BarleyNY

Well, the Steelers SHOULD be calling teams about QBs. I’d be much more disappointed in their FO if this is fake.

I appreciate the kind words. I’m always happy to help with things I have some knowledge of. I’m a numbers geek and have been looking at the salary cap for over 20 years now. Things are always so nuanced and so much is unknown by us fans this time of year. We can look at the cap numbers and have a good idea of team needs, but we often don’t know what the team thinks of some of the players on their roster. I think they can get to $30M under if they want to. More, if they really push it. That will enable them to make some reasonable signings and fill their holes. They could even make one big signing if they want. I would not expect more than than one splash signing though. The direction they are going should be a lot clearer in mid March. The new league year will be here and they’ll make their cuts. If there is a splash FA signing, it’ll likely happen then. We will have a better idea of their needs too.

https://247sports.com/nfl/cleveland-browns/longformarticle/understanding-the-cleveland-browns-spending-philosophy-why-it-is-sustainable-2024-235642851/#2480064 Here is an article explaining the methodology of the Browns, which is essentially the same as the Eagles.

There are some articles out there about how the Eagles and Browns are operating. It is infinitely sustainable as long as the NFL’s salary cap increases at its historical pace of about 8% a year. It enables them to outspend typical teams by about 15-18%. I’ll post an article if I can find one.

You’re right about every GM wishing they could spend like Philly and ownership’s willingness to spend, but the Eagles are running this in a sustainable way. There is no “cap hell” year on the horizon though. Not as long as the salary cap continues to rise.

I guess Kincaid should have added more muscle last offseason.

Not only is an early age drop off in production due to wear and tear a big factor with RBs, seasons lost to injury are too. Injury can happen to any player at any position, but RBs are injured at a particularly high rate.

It’s simply a function of their cash spend. The Bengals are very frugal in what they spend - players, facilities, staff, etc. So they could choose to increase their cash spend on contracts and more aggressively structure them. That’s what Burrow is pushing for. You are correct that within a given budget keeping both WRs would mean cutting back elsewhere. But this isn’t that. Burrow wants them to expand their budget because there is plenty of room to do so in Cincinnati.

I wonder if they’re trying to drive up the price. It’s not like the Browns aren’t in the market and haven’t bent over in the recent past. It makes me think this is Lawrence driven. The Jags are a disaster so I could see him wanting out.

Clemson was doing a lot of cheating when he was there. It got figured out the year Ohio State covered up their signs and beat them. So while I wondered how much that helped him look good in college and how he might struggle in the NFL without that aid, the thing that really bothered me was him laughing and joking around as that game came to a close. He didn’t seem to care at all that they lost - and badly - in the playoffs.

No, $5M additional cap space would not change much. That would be about 2% of the current cap. Teams would just change their calculations for 2025 by 9.6% instead of the expected 7.6%. It’s a moot point anyway because the cap numbers will be out before the new season when they can sign Cook to an extension. It would change my example of a $10.5M/season extension for Cook to $10.7M. Minimal.

Arguing that Barkley didn’t deserve the contract he got only diminishes Cooks’ case. The use of void years is not a reason to excuse overpaying a player. It is not the reason the Eagles structure so many contracts that way. It is a cap management tool that enables them to pay more players fair market value. That enables them to build a more talented team. Using it to overpay players destroys its usefulness. Cash is what matters to players and agents and that should be the focus of what constitutes a fair deal.

Cook is eligible for a new contract/extension on March 12th when the new league year begins. However I do not believe that there is anything preventing negotiations before then since he is already a member of the Bills. They should have a good idea of what the 2025 cap will be, but hard numbers aren’t out yet. They usually come out in late February. So next couple weeks, before the league year starts.

It is highly unlikely we’d see a jump up in RB contracts. Supply of quality running backs has never been higher.

