Updated cap spreadsheet

[BigDavis75]

What Min used in 2004 to create $7M of extra cap space in 2005 was called the "Philly Loophole" as they were the 1st team that popularized it. Orignally when that loophole was first published, I thought the NFL would clamp down on it and review contracts extras that exist only to move money to future years. But, with 17 teams now taking advantage of the loophole it must be considered part of the salary cap game. I mean, one RFA type low paid player has a likely-to-be-earned incentive of $7M. If that doesn't standout, nothing will.

The last 2 years, the Cards could have used this loophole but didn't. At least they did rework some deals to more bonus into current years to same some money for this year.

It was a 7 million special teams bonus for their starting FS Brian Russell, which was of course never reached.

 

[BigDavis75]

I also noticed, as others did that we are trying to drop several of our top 15 salaries who were given those deals during the McGinnis era (Shelton, Thompson, etc.).

 

[joeshmo]

Just a small update I added how many years each player is under contract including this year.

 

[HookemCards]

Just a small update I added how many years each player is under contract including this year.

Most excellent. Now I can start trimming the fat from the roster .

 

[AntSports Steve]

Deleted.

 

[joeshmo]

Sorry guys I may have went wrong somewhere and am not accounting for some of the cap space being used somewhere.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=clayton_john&id=2004973

John Clayton who is usually right on this, has us at having 8 mill in cap space left as of April 1st. That doesnt include the 4 mill rookie pool, so according to Clayton we have only 4 mill in cap space left for FA's. Plus the cuts that were done today will raise that some.

I have us at 7.3 after the cuts and after taking out 4 mill in rookie space. I am off by like 3+ mill. in our favor.

So you can use my numbers or Claytons it is up to you but If I were you guys I would use Claytons numbers as a guide not mine. So for now on we have 4-5 mill in cap space for use on FA's.

Anyways here is what all of the other teams were at as of April 1st:

Teams in red need to either do some contract restructures or make some cuts

Jacksonville Jaguars 	$11.3 million
Dallas Cowboys 	        $9.73 million
Minnesota Vikings 	$9.39 million
Cleveland Browns 	$8.6 million
Philadelphia Eagles 	$8.52 million
Indianapolis Colts 	$8.176 million
Arizona Cardinals 	$8 million
Baltimore Ravens 	$7 million
Buffalo Bills 	        $6.2 million
Chicago Bears 	        $6.16 million
Green Bay Packers 	$6 million
St. Louis Rams   	$5.4 million
Cincinnati Bengals 	$5.16 millio[color=red]
San Francisco 49ers 	$4.74 million
Houston Texans  	$3.83 million
Detroit Lions   	$3.54 million
Carolina Panthers 	$3.29 million
Pittsburgh Steelers 	$3 million
Tennessee Titans 	$2.26 million
Kansas City Chiefs 	$1.874 million
San Diego Chargers 	$1.83 million
Seattle Seahawks 	$1.83 million
New York Jets   	$1.57 million
Washington Redskins 	$1.39 million
New York Giants 	$1.317 million
New Orleans Saints 	$1.165 million
Miami Dolphins  	$1.11 million
Atlanta Falcons 	$564,000 
New England Patriots 	$532,000 
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 	$218,000 
Denver Broncos  	$125,000 
Oakland Raiders 	$57,000[/color]

 

[joeshmo]

Clayton may not be using the rule of 51 yet. If that was the case and Clayton isnt using the Rule of 51 yet then his numbers do match mine almost exactly.

If that is the case then my numbers are correct if the rule of 51

And Claytons is correct if the rule of 51 isnt being used.

Maybe you can answer this for me Steve when does the rule of 51 start and end.

Clayton made me all confused now. The bastard.

 

[jf-08]

Restuck - this is good info.

 

[AntSports Steve]

The Rule of 51 starts March 1st when the new season opens up. It ends when the final cuts are announced. At that time, all the players you have under contract and the ones that end up on the practice squad (whatever their practice spad contracts are) all count.

 

[ThunderCard]

joeshmo or Antsports Steve

joeshmo or Antsports Steve,
Will you guys update the cap again for us ? I know the RC's have not been signed, but we were already slotted for the RC pool. Could we get a update after cutting Raynoch, Clement, and Woods. Also what the new dead cap space is from the cuts ? TIA

 

[AntSports Steve]

Hey Joe, Even thought the rules only require 51 contracts, what the Cards are going to do is have the normal 53 man roster and 8 practice squad guys. All that money counts against the cap, so let's change the accounting to include the top 53 players salaries and $612,000 for the practice squad players (8 players * 17 weeks * $4500/week).

Also, move a lot of those edit updated notes from the top of the post to the bottom so it's easier to read. Just leave the Thompson/Woods note and the new note for Clemment.

