT of going 6-10 again. What happens if A.Rolle tears his ACL? Is a 3rd rounder rookie CB good enough to start? Tate plays full time nickel? The Cards are still on the edge of being good, when spending for now, instead of saving in the future would increase the Cards chances of going deep into the playoffs.

I fulled expected because of the new stadium issues that this year the Cards would spend 110.