opinions on the salary cap and Texans ...

No. It's not like if we cut Schaub then he no longer counts against the cap. We could save SOME money (amount differs depending on when we cut him), but not all of it.

As it stands right now, if we count the players who are under contract for next year, we're $5.4M under the cap.

Schaub's cap hit next year is $14.5M. If we cut him, we'd create $10.5M (the remainder of his signing bonus spread over the last 3 years of his deal) in dead money. But it would save us around $4M over keeping him. So not re-signing Antonio (or any other FA) and cutting Schaub would only put us around $9.4M under. But again, I think if we cut him at a certain time, we'd save closer to $10M. But I think that ends up affecting our 2015 cap in that case.

 

I tweeted LanceZ this morning and asked for an article on the salary cap because I don't have a good handle on it, but, I would certainly love to have Antonio Smith back.

 

I think OD and Manning would be roughly $5MM cap savings a piece if cut. I would be all over that considering their injury history.

 

This may or may not help.

 

It would be nice to have Antonio back but I don't see it happening given the cap amount. There will probably be a team willing to give him a decent short term deal.

The Schaub cap figure is a little tricky as Cannon laid out. Like mentioned before, cutting him at a certain time will "save" $4 million in 2014 but how that effects 2015...I'm not sure.

 

Unlike the NBA, there are almost no cap experts in the NFL. Things change so quickly. Even with all of the info available it's hard to figure out how things will look in 2014. What I do know is, Rick Smith has been below average managing the cap these past few years. I understand all teams lose valuable players, it's part of the modern NFL, but Smith's performance in this area has still been poor.

 

Resigning Antonio would basically be admitting failure over the last several drafts (Crick, Williams, Montgomery, etc). If you have 2+ years to replace a 32 year old pending free agent and can't do it, you have failed as a GM. So much money lost in having to resign Smith, second to only Schaub.

 

You have to remember, that even though Schaub (4 million), Manning (5 million) and OD (5 million) would be nice savings, that doesnt necessarily give us an extra 14 million to play with...all other players will see a rise in salary, which will eat into the savings.

Our cap situation really sucks, unfortunately, but it will be a lot better in 2015...specially when about 15 million dollars of dead money comes off the books.

 

Listening to Seth Payne yesterday I believe they mentioned that the cap situation should be a lot less bleak. Cutting Schaub will create more dead money but still offer cap relief. However, they will soon be making JJ Watt the highest paid defensive player in NFL history as well. Jonathon Joesph should be a prime canidate for a contract restructure, and its going to be interesting to see what they do with Antonio Smith, Owen Daniels, and Danieal Manning. I want to say that Mark Meltzer said they would have around $20-25mil in space, and that's before resigning/signing any current players, free agents, and/or draft picks.

 

Eh. Crick was a 4th round pick. Williams and Montgomery were drafted to be linebackers. The bigger failure would more likely be not actively trying to find a replacement.

Texans have only drafted 3 NFL DE's the last 5 drafts. Barwin (who moved to LB), Watt, and Crick (who was a 4-3 DT in college).

 

Antonio Smith was a 5th round pick.

Montgomery and Williams, Montgomery especially, were drafted knowing they could play DE.

If we throw money at an aging veteran simply because we have no alternative, it's a failure.

 

I'm not completely sure Schaub will be cut. I hear some people advocating drafting a QB, cutting Schaub, and signing a vet to play in front of the rookie. But any vet who's worth a damn (Cutler, Vick?) isn't going to be cheap. Using Alex Smith as an example, $8.5M would be a decent ball park figure. Add in the $10.5M in dead money from Schaub and $4M for the #1 pick (if it's a QB) and that's $23M tied up in the QB position. Compare that to $11.75 we had invested this year. If the team thinks they need a vet to pair with the rookie (though the trend is for rookies, especially #1's, to start immediately), it would still be cheaper to keep Schaub. You wouldn't really be saving money by cutting him and signing a different placeholder QB.

Of course, if the plan is for a rookie QB to start right away, then you can cut him and use the savings somewhere else.

Cutler + Rookie = $23M
Schaub + Rookie = $18.5M
Rookie + Keenum = $15M

 

Montgomery was a mistake. They decided to take a chance with their compensatory pick. Williams was classified as an undersized/tweener DE. I don't think he was ever a legit candidate for DE and was always projected as an OLB.

And if you believe the Texans narrative, the coaches had more input on the draft than Smith did. It's easy to blame Smith for everything, but we really don't know what the dynamic was and who was responsible for what. Wade gets credit for Watt, but Smith takes the blame for Montgomery? Which is why I'm in favor of clearer defined roles as far as who makes personnel decisions and am willing to let Smith operate and either sink or swim in a system where he's clearly the guy making those decisions.

 

That's a shortsighted way to look at the cap savings. Yes, in cutting Schaub this offseason you'd only save $4M or so in 2014, because the cap savings from his massive contract would be offset by the accellerated hit from the bonus. But in the following years, 2015 and beyond, you'd save both Schaub's contract amount and the deferred bonus figure. Better to cut the losses now and start cleaning up the future cap hits for years when the team will be (hopefully) legitimate contenders. The Texans aren't going to win a superbowl in 2015, so deferring dead money on mistake contracts into future seasons is a dumb move when you can fix it, now.

 

Which is why if they do cut him, I'd rather him take the $10.5M hit next year instead of deferring some of it to 2015 in order to create more space this season.

I'm just saying, that if you cut him and sign somebody like Cutler AND draft a QB, then 1/5 of your payroll would be tied up in the QB spot. And because of that, I don't think it's a given that he does get cut if the Texans think they need a vet QB on the roster, which is certainly a possibility if they don't take a QB #1.

Personally, I'm in favor of cutting Schaub, taking the full hit this year, and drafting Teddy B and letting him start from day 1.

 

I think we're on the same page. Sink or swim with the rookie. There are "veteran" backups that can be signed cheaply, or you can keep one of our own scrubby backup QBs, but no need to spend big bucks on a Cutler type guy.

 

No way was Travardo Williams ever drafted to play defensive end if that is the Williams you are referring to. He is about 6'2" 235.
Montgomery was drafted for OLB and then given a shot at DE when the OLB experiment failed, but I doubt they planned on doing that.

 

That's just the Texans MO. Reward guys when they do well. Show confidence by extending them before their contract comes up. We did with with Kubiak. We did it with Duane Brown. With Cushing. With AJ and I'm pretty sure Foster too.

And let's be honest about Schaub and not let this season cloud judgment. He wasn't elite, but he was a borderline Top 10 QB and if you asked people to make a list, he'd generally be in that 8-12 range. He was always Top 10 in passer rating and was usually Top 10 in yards (a few years in Top 5, 1 year leading the league). He made 2 Pro Bowls.

And that's reflected in his contract. He had the 13th highest cap hit for a QB this year and it would be the same next year. For somebody thought to be borderline Top 10, that seemed appropriate. If he had kept playing at the same level, I don't think many would have huge problem with his contract. Some might still have thought him overpaid, but not grossly overpaid. It only looks bad now after this awful season. But at the time, there wasn't really anything to indicate that what ended up happening would happen. It's not like they threw a bunch of money at a ****ty QB. They paid market value for a historically pretty good, above average QB who then later became ****ty. There's a difference.