Browns restructure Watson, to free up $36 million. How do you restructure a fully guaranteed deal?

[Royale with Cheese]

12 minutes ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

Ever see Arrested Development…his contract is proof there’s always money in the banana stand 

 

"I mean it's one banana Michael.  What it cost?  Ten dollars?"

[dorquemada]

16 minutes ago, John from Riverside said:

They better hope he doesn’t suck
 

He didn’t look that great last year whenever he came in

 

Huge friggin gamble. 

[The Wiz]

35 minutes ago, KDIGGZ said:

They replaced his base salary with massage incentives

There's a typo on the coupon.  It suppose to say "CONsensual"

[Big Turk]

42 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

Seriously? How do you re-structure a fully guaranteed contract without adding years to the deal?  The article says they converted salary into a signing bonus, but if it was already fully guaranteed, why would that matter? I want them to choke on that contract, so I hate seeing that there are loopholes available to them.  Anyone get how this works?

 

https://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-browns-restructure-watson-134639003.html

 

Base salary converting to signing bonus which lowers cap hit this year and extends the dollars over the life of the contract.

[BarleyNY]

36 minutes ago, balln said:

My question is - why don’t nfl teams just “extend” a player for like 20 years. Makes the cap hit negligible year to year. Certainly will have dead cap for the last 10 years as player no longer w team or even playing in nfl - but by that time the cap limit will assuredly go up. There has to be some kind of rule

Five years is maximum proration period - that includes the current season. In the past there was also CBA language that limited the proration period to the end of the CBA if that was shorter. Not sure if the current CBA has that clause or not. 

25 minutes ago, dorquemada said:

 

Huge friggin gamble. 

The gamble was made when the original fully guaranteed contract was given. This is just a simple cap move. 

[Draconator]

 

[dorquemada]

10 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

The gamble was made when the original fully guaranteed contract was given. This is just a simple cap move. 

 

Hurr Durr yeah I know.  Im saying that signing him to a fully guaranteed contract was a huge friggin gamble

[BarleyNY]

6 minutes ago, dorquemada said:

 

Hurr Durr yeah I know.  Im saying that signing him to a fully guaranteed contract was a huge friggin gamble

Oh wow. Bold take. 

[Beck Water]

1 hour ago, cle23 said:

 

If the player retires, it accelerates any bonus money amount to the immediate year.  So yeah, you could add $5M a year for 20 years to spread it out, but when the player retires after 10, you'd get $50M upfront onto your cap.

 

In theory, if the player retires before the end of his current contract, the team can request the repayment of the amortized bonus.

 

However, depending upon the circumstances, teams don't do this, and I'm not sure how it is viewed if the team amortizes the bonus beyond the real length of the contract into "void years", or if the player agrees to help the team's cap by converting salary to bonus - pretty sure that becomes the team's problem.

 

And of course, there's the Eric Wood move where the player doesn't retire but "can no longer be cleared to play football" due to injury (or is cut by the team because they can no longer play) in which case, again, the team eats it.

 

25 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Five years is maximum proration period - that includes the current season. In the past there was also CBA language that limited the proration period to the end of the CBA if that was shorter. Not sure if the current CBA has that clause or not.

 

This is an interesting point, but teams routinely get around this by inserting big roster or "option" bonuses that may get converted to signing bonus and amortized further.  Pretty sure you know this, just putting the info out there for those who don't.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Beck Water

[Virgil]

1 hour ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

Seriously? How do you re-structure a fully guaranteed contract without adding years to the deal?  The article says they converted salary into a signing bonus, but if it was already fully guaranteed, why would that matter? I want them to choke on that contract, so I hate seeing that there are loopholes available to them.  Anyone get how this works?

 

https://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-browns-restructure-watson-134639003.html

 

It's a tomato tomato thing.  Bonus is up front money, base salary is spread out over the season.  The bonus still hits the cap, but is spread out over the length of the deal.  Hence why they also added a few years.  Hypothetically (not real numbers), it could save them 30 mil in cap space, but add 5 mil in dead cap space for each of the next 5 years

[T master]

To answer your question in the heading . The same way you get away with being a perverted womanizer & then get paid the biggest contract of your career for being a very large POS human being everything after that is easy ...

[cle23]

12 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

In theory, if the player retires before the end of his current contract, the team can request the repayment of the amortized bonus.

 

However, depending upon the circumstances, teams don't do this, and I'm not sure how it is viewed if the team amortizes the bonus beyond the real length of the contract into "void years", or if the player agrees to help the team's cap by converting salary to bonus - pretty sure that becomes the team's problem.

 

And of course, there's the Eric Wood move where the player doesn't retire but "can no longer be cleared to play football" due to injury (or is cut by the team because they can no longer play) in which case, again, the team eats it.

 

 

This is an interesting point, but teams routinely get around this by inserting big roster or "option" bonuses that may get converted to signing bonus and amortized further.  Pretty sure you know this, just putting the info out there for those who don't.

 

Signing bonus, yes, they can ask for the money back.  But I am pretty sure salary that was converted to a bonus they can't, especially if it was guaranteed salary.  

[BarleyNY]

20 minutes ago, cle23 said:

 

Signing bonus, yes, they can ask for the money back.  But I am pretty sure salary that was converted to a bonus they can't, especially if it was guaranteed salary.  

The main issue with recovering signing bonus money is that it has to be due to a voluntary retirement (and the contract details also matter). We saw what happened with Eric Wood. He had to make it clear that he was retiring because the physical toll

he took from playing football would not allow him to play any longer. That’s a pretty simple thing to assert and in most cases it would be very difficult to disprove - especially where veteran players are concerned. On the team side they use roster bonuses to get injured players off their roster between seasons. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by BarleyNY

[Matt_In_NH]

How, you just do.   The money is guaranteed.  The timing of when the payments are and what you call them for salary cap reasons can change.

[Royale with Cheese]

He's just an above average QB now too.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

I wonder why the Bills are waiting to do Allen’s restructure? Could it be a restructure/extension?

[Matt_In_NH]

So they massaged Watson's contract?

[Solomon Grundy]

1 hour ago, KDIGGZ said:

They replaced his base salary with massage incentives

LMAO

[Big Turk]

Holy Crap!!!  Those are massive hits...they are hoping the new TV contracts save them...they better be right.

 

 

[BarleyNY]

26 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

Holy Crap!!!  Those are massive hits...they are hoping the new TV contracts save them...they better be right.

 

 

The Browns also are expected to carry over about $20M a season. I recently read an analysis of their cap management strategy. A key takeaway is that they can spend cash at a rate of about 115% of the yearly cap by structuring and manipulating contracts the way they are. That’s not out of line with how many teams operate. Some are more conservative and spend at close to 100% cash to cap. And then there’s New Orleans on the other end of the spectrum. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by BarleyNY