How much is Moulds worth to the Bills in cap hit?

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

Eric Moulds is apparently scheduled to get about $8.7 million in 2005 cap hit for the Bills. Even Moulds knows that he should not and will not get this type of cap hit next year (For example, in 2004 Marvin Harrison has a cap hit of around $7.6 million according to the NFLPA web site).

 

Moulds appears from his comments to have made two correct determinations that one he would not get nearly this amount on the open market (though like Lawyer Milloy part of this cap hit is prorated bonus already paid to him so if he were cut by the Bills the question for him in terms of real dollars is whether he could get the$5.5 million in base salary from someone he is scheduled to get from the Bills next year and this issue would really depend upon the market at the time of his realease if it were to occur. Milloy hit the market at a time where the Bills had both the need and the cap room to give him a great deal, the supply of safties of his caliber was non-existent and the Bears also had an opening and the cap room to create a bidding opportunity which forced the Bills to pay him a bunch). Second Moulds sees good prospects for this team to achieve with him and with Evans so taking a more reasonable deal will allow him both on and off the field benefits.

 

The bottomline is that both Moulds and TD have said publicly that they will negitiate a new deal which lowers the Moulds cap hit well below the $8.7 million level and there are very good reasons for both sides to make this so.

 

Still many fans don't seem to understand or choose to ignore the cap and merely rant that he is not worth the money and advcate that he should be cut. This wouldbe risky for both parties, dumb for Moulds if the timing breaks wrong and .dumb for the Bills in virtually all cases.

 

I think the bottomline for he Bills is this:

 

1. Moulds is by far still the leading receiver on the Bills as seen by him taking in 88 catches (10th in the league) and Evans having a great first season but finishing with 48 catches. Moulds has clearly demonstrated that he has recovered from the injury which limited him in 2003 and showed by the difference in the effectiveness of our offense which parallels his 100 catch season in 2002, his limitations in 2003 and recovery to 88 catches last year that his play and production clearly coincide with the effectiveness of our offense.

 

2. Evans ultimately appears like he will be a fine replacement for Moulds, but it is simply shortsighted to see him as a replacement for Moulds right now by extrapolating his 2004 performance as meaning he will equal Moulds level in 2005. This view ignores the case that obviously Evans ability to get catches, big yards per catch and TDs is helped in many ways by the attention that Moulds draws and continued to draw with his 88 catch production. Perhaps the better question to ask when assessing the effects of a Moulds cut is not whether Evans can step up to make 88 catches but to ask whether #3 WR receiver Josh Reed could step up and make 48 catches from the 16 he made because he would be our new #2 w/o Moulds here or if you want to cut Reed also can #4 Aiken step up from the 11 catches he made. I think not.

 

For those who want to cut Moulds because correctly folks assess that he does not deserve $8.7 million that this is not the question. Even the good bet that Reed who caught 50 as a rookie was not able to make the jump up to a #2 when Peerless went bye-bye. This only points to how much trouble we would likely be in if we cut Moulds. We do not have a #3 WR we can count on to be our #2 and without a partner threat there is even a question of whether Evans can achieve the great numbers he put up this year much less nearly double them.

 

3. Moulds is a team and community leader. The Bills demonstrated this year that alot of the achievement of the team stems from the whole being greater than the individual parts. Virtually the same players got off to an 0-4 start, put on a tremednous winning streak and then got cruchced by Pittsburrgh. The quality of the opposition had a lot to do with this, but in terms of our raw output and production it was clear that the team obviously is able to do more with less (or do next to nothing with players who have shown they can produce) depending upon factors such as game situations, distractions and leadership (one could see the air come out of the Bills balloon when Lindell missed a chip shot and soon after Pitts 4th string RB ripped off an outrageous run on a D that has stopped far better rushers). Moulds has been with the Bills long enough, has produced some phenomenal plays for this team, has his own TV show and is clearly one of the team leaders (the failure by him to mouth the same line as Bledsoe and instead parrot TDs line about every player winning his job probably says more about our QB situation than many comments). He is an important part of this team and if he were to go it would be a blow I suspect it would be hard for us to recover from.

 

I am glad to hear that both TD and Moulds want to redo his contract and like things in real life I'm pretty sure that Moulds will profit in the long run from this deal which should allow him to lower his immediate cap hit, but put more money immediately into his pocket by extending the deal and giving hims a prorated bonus which both lowers his cap hit and pays him more money.

[d_wag]

Eric Moulds is apparently scheduled to get about $8.7 million in 2005 cap hit for the Bills.  Even Moulds knows that he should not and will not get this type of cap hit next year (For example, in 2004 Marvin Harrison has a cap hit of around $7.6 million according to the NFLPA web site).

 

Moulds appears from his comments to have made two correct determinations that one he would not get nearly this amount on the open market (though like Lawyer Milloy part of this cap hit is prorated bonus already paid to him so if he were cut by the Bills the question for him in terms of real dollars is whether he could get the$5.5 million in base salary from someone he is scheduled to get from the Bills next year and this issue would really depend upon the market at the time of his realease if it were to occur.  Milloy hit the market at a time where the Bills had both the need and the cap room to give him a great deal, the supply of safties of his caliber was non-existent and the Bears also had an opening and the cap room to create a bidding opportunity which forced the Bills to pay him a bunch). Second Moulds sees good prospects for this team to achieve with him and with Evans so taking a more reasonable deal will allow him both on and off the field benefits.

