Former Green Bay exec Andrew Brandt: "The salary cap is just accounting"

[frostbitmic]

Next thing they'll be telling us is that ice is cold.

[ProcessTruster]

6 hours ago, BillsPride12 said:

I've always felt the same way....which is why I laughed when there were so many people convinced we wouldn't be able to offer Diggs an extension.

Plus the players love it bc they get $10,20,30 million checks at the start of the restructured deal, so they're set for life no matter what happens. 

 

The "Albert Haynesworth effect" (get the $$, then go to sleep and get cut) or serious injury are the only two risks, and an increasing cap covers some of those as well. 

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

Fan  opinions about the salary cap are like noses (PG-rated version of the idea) -  - everybody has one.  The actual salary cap rules are publicly available, because they are part of the union contract between the players union and the league.  That union contract runs over 400 pages, and the NFLPA publishes it here:

 

https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/website/PDFs/CBA/March-15-2020-NFL-NFLPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-Final-Executed-Copy.pdf

 

The financial literacy of most Americans is dismal.  I have no reason to think that the financial literacy of the Bills fans who post here is significantly different than that of most Americans.

 

For example, most people have the idiotic idea that they are somehow better off by giving the government an interest-free loan to use their money and then getting a big income tax refund every year, rather than using available options to match income tax withholding to their expected income tax liability.  That's pretty dumb.

 

If you want to understand the salary cap, you can read the admittedly complicated rules for yourself at the above link, or you can read the uninformed postings of people who are passionate Bills fans but are typically (with a few exceptions) totally uninformed about what the salary cap rules are and how they work.

 

If enough Bills fans post that the owners are rich guys who can spend whatever they want on player salaries so long as they are rich enough to make sure that the salary checks don't bounce, that must be true, right?

[muppy]

2 hours ago, 13 Second Prevent Defense said:

The cap is something that can be manipulated (accounting) but it still requires sound, responsible decisions.  If you start over paying guys who are not worth it you will have consequences.  

I think the magnitude of expertise and aptitude with Numbers necessary to be a true "Cap Guru" is off the charts. They have my utmost respect. 

Numbers are my poor suit. When people process allll the rules and amounts and prorate this and backload that ......say whaaat? HA goodness gracious.

 

I do buy what this OP infers. I just think you need a mathmatical wizard at the helm to access and implement alll of that entails fully. jmo

 

@Tuco

[Buffalo_Stampede]

2 hours ago, 13 Second Prevent Defense said:

The cap is something that can be manipulated (accounting) but it still requires sound, responsible decisions.  If you start over paying guys who are not worth it you will have consequences.  

Injuries, age, and other factors make pushing cap down the road risky. It’s typically your top players that you’re restructuring but yes there are risks. 

[NoHuddleKelly12]

3 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:

All good points.  It does however make Beane's argument that he had to clean up the cap situation when he got here a bit nonsensical.  

Without looking it up, that was an extreme cap outlier we had wasn’t it? 60-70 mill just in dead money that we ate lump sum for 2018 alone? No amount of “guru-ing” that one. That in turn allowed us to start spending on a clean slate (like Congress with Monopoly money) in 2019 season and beyond…

[Buffalo_Stampede]

17 minutes ago, ICanSleepWhenI'mDead said:

Fan  opinions about the salary cap are like noses (PG-rated version of the idea) -  - everybody has one.  The actual salary cap rules are publicly available, because they are part of the union contract between the players union and the league.  That union contract runs over 400 pages, and the NFLPA publishes it here:

 

https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/website/PDFs/CBA/March-15-2020-NFL-NFLPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-Final-Executed-Copy.pdf

 

The financial literacy of most Americans is dismal.  I have no reason to think that the financial literacy of the Bills fans who post here is significantly different than that of most Americans.

 

For example, most people have the idiotic idea that they are somehow better off by giving the government an interest-free loan to use their money and then getting a big income tax refund every year, rather than using available options to match income tax withholding to their expected income tax liability.  That's pretty dumb.

 

If you want to understand the salary cap, you can read the admittedly complicated rules for yourself at the above link, or you can read the uninformed postings of people who are passionate Bills fans but are typically (with a few exceptions) totally uninformed about what the salary cap rules are and how they work.

 

If enough Bills fans post that the owners are rich guys who can spend whatever they want on player salaries so long as they are rich enough to make sure that the salary checks don't bounce, that must be true, right?

