It's going to be really tough for them to try to figure out whether we are close to competing or whether we should aim for two years from now. If we are close, then they need to restructure contracts and such to buy extra cap space. If they don't think we are, they should take as much dead money now as they can to have a ton of cap space after next season. Also, at this point I don't know WHEN the cap is going to go up (owners really pulled a fast one) but they could theoretically keep restructuring to get hits onto that year.
Hey J.R., since you're here we save 20 million by cutting Schaub, Manning, Joseph, Daniels and Meyers. How does that work with dead money?
I'm the wrong person to ask regarding the salary cap, ha. But here's this, if it helps any: A salary cap charge for a player who is no longer on a team’s roster is commonly referred to as dead money. It is a result of signing bonuses, option bonuses and certain roster bonuses being prorated or spread out evenly over the life of a contract (for a maximum of five years) under the salary cap. When a player is released or traded, the remaining amounts of proration in a contract accelerate into his team’s current salary cap. For example, if a player signs a five-year contract with a $10 million signing bonus, $2 million of his signing bonus counts towards the salary cap for each year of his contract. If he is released after the second year of his contract, the $4 million of signing bonus proration from the last two years of the contract automatically accelerates into the club’s current cap, which results in $6 million of dead money. There are two major exceptions to this general rule. Only the current year’s proration counts towards the cap with players released or traded after June 1. The proration from the remaining contract years doesn’t accelerate until the next year. A team can also release two players each year prior to June 1st who will be treated under the cap as if they were released after June 1. This is known as a “Post-June 1 designation.”
Without cutting anybody it looks like we'll have about $4.8 million in cap space (bottom right figure). Probable cap saving cuts (IMO): Schaub +4.5 mil (cap figure minus dead money) or + 7 million if post June 1 cut Owen Daniels +5.5 mil D.Manning +4.5 mil Brooks Reed +1 mil Brandon Harris +800k Non-guaranteed roster fodder +$3-4mil = $24-27 mil in cap space Potential other cuts: Lechler +1.4 mil TJ Yates +650k So just shooting from the hip we could looking at around $25 million in cap room, depending on what the actual cap number turns out to be. A little over $4 million of that will go to our rookie draft picks, leaving us with 21-24 million to spend depending on how the Schaub cut plays out. And don't forget our own free agents that will need to be re-signed/replaced in addition to the guys we cut: Tate, A.Smith, J.Mays, Sharpton, W.Smith, G.Graham
When you look as stuff like this you have to ask, can we get a better Safety than Manning for less than $4.5 million? A better TE for less than $5.5 million? OLB for less than $1 million? Etc.
I think you cut them both and see what you come up with in the draft or elsewhere in free agency. You could also try to re-sign them for much cheaper. Both are coming off of injury and getting up there in age so I don't think there will be a huge market for them.
Jimmy Graham would be an amazing get, I can't see NO letting him go. If we had him, AJ and Hopkins our new QB would look pretty good.
He's unrestricted, so technically, if he likes a city/team like New York, Miami, Seattle, whatever better than N.O. and they offer more money, it's really not up to the Saints.
Except for the fact that it's almost a forgone conclusion that Jimmy Graham is getting the franchise tag, in which case it is definitely up to the Saints.
Byrd would do wonders for this team, but it's a pipe dream. Starks is realistic, and I'd like him. I always thought he'd have been great in Kubiak's offense. I've always kept an eye on him since I competed against him in high school.
Chiefs pool last year as the worst team was allocated ~$7mil. You also need to allocate ~500k for each roster spot vacated by a FA (minus maybe 4~5 spots due to draft picks). For example, the Texans in practice only save 200k on Yates at most because they would need a backup anyway. Signing any semi-decent veteran QB would actually cost us more money. In practice, the Texans really don't have that much space. Maybe $10-15mil but will have to allocate much of them on mediocre FAs that aren't Shiloh Keo bad. It's why I'm such a huge proponent of cutting everyone this offseason, so that in 2015 we have a clean slate.
You're right on the rookie pool. The number I saw for the Chiefs was only for the #1 pick ($4 mil on the cap), not the rest of their picks. And I realize that all of the roster fodder will have to be replaced with equally priced fodder. So total they will have somewhere in the $20mm range of cap space, but after signing draft picks and having to fill out the roster it will look more like about $10mm-$15mm in money to spend on the open market for quality FAs.
Let me take a crack at this. Before the proposed cuts below, and assuming all free agent departures, and assuming no restructuring of contracts, and that we retain Schaub, and assuming we've signed all of our draft picks, assuming the same cap as last years number, I project zero money available for free agency; the reason largely being escalators. We can free up cap space by making these cuts (all of these player being overpaid): Cuts OD saves $6.25 mil Manning saves $6 mil JJo saves $11.25 mil Lechler saves $2 mil Newton saves $1.4 mil Brandon Harris saves $1 mil =$28 mil For example, I think we can take that $17 mil we get from Manning and JJo, and sign a guy like Byrd and a guy like Verner. Both of those guys are pro bowl type guys and younger. I think we can actually upgrade those positions by reallocating money.
If your calculations are correct, I would keep Lechler. I can definitely say that Lechler is still one of the best punters in the league. That being said, if Sweringer can make that jump in his second year, that would make Manning expendable. Think what we could do if we had retained Glover Quin last year instead of signing Ed Reed. We could have filled some of our many other holes instead of having to worry about our secondary. We could get a real NT, RT, and OLB, and fill the rest out in the draft.
JJo does make 11.25 but thats not the cap savings if you cut him. I think 6 mill will still count toward the cap.
By cutting a player, we don't necessarily get their entire contract figure as cap savings. If you look at spotrac, and click on any individual player, the actual savings is the 2014 "cap hit" less the "dead money". For example, Matt Schaub's cap hit is $14.5 million and his dead money is $10.5 million (how much we still owe him in guarantees). By cutting him before June 1, we would pay all of that $10.5 mil on next years cap, meaning we would only save a total of $4 mil on the cap next year for him.