John Clayton updated his NFL Spreadsheet for cap space again on 4/29/05

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=clayton_john&id=2004973

 

[black]

Thanks for the info. This is the most informative Cards board on the planet. I posted the lastest link on the azcards board, I hope you guys don't mind. We need thought for food over there.

 

[joeshmo]

Everything is update.

I did away with the rule of 51 becuase it doesnt give the big picture once the season starts. I also added the practice squad numbers that Adam suggested.

I also didnt include any UDFA signing bonuses becuase they are so small it doesnt even make a dent.

Also of note: We are at our Roster limit(including the 7 NFLE roster extemptions) of 87.

If we sign any more players it will also come with a player getting cut.

 

[BigDavis75]

Sweet, thanks Joe

 

[CardShark]

Can the Seahawks afford to sign Alexander under tag if they need to sign their picks?

Below is the amount of money each team is under the $85.5 million salary cap for 2005 as of April 29.

TEAM-BY-TEAM SALARY CAP UPDATE
Arizona Cardinals $9.85 million
Atlanta Falcons $924,000
Baltimore Ravens $5.99 million
Buffalo Bills $1.02 million
Carolina Panthers $2.195 million
Chicago Bears $5.5 million
Cincinnati Bengals $4.796 million
Cleveland Browns $7.86 million
Dallas Cowboys $9.35 million
Denver Broncos $2.35 million
Detroit Lions $3.48 million
Green Bay Packers $4.66 million
Houston Texans $8.38 million
Indianapolis Colts $6.3 million
Jacksonville Jaguars $6.3 million
Kansas City Chiefs $900,000
Miami Dolphins $6.6 million
Minnesota Vikings $10.7 million
New England Patriots $1.96 million
New Orleans Saints $1.68 million
New York Giants $2 million
New York Jets $1.1 million
Oakland Raiders $137,000
Philadelphia Eagles $9.23 million
Pittsburgh Steelers $2.09 million
St. Louis Rams $4.42 million
San Diego Chargers $7.27 million
San Francisco 49ers $4.3 million
Seattle Seahawks $196,000
Tampa Bay Buccaneers $1.3 million
Tennessee Titans $2.09 million
Washington Redskins $1.26 million

 

[joeshmo]

Can the Seahawks afford to sign Alexander under tag if they need to sign their picks?

Yes. Once a team puts the franshise tag on a player the tender amount is already included into their cap, sign contract or not. So Alexander is already counting against their cap even though he hasnt signed anything.

But NE is going to have to cut and restructure a lot of player becuase of not having money in the first place, their rookie cap, just signed Chad Brown, and Brady will now count 8+ mill against the cap this year with his new deal in place.

 

[CardShark]

Yes. Once a team puts the franshise tag on a player the tender amount is already included into their cap, sign contract or not. So Alexander is already counting against their cap even though he hasnt signed anything.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that they have no room left to sign their draft picks unless He agrees to a long term contract so they can remove the tag. Or they'll need to trade him. Another option is cutting other players.

 

[BACH]

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that they have no room left to sign their draft picks unless He agrees to a long term contract so they can remove the tag. Or they'll need to trade him. Another option is cutting other players.

The Seahawks are in trouble. Signing Alexander to a long-term deal would clear about $4M, which is enough space to sign their rookies, but they still have some unsigned players and need another $1,5M of free space.

They probably need to cut someone to solved this one. It's going to be interesting to follow.

 

[joeshmo]

Updated.

By the way we save about 500K in cap.

Plus we now have 2 open roster spots opened up which means there will probably be a couple of signings in a few days.

 

[Cards Czar]

Joe the 2004 paylist for the Cardinals is up at USA Today.
Here is the link .

USA TODAY Link:

 

[joeshmo]

I am bored so here is some info for you guys for next years cap.

Right now we are sitting on 41 (34 players + 7 rookies to be signed) signed for the 2006 season at a total cap hit of a little under 60 mill (54.5 mill. + about 5 mill for the Rookies this year to be signed) With the expected cap to be at conservative increase to be set at 90 mill. we will have 30 mill at the least for next year for FA's.

Now keep in mind that that number will raise once Boldins contract is done, plus a few minor June 1st cut dead cap space. So I am going to add on another 5 mill which may be admittedly high, but I like doing the cap in a worst case scenerio. So that means we will have 25 mill. to work with for our own FA's, other FA's, and rookies in 2006.