Most people here are just talking basics of how the cap is calculated. Getting exact numbers is more complicated for sure. We’ll see a bunch of different numbers on total cap space throughout the offseason and all of them are typically incorrect. 
 

Creating cap space by converting base salary to a bonus is pretty straight forward. That’s all people here are talking about. Not where those numbers come from.
 

 

[FilthyBeast]

The salary cap is real but a good analogy I saw a while back from one of the NFL talking heads is the secret ingredient is ownership in terms of what ones actually want to spend their money vs the ones that don't and I think that applies perfectly to Buffalo when looking at the current situation with the Pegula's vs the previous ownership under the late Ralph Wilson. And even when big money was handed out by the previous regimes in most cases it was the wrong move (i.e. Fitzpatrick extension).

 

But make no mistake about it, even with a team like the Rams going all out the last few years they will eventually pay the piper and their owner, GM, etc have not been shy about that especially after securing a lombardi trophy earlier this year and the expectation they are competing for another this season.

[Shaw66]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It was a useful narrative for a new regime buying themselves time. But it was a bit of a sales job and I said so at the time. 

Thanks for starting this thread.  It's interesting. 

 

I think it was more than a narrative.   As people have said here, the best teams manage the cap by relying on cap inflation - they can pay with cheaper cap dollars in the future.  But that rule doesn't apply when you have a collection of players with big contracts whom you no longer want.   It doesn't apply, because in cap terms you can't use time to your advantage - you have to pay with present cap dollars.  

 

So, the GM has two choices:  Either you manage to a soft landing, so to speak, over three or four years, or you take the hit more or less all at once.   Neither is ideal for team building.   Beane told us at the time they decided to take the hit and get past it as fast as they could.   Essentially, they made a decision about how they wanted to go about the rebuild, which was build from the ground up.  Once that decision was made, they didn't have a choice.  

[Shaw66]

21 minutes ago, FilthyBeast said:

But make no mistake about it, even with a team like the Rams going all out the last few years they will eventually pay the piper and their owner, GM, etc have not been shy about that especially after securing a lombardi trophy earlier this year and the expectation they are competing for another this season.

This may be generally true, but not in every case.   If you have the right quarterback, you can manage the cap without ever really having to pay the piper.  That's exactly what the Patriots did.  And the Steelers weren't bad at it with Ben, although they didn't get the Lombardis the Patriots did.  If they're well managed, teams with star quarterbacks don't have cap problems, and it can go on for a decade or even two.  

[GunnerBill]

3 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Thanks for starting this thread.  It's interesting. 

 

I think it was more than a narrative.   As people have said here, the best teams manage the cap by relying on cap inflation - they can pay with cheaper cap dollars in the future.  But that rule doesn't apply when you have a collection of players with big contracts whom you no longer want.   It doesn't apply, because in cap terms you can't use time to your advantage - you have to pay with present cap dollars.  

 

So, the GM has two choices:  Either you manage to a soft landing, so to speak, over three or four years, or you take the hit more or less all at once.   Neither is ideal for team building.   Beane told us at the time they decided to take the hit and get past it as fast as they could.   Essentially, they made a decision about how they wanted to go about the rebuild, which was build from the ground up.  Once that decision was made, they didn't have a choice.  

 

I agree with that and I also agree (and did at the time) that is was the right decision. But they intentionally spun it as the only way, which was not true, which was about selling the narrative to fans. They had been a .500 team over the previous 3 seasons with average to below average QB play and were in position to take a QB in 2017. I understand why they didn't I agreed with their decisions but it wasn't the only way. They told us it was about the cap when in reality it was about their decision to tear things down.

[Shaw66]

23 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I agree with that and I also agree (and did at the time) that is was the right decision. But they intentionally spun it as the only way, which was not true, which was about selling the narrative to fans. They had been a .500 team over the previous 3 seasons with average to below average QB play and were in position to take a QB in 2017. I understand why they didn't I agreed with their decisions but it wasn't the only way. They told us it was about the cap when in reality it was about their decision to tear things down.

Yes, that is exactly how it went down.   To be fair, however, they never hid the ball about the fact that they had a certain kind of player in mind for their team and that some of the guys they inherited weren't that kind.   It wasn't a secret.  So, it was clear that there were going to be changes.  But on this forum the debate was always going on about whether a major roster adjustment was necessary.  Plenty of us were saying it would only take a few players, and a QB.  Why tear it down?   Point is, at the time, the issue wasn't a secret.   So, I always took "it was the only choice" to mean "it was the only choice given how we decided to restructure the roster."  

