Gibbs the GM

I just said my friend explained how the cap works, not using the Raiders as an example. The cap problems haven't come because of the contracts getting reworked. Lavar has reworked his twice, Samuels,Brunell did it this past offseason. It saves money, no doubt, but what I am saying is these deals escalete towards the end. Thats why we lose players because we only have so much money. I agree with players being expendable, I dont argue that point(smoot,pierce). I just am saying eventually those reworked deals will have to be run out, or players will be cut. thats all. We will have cap problems at some point. It may not come in next year, two years, 5 years. It depends on contract being reworked, players getting cut, dead money. Eventually, just like the 49ers, Cowboys, Ravens, you have to start paying the bills at somepoint. You can put them off as long as you want, but they have to be paid at some point. I hope I am still on this site when all this happens so I can say I told you so.

what are you talking about. DEADMONEY is money we are paying players that are not playing with the skins. How is that a good thing? We payed Deon for two years after he wasn't here. Trotter comes off after THIS YEAR. The trade for Coles is another couple of years, or it may all be this year, not really sure about how that one worked out, I know it was 9 million penalty. when Noble retires we pay him, just like Fiore when he retired. How many times have you heard, he reworked his contract to save the team money for this year, or next year. Do you think Peyton Manning is going to play out that outrageous contract, or Donovan McNabb. No they wont. It will be reworked when the cap number get to be too high.

Another point is that since the cap has been growing every year, it makes even more sense to push some money back. Would you rather take the extra $2M in 2005 when the cap is $85M, or take the $2M in 2008 when the cap might be $100M?

Anyways I don't disagree that you can only play these cap games to a certain point before you start getting burned. 2006 has long been seen as our trouble year, so it will be interesting to see how things play out next year.

sound like you and I are on the same page, somewhat? LaVar if released on or before a certain date we can spread of next year and the year after, however with the collective barganing agreement running out, Unless its extended we wont be able to, it will all count on the year he is released. If you can get some of the mess out of the now, it does help. But what I am trying to get across is that when you renegotiate contracts, it helps the immediate season or two, but does not take you out of the trouble 3 or 4 years down the road. Now, saying that, it does not include "the assumption" the cap is going to go up a certain percentage. The skins work on that assumption each year. saying the cap SHOULD go up roughly this amount. They dont know for sure until the figure comes out, then they adjust accordingly.

every time you re-negotiate you HAVE to add more money, or else the players won't agree to it. so you're replacing one baloon with a slightly bigger one over and over again across multiple players. In the end it DOES mean more wasted money and more dead cap.

OK, yet another ridiculous innaccuracy in this thread regarding cap management. I think Canuck needs to teach a class (Canuck I had a feeling you were a fellow finance guy, now I'm sure of it after that cost of capital post).

When you RENEGOTIATE a contract you are RARELY adding more money. You're taking the roster bonus or base salary from the old contract and turning it into a signing bonus. The player doesn't care what you call the payment, they just care that they're getting it. They sign a deal for the same amount of money they were previously contracted for, and the cap hit is spread evenly over multiple seasons rather than hitting all that year. Every one of the Skins' big contracts are structured this way on purpose, so that when the big roster bonuses are due they can then be renegotiated into signing bonuses. Brunell and Jansen just restructured in this very manner. Moss, Springs, Portis, and several others will all do the same thing in the next few years.

the problem is, who's better? taylor, or some guy you've never heard of that may play 30% of the snaps. The best players on our defense were all drafted at one point, the UDFAs are high quality ones, but they're not springs, griffin, washington etc. They may be solid starters, but none have been impact players in the way rod smith has been etc. So I REALLY wouldn't bank on UDFAs as an equivalent to having solid drafts where you can get actual studs for cheap.

And this I find to be absurd. Football in the NFL is a team game, you need depth more than you need stars. Yes, Sean Taylor does great things for our team, and he's probably the MVP of the defense. But that's not to say guys like Joe Salavea'a and Lemar Marshall aren't incredibly important.

And if I can add one thing, just for a friggin reality check... don't you see a difference between the team this year and the team before Gibbs got here?

sound like you and I are on the same page, somewhat? LaVar if released on or before a certain date we can spread of next year and the year after, however with the collective barganing agreement running out, Unless its extended we wont be able to, it will all count on the year he is released. If you can get some of the mess out of the now, it does help. But what I am trying to get across is that when you renegotiate contracts, it helps the immediate season or two, but does not take you out of the trouble 3 or 4 years down the road. Now, saying that, it does not include "the assumption" the cap is going to go up a certain percentage. The skins work on that assumption each year. saying the cap SHOULD go up roughly this amount. They dont know for sure until the figure comes out, then they adjust accordingly.