Thats with a good core of 41 poeple on the roster. We need 12 more guys to fill out a roster But also keep in mind some of that 12 will come by way of the 2006 draft, so we are sitting really pretty right now with a lot of guys under contract and a lot of cap space to work with. But what is really good is that most of our own FA's for next year are either easily replacable or are cheap labor being either EFA's(cost of only 230K), or RFA's(anywhere from 656k to 1.8 mill)

Now you are asking yourself what does this all mean. Well going into our new stadium we will be in slightly better cap shape then this year, meaning what should be a 3rd year in a row of quality FA's to break in the new Home.

Now the rest of this analysis is depending on who we keep on the final roster and PS, because some of these guys wont even be on the team but the picture stays the same.

Now for the UFA's that we will have in 2006. There are only a few of our own UFA's that will cost anything like Warner or McCown, and maybe Davis. Rackers and Obafemi play positions that dont cost a lot, and the others are cheap backups or role players:

UFA's:

Damien Anderson RB
Neil Rackers K
Obafemi Ayan FB
Robert Tate CB
Russell Davis DT
Josh McCown QB
Kurt Warner QB
Raymond Walls CB
Quentin Harris S
Lawrence Ham. WR
Ross Kolodziej DT
Rhett Nelson CB
Adam Hayer OT
Ian Allen OT


Now for the RFA's. They will cost anywhere from the low of 656k to the high tender of 1.8 mill. Either way each of them are ours unless another team wants to give us compensation of where they were tendered or drafted (*note if we didnt draft them we dont get compensation just the right to match the offer). So basically they are ours if we tender them, at a cheap rate, but we will have to extend their offers during the season before they hit UFA status the next year. I could see us tendering at the least half of these guys.

RFA's (3 years experiance)

Kenny King DT
Gerald Hayes LB
Reggie Wells G
Clarence Curry CB
Reggie Newhouse WR
Casey Moore FB
Isaac Keyes LB
Jeremy Bridges T


Now the real cheap guys at 230 K, the EFA's. But dont be fooled by them being cheap a lot of them could play vital roles for us.

EFA's (2 or less years experiance)

Adam Bergen TE
John Bronson TE
Carlyle Holliday WR
Dan Sheldon WR
Roger Robinson RB
Antonio Smith DE
Isaiah Ekejiuba LB
Aaron Fransisco CB
Jermiane Hardy CB
Lamont Reid CB
Adrian Mayes S
Tyler King DE
Tim Bulman DT
Matt Fordyce K
Chris Lewis QB
Tyrone Sanders CB
Boby Blizzard TE
Aaron Golliday TE
Luke Powell WR
Fabian Davis WR
Rolonda Cantu OL
Jim Newton OT

 

[BigDavis75]

Thanks Joe, it looks like we are looking great next year. If we extend Boldin then will a good part of his bonus be accelarated to fill out this years cap, also with the leftover money next year we could make a late season extension like we did with Wilson.

 

[joeshmo]

If we extend Boldin then will a good part of his bonus be accelarated to fill out this years cap,

also with the leftover money next year we could make a late season extension like we did with Wilson.

On Boldin his bonus cant accelarate to this year becuase all bonuses are pro rated. But we could take more advantage of this years remaining cap and take lesser cap hits with his contract in future years by front loading his base salary. For example lets say he gets his signing bonus then we pay a huge base salary of 5 mill this year, only to lower his base salary to 1 mill in the remaining years.

The Cards may try to do that strategy for a Boldin contract, but I feel that they will do just a run of the mill extension and not use the front loaded strategy but more of a back loaded strategy, to keep them safer in case of injury. Plus they may want to keep more cap space going into the season to do a mid season contract extension for one or more of our UFA after the season, such as a guy like a Warner/Mccown, Rackers, Russel Davis, Obafemi, and or one of the backup OT's Haayer or Allen.

Plus I think we will bring in 2 higher priced FA's for this time of year to fill out our 87 man roster this offseason when June 1st rolls around. I just find it odd that we have 2 roster spots open and we havent filled them yet with UDFA's or street FA's. Most of the time teams keep to their roster max all of the time. If a player gets cut another player is brought in the next day. Even if they just turn around and cut that new player a few days later if another player becomes available. Again most of the time teams stay at their roster Max all of the time no matter what. But with the Cards not picking up two players right away (2 weeks before June 1st) I am of the thinking that they are either negotiating with a few players right now (Traylor, Dixon, Chad Lewis, ect.) or have their sights set on a few June 1st cuts such as McQuarters or another guy. All of that is another reason why I think that Boldins deal will be run of the mill, they have this years cap ear marked for June 1st cuts, mid year extensions, 1 mill injury fund, and Boldins extension.

Thats a lot of speculation though.

 

[SpokaneCardfan]

What a shame that P. Zelner makes almost twice as much as Dockett .,

 

[Cody]

25 Anquan Boldin WR $380,000 $302,500 $682,500 2

GIVE HIM SOME MONEY!