That’s actually a pretty poor argument in this case. At least for $15M a year. I mean, you’re correct that contracts rise with the rise of the cap. But in this case the numbers don’t really work. Barkley got 3 yr(s) / $37,750,000 last offseason. That’s was as a free agent, something Cook isn’t. He’s also a better player by a fair margin. Cook is a very, very good runner. But he’s not Barkley. So what would Barkley get this season? The 2025 cap isn’t out yet, but expectations are around $275M. That’s about a 7.67% increase. So that contract would be about 3/$40.65M or $13.55M AAV if he signed it this season. But that’s for Barkley who’s a better player and who has a snap count of around 90%, which is about double Cooks’. Let that sink in. So why would Cook get a premium over Barkley rather than a substantial discount? I’d be happy to tack on an extension of 3-4 years to his current $5.2M season at $10M/season. I’d probably go up to $11M on the new years, but that’s as much as I’d want to see the Bills overpay. A 3 year extension that results in a 4/$37M deal is what he’s worth IMO. If he wants to tack on another year at $13M for 5/$50 to make it look good, then no problem. Most RBs don’t last that long so he’ll never see it.

I see them as using a traditional spending cap model. Restraint most seasons with opportunity to make targeted, occasional big pushes to get over the top. From 2021-2023 they were aggressive with their spending. They were top 6 in cash spend each of those seasons. Von Miller was a big part of that push. This past season they dialed their cash spend back to 20th in the league and cleared some dead cap. They certainly could’ve been more aggressive and kept up their spending if they were using the Eagles model, but they went with the traditional reset. Moving forward I expect them to ramp up cash spending again this offseason to try to get that championship. If that doesn’t materialize, then I’ll have real concerns about Pegula’s willingness to spend. I don’t expect that, but I’ll breathe easier once I see it happen.

I’ll take a look at that soon. They’ll Browns will be getting some cap relief from Watson’s contract. $13.6M from insurance from games missed due to injury last season. Moving forward they stand to get back $44.3M next season from insurance due to his achilles injury. That actually has to potential to void his guarantees if it can be proven that he did not follow protocol to protect himself from re-injury. In that case they’ll just cut him. I’ll check out the link and get back to you on it. Edit: Just looked. Some will change. For example, Wills and Winston will have no dead cap in 2026 as their last season with the Browns was this past one. Their dead cap will accelerate to 2025. Spotrac will make those - and some other - changes when the new season starts and the contract officially void.

The big question for me is what they do about Allen. He got $60M cash last season, but he’s only due $14.5M this season. If something is getting done there then that’s where you start. As for a big trade like Garrett or Crosby the Bills would need to do a new deal for them so they could minimize the first couple year’s cap hits. The Bills can open up some decent cap space. I use OTC’s calculator to play with scenarios when I’m bored.

Agreed. It’s a risk in some instances. But the extra space does allow for some mistakes to be made and they can plan for retirements. The Browns messed their team up with the Watson debacle. It severely screwed up that locker room this year. They changed their offense to try to make it work with him and that caused issues. Then Winston outperformed him in camp, but they had to trot Watson out as starter due to the stupid guaranteed contract. That angered many because they knew he didn’t give them the best chance to win. Eventually the locker room fell apart. I don’t think Watson ever takes another snap for them. The counter example is the 2023 Browns. That locker room was tight and their cap management allowed them to do well enough to make the playoffs despite poor QB play overall. Moving forward it’ll be interesting to see what that team can do if they can find a good QB somehow.

Yes. That’s all void years do. The only other thing about them to note is that they do not impact compensatory picks. If a team had to write extra years into a contract to push out cap hits and then cut the player, they wouldn’t get a comp pick. But if they use void years they would be eligible for one.