 

In a more philosophical look at it, McDermott's process is to have everyone on the team have a certain kind of focus and determination.  When everyone sees that everyone else in the locker room is committed in that way, they all work better together.   Which means that McDermott can't make his process work until he clears out the guys who don't have that commitment.   Those guys poison the attitude in the clubhouse, and that attitude is what McDermott is building his success on.  In that sense, they "had no other choice" was true.  Managing your way to a new roster over three years means you're keeping some guys who don't fit, and you can't have success with them (at least that's what McD would tell us).  

 

In other words, to do what they needed to do, there actually was no other choice.  

 

Not that I care all that much.  Your fundamental point, that they never talked about WHY they had no choice - the wrong guys in the locker room.   They weren't going to throw them under the bus, but they were going to get rid of them, quick.   So, they just said "we didn't have a choice" and left it at that. 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Shaw66

[ddaryl]

6 hours ago, Ya Digg? said:

 

You both are missing the point-the reality is the cap isn’t as constricting as people think it is. Are there times where decisions have to be made? Sure. These guys who run these front offices though have gotten so good with the cap that they know how to manipulate it to sign the guys they really want, and the Rams have been showing that for several years now. If you can’t see that, you are intentionally ignoring what’s going on around the league 

I didn't miss the point at all.. You should re-read what I said. 

 

[BADOLBILZ]

3 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

It absolutely was a mess, Bill, it just was.

 

 

Nah it was just a lie to manipulate salary cap ignorant members of the fan base like yourself.........and it worked because it played on the need for accountability that fans wanted after all of the underachieving under Rex.  

 

The McD Bills went into the 2017 offseason more than $30M under the salary cap with almost no commitments for 2018 and beyond.

 

They merely wanted a completely clean slate........not anymore complicated than that.

 

[Warcodered]

 

This ***** show.

Quote

Ian Rappaport: "I don't think so, although I feel like I have a normal head, but honestly maybe not, the whole time I might have had an oddly shaped head and not known it, that's possible right."

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Warcodered

[Buffalo Junction]

6 hours ago, Frostbite said:

All relies on cash on hand though. Investment value doesnt translate to immediate cash flow - they'd have to sell the investment for that to happen unless they want to leverage against it. I have no idea their cash flow but my guess is most of it is tied up in other things, hence the challenge for smaller market teams to do what the rams do.

I’d assume the Pegulas are sitting on a substantial amount of liquidity. IIRC he was buying up oil and gas companies when the market tanked during Covid…. Those are now pushing towards record profits. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

I wonder if the NFL closes the void year loophole. The NHL had this problem. Terry Pegula believe it or not was one of the 1st owners to exploit it in the NHL. The NHL changed the rules. 

[Putin]

7 hours ago, Greg S said:

Every situation is different but there may be some truth to this. Didn't Beane say over and over the Bills weren't going to be major players in FA and then he went out and spent like a drunken sailor.

I remember last year where we thought Bean had some tough decisions to make on who to keep Milano or Williams , I know there were some restructuring / extensions made and all that , but still I don’t remember at the time anyone saying that the salary cap was myth and will be able to keep both !!! 
I do remember everyone calling Bean a wizard for signing both !! 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Putin

[John from Riverside]

So the question to me becomes.....you spend all that money and dont win the super bowl......your basically throwing money into the fire?

 

The rams were not THAT good last year.   They also had some extreme luck.

[FilthyBeast]

4 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

This may be generally true, but not in every case.   If you have the right quarterback, you can manage the cap without ever really having to pay the piper.  That's exactly what the Patriots did.  And the Steelers weren't bad at it with Ben, although they didn't get the Lombardis the Patriots did.  If they're well managed, teams with star quarterbacks don't have cap problems, and it can go on for a decade or even two.  

 

Agree but it's more of the exception and not the rule, especially because of Brady being the GOAT in the Pats case. He covered up for a lot of deficiencies and questionable draft picks through the years.

 

In the case of the Steelers they have always been among the top drafting teams especially the guys they find on defense which helps offset all the big names they pass on resigning through the years. The cupboard has always been restocked so to speak.