 

The bottomline is that both Moulds and TD have said publicly that they will negitiate a new deal which lowers the Moulds cap hit well below the $8.7 million level and there are very good reasons for both sides to make this so.

 

Still many fans don't seem to understand or choose to ignore the cap and merely rant that he is not worth the money and advcate that he should be cut.  This wouldbe risky for both parties, dumb for Moulds if the timing breaks wrong and .dumb for the Bills in virtually all cases.

 

I think the bottomline for he Bills is this:

 

1. Moulds is by far still the leading receiver on the Bills as seen by him taking in 88 catches (10th in the league) and Evans having a great first season but finishing with 48 catches.  Moulds has clearly demonstrated that he has recovered from the injury which limited him in 2003 and showed by the difference in the effectiveness of our offense which parallels his 100 catch season in 2002, his limitations in 2003 and recovery to 88 catches last year that his play and production clearly coincide with the effectiveness of our offense.

 

2. Evans ultimately appears like he will be a fine replacement for Moulds, but it is simply shortsighted to see him as a replacement for Moulds right now by extrapolating his 2004 performance as meaning he will equal Moulds level in 2005.  This view ignores the case that obviously Evans ability to get catches, big yards per catch and TDs is helped in many ways by the attention that Moulds draws and continued to draw with his 88 catch production.  Perhaps the better question to ask when assessing the effects of a Moulds cut is not whether Evans can step up to make 88 catches but to ask whether #3 WR receiver Josh Reed could step up and make 48 catches from the 16 he made because he would be our new #2 w/o Moulds here or if you want to cut Reed also can #4 Aiken step up from the 11 catches he made.  I think not.

 

For those who want to cut Moulds because correctly folks assess that he does not deserve $8.7 million that this is not the question.  Even the good bet that Reed who caught 50 as a rookie was not able to make the jump up to a #2 when Peerless went bye-bye.  This only points to how much trouble we would likely be in if we cut Moulds.  We do not have a #3 WR we can count on to be our #2 and without a partner threat there is even a question of whether Evans can achieve the great numbers he put up this year much less nearly double them.

 

3. Moulds is a team and community leader.  The Bills demonstrated this year that alot of the achievement of the team stems from the whole being greater than the individual parts.  Virtually the same players got off to an 0-4 start, put on a tremednous winning streak and then got cruchced by Pittsburrgh.  The quality of the opposition had a lot to do with this, but in terms of our raw output and production it was clear that the team obviously is able to do more with less (or do next to nothing with players who have shown they can produce) depending upon factors such as game situations, distractions and leadership (one could see the air come out of the Bills balloon when Lindell missed a chip shot and soon after Pitts 4th string RB ripped off an outrageous run on a D that has stopped far better rushers).  Moulds has been with the Bills long enough, has produced some phenomenal plays for this team, has his own TV show and is clearly one of the team leaders (the failure by him to mouth the same line as Bledsoe and instead parrot TDs line about every player winning his job probably says more about our QB situation than many comments).  He is an important part of this team and if he were to go it would be a blow I suspect it would be hard for us to recover from.

 

I am glad to hear that both TD and Moulds want to redo his contract and like things in real life I'm pretty sure that Moulds will profit in the long run from this deal which should allow him to lower his immediate cap hit, but put more money immediately into his pocket by extending the deal and giving hims a prorated bonus which both lowers his cap hit and pays him more money.

201644[/snapback]

 

bottom line -- the best move financially for moulds would be to stick to his guns and force the bills to either honor his contract (5.5 million salary in 2005 + 1.25 million roster bonus) or take a cut (free agency, where he is looking at a 10 million signing bonus min.).......judging by his comments, he is thankfullly not looking at this as a pure financial move........

 

however, he will get a signing bonus in excess of 6.75 million in order to reduce his salary.......the benefit to the bills is that they can then take his new signing bonus + remaining unamortized signing bonus (4 million) and space it out over the extended deal (they will likely add 3 to 4 years).......his cap hit should shrink to around 2-4 million, but long-term, this will hurt us.......

 

anyway you cut it, we are looking at eventual signifiant dead cap for moulds in time UNLESS the bills want to carry him at a high cap value in '05 and '06........you can't just keep adding more signing bonus and hoping the problem goes away because eventually that signing bonus has to hit the cap.......i'm still trying to figure out why TD backloaded this deal so badly....... spikes and fletchers deals are backloaded as well, but not this severely.......

[ROCCEO]

I think any restructring which reduces his cap number this year by about 3 million would be adequate. So if moulds can live with having a cap number this year of about 5 million, that'd be fine. WE could take care of moulds now and avoid shooting ourselves in the foot later. If we brought him down too far now it would only result in a larger hit later on. So I say pay moulds well while we can and he's sitll good.

 

Anyhow, my reasoning for this is that most of the time 3 million dollars is enough for the first year of the type of contract which a solid free agent acquisition woudl get. Our team doesn't need to fill that many holes this year via free agency so it doesnt need to be an ungodly low number.

 

Either way the contract will almost definately be backloaded(like 99% of all NFL contracts) so that moulds will likely have to restructure again at some point. No need for anyone to get their panties in a bunch, but thats jsut teh reality of the salary cap era.

 

but thats just my opinion