Cap basics: - The cap hits for salary and roster bonuses hit in the year they are paid. - Signing bonus cap hits are prorated over the life of the contract for up to 5 seasons total. - Void years are fake contract years used to push out cap hits from signing bonuses. - When a player is cut or traded then all remaining cap hits from a signing bonus accelerate into the current year (or following year if after 6/1). Example of two players paid the same amount for a 1 season contract: - Player with a 1 year contract with $2M signing bonus and $10M salary. Cap hit is $12M in Y1. - Player with a 1 year contract with 4 added void years, $2M salary and $10M signing bonus. Cap hits would be $4M in Y1 and $8M in Y2. This is because the signing bonus is $2M/season for 5 seasons. Then since the contract voids the remaining 4 seasons of signing bonus money accelerates into year 2. It’s worth noting that if a player is extended before his contract voids, then the cap hits would not accelerate at that time. So you can see how it helps when you factor in a historic 8% increase in the cap. Just structuring the contract above like that is a cap savings of $8Mx.08=$640k. For nothing really. And those numbers get large when you go out 4 seasons on longer term contracts. Players don’t even get cash early anymore. It’s guaranteed, but is usually just paid out as if it were salary.

Teams like the Eagles can outspend teams with a more traditional cap structure by 15-18%. That’s a huge advantage. The mechanism is to push out as much cap space as possible by using signing bonuses and void years rather than salary and roster bonuses. I’ll explain how that works in another post. Just remember that the most important factor is cash spending. Teams have cash budgets for each year and the cap structuring follows that. There are some drawbacks and risks with the Eagles approach: - It is aggressive and sustainable, but it’s even keeled. There is no room to push “all in” and spike spending for a season or two. - You need an owner willing to spend that much extra. There are actually very few of those. Most would rather pocket the money. Mike Brown has always pocketed what he can. - Teams have to bet on the right players because it is difficult to move on from the expensive ones if things sour. Myles Garrett is a good example. The Browns operate with the same cap management style as the Eagles. It’s nearly impossible for them to trade MG this offseason. - And the big one. The cap must co time to rise at a fairly predictable rate. If we have another Covid year where the cap falls, then there could be very big negative repercussions. So Cincy could keep both Higgins and Chase if they wanted to, but they don’t want to spend that much money. They will be compliant with the spending floor and structure their contracts so that it looks like they don’t have much space. That gives them a story to tell their fans when they let a Tee Higgins leave. Owners like Mike Brown love this structure for that reason and they don’t care if the Eagles outspend them and get a competitive advantage.

I am saying that I understand that different positions have different pay scales due to things like supply and demand. Also Knox’s reworked deal is $9.8M AAV.

I’m not on the “he drops too many passes” train. He just had a couple high profile drops in the playoffs of the 23-24 season. But I don't think he’s anything special as a receiver either. iMO there is absolutely no way I give him anything close to a $15M AAV contract. Early cap hits can always be managed, but that is no reason to overpay someone. Pay him appropriately and structure THAT amount to your benefit. Incidentally, $15M AAV would rank him second among RBs after McCaffery, who is an outlier at $19M. And only 5 RBs are currently above $10M. Here’s the top 10: 1 Christian McCaffrey SF, RB$19,000,000 2 Jonathan Taylor IND, RB$14,000,000 3 Saquon Barkley PHI, RB$12,583,333 4 Alvin Kamara NO, RB$12,250,000 5Josh Jacobs GB, RB$12,000,000 6James Conner ARI, RB$9,500,000 7 David Montgomery DET, RB$9,125,000 8 Rhamondre Stevenson NE, RB$9,000,000 9 Joe Mixon HOU, RB$8,500,000 10 Chuba Hubbard CAR, RB$8,300,000 I’d like the Bills to keep him, but sometimes things don’t work out. Let’s see how things play out. This draft class is loaded at RB and there will be talented backs into day 3. I hope the Bills use that to cover themselves.

I don’t like that Cook and his brother are already negotiating in the public space. The Bills can’t even negotiate an extension until the new league year starts in March. I think his value on an extension is $10M-$11M/season with guarantees of under 50% of the new 5 year deal. Then we can get out if he falls off. Cook has fantastic vision and is a smart, patient runner. As others have mentioned, he’s poor in pass pro and nothing special as a receiver. This season he averaged 2 catches for 8 yards each as a receiver. That’s not helping his value IMO.