Cap sheets update 5/22

Can anyone explain the high cost of Jansen and Thomas, next year.
We will restructure

yeah, but they just restructured

yeah, but they just restructured
They just signed extensions, but it's not like they're losing any money when they restructure. It actually gives them more money up front.

Great job, thanks!

At the end of the season Cooley is a FA. How can we resign him with that poor cap space? We need to restructure more and more deals...

Can anyone explain the high cost of Jansen and Thomas, next year.

Yes, they both signed restructured (and in Jansen's case, extended) contracts this offseason. The changes to the contract were designed to reduce the base salary components in 2007, while giving them more in up-front guarantees (signing bonuses). This has the effect of lowering the cap figure for 2007 while pushing more of the money into future years.

So the new deals took some of the base salary they were previously due in 2007, and pushed the impact off into 2008, 2009, 2010, and beyond. Adding that on top of the already considerable base salary they are due in 2008, and you get a pretty big cap number.

The Redskins have the opportunity next year to continue to restructure these guys, taking the 2008 base salary and converting that into signing bonus, further pushing the cap impact into the future. But looking at the 'Skins approach this past offseason, they seem to have made a serious committment to the offensive line. These deals are structured in such a way that these guys are going to be Redskins for life. The same cannot be said for our aging defensive players (Springs, Griffin, Washington, Daniels, Wynn). The Skins chose to restructure the offensive line to keep them, while leaving their options open on the older defensive players. So the Redskins may choose to carry those defensive guys next year, and to do so they may restructure the contracts of the offensive line yet again. Or they may choose to part with a few of the defensive guys in order to create the cap room we need. What they end up doing will depend upon this season, of course. The flexibility is there to take the team in a number of directions.

Great job, thanks!

At the end of the season Cooley is a FA. How can we resign him with that poor cap space? We need to restructure more and more deals...

First off, the cap situation isn't quite as bad as it seems. CC's sheet shows we have $129 million allocated to the 2008 cap, but you can see he hasn't applied the rule of 51 to those numbers yet. Once he does, he'll remove $6.6 million from the 2008 numbers, and we'll show only $123 million allocated to the 2008 cap.

The cap figures to be $116 million next season. So we'll need to clear $7 million in cap space. The following moves seem logical and will clear the following amount of space:

- Mark Brunell's deal voids and he becomes a free agent - clears $3.5 million at minimum (it could be more depending on how the void clause works)

- Phillip Daniels is let go - clears $3.0 million

Right there, those moves bring us down to close to the projected cap. There are many salaries and roster bonuses that can be restructured to give us the room to resign Cooley. Shawn Springs, Cornelius Griffin, and Marcus Washington are all candidates to be cut depending upon the quality of their play this season. If they're not sent packing, they can be asked to restructure their deals.

Well, at 31 and 32 Jansen and Thomas will be be playing as senior citizens, if this keeps up

Well, at 31 and 32 Jansen and Thomas will be be playing as senior citizens, if this keeps up

They're actually both 31 (born within two weeks of each other).

But yeah, I get your point. The team is committing themselves to these guys, working under the assumption that their hard work and durability to date indicates that they'll be able to perform well up to age 35.

I have to say, it seems that a lot of OL can play at high levels far into their thirties.

ray brown ring a bell?