But Lavar is due to count $12 million against the team next year, even if he plays. If we cut him before June 1, he'll count about $12 million in dead cap money next year, but he will be totally gone from the books in 2007.

Dead cap money is a part of life in the NFL. You use it to your advantage because of the annual incremental increase in the salary cap.

And figuring out the expected increase in the salary cap is not difficult. It's a direct function of the % of total revenues allocated to the player pool which is being negotiated between 57-60%. Then it's a matter of projecting the total NFL revenues which increase annually 10-15%, plus a big boost this coming year from the new TV deal. For a guy with Dan Snyder's business sense and financial forecasting capabilities, I guarantee you he comes within $1 million of the salary cap every year. And that's the biggest reason we never run into this so called salary cap hell. He is always right on the money with his forecasts and manages the cap accordingly. When they say the NFL is a business, they mean it.

So far most of Gibbs draft picks are no brainers, Taylor, Rogers, just about anyone could make those pick's, and understand that GW talked Gibbs into drafting Taylor, and probably had a big hand in evaluating Rogers as well.

Let's really look at some of the rest of the moves shall we, I don't think giving up 43 mil and a second rd pick for a player in Brunell who was about to be released by the Jags and wouldn't have garnered half the contract he recieved is remotly good GM work, I don't believe giving up Champ, a #2, and 50 mil for a system back is remotly a good trade, I don't believe throwing away next years draft for a projected middle 2nd rd pick in Campbell is a good job, Cooley is THE best pick Gibbs has made in relation to evaluating something other than top 10 talent.

Sorry if I don't buy into the great GM work for signing established talent as has been laid out, Griffen, Springs, Harris, Washington, Moss, Patten, etc. anyone can sign and overpay for established talent, the real talent at GM stems from a gm's ability to evaluate unestablished talent, in which I haven't seen any, the last 2 year's did we draft 1 player other than Cooley who is starting, or even seeing playing time? NO. I don't want to hear about Killings, or Bushetti, GW uses a lot of players along that line when one of these guys does something to become a legitamite starter there nothing more than a temporary fill in's, Newberry, McCune, Wilson, are nothing, Nemo has yet to see the field not even in short yardage, so how good can he be, it's not like we can't use a short yardage back, and yet he sits? Personally I think Gibbs layoff biggest affect is at the GM spot, he doesn't know what's out there, so he's looking at numbers, ala Portis and Brunell.

Offiss you make some good points here.

But the draft picks are what they are. You can say that any first round picks are no brainers. Fact is, Gibbs and Co. could have picked someone else and they didn't. Looking back on the class Sean Taylor came out of, he was the best pick for our team. Many rated Rogers behind PacMan and Antrell...one is hurt and Rogers is playing better than Jones. So.....

As far as Cambell, too early to tell. You can't say whether he worth it or not...we don't know. And remember Gibbs doesn't manage cap money, so Brunell's contract wasn't really his doing.

I am a HUGE skins fan, and I agree with what you are saying. Taylor was a huge nobrainer, as well as Rogers. One might say we could have taken Williams and then drafted a CB in the second round or Campbell in the 2nd round. Hell, maybe even a DB in the second and taken a QB in the later rounds. Thats up for the staff and they felt they couldn't pass on Campbell. But if you are so intent on Brunell being "your guy" this year, why not wait for another year to take a QB. There are some talented QBs coming in the draft next year that could have been taken with our 1st round pick, which we do not have now. I question alot of the moves, as all of us did last year. They would be questioned this year if we were 1-3 instead of 3-1. the two lineman that Bugel called future hogs, one was cut and one is low on the depth chart. The move to cut Trotter, Gibbs said he made a bad decision on that one, one he admitted. I love gibbs, I know it doesn't sound like it. but lets get real, this organization has been a mess for 10 years. I hope Gibbs can get it turned around, which it looks like he is. But with the cap trouble that will hit in a year or two, to next poor coach is going to have a nice little mess to try and clean up. If you remember, Caserly is the one who went out and scouted and picked those players Gibbs COACHED. He had nothing to do with the draft. The HOGGS the smurfs, pose' , all caserly. I think Gibbs has a bit to learn in the GM dept, which I believe he will learn. But Danny is not going to say no to anything Gibbs asks for, you know that. Danny was a Redskin fan before the owner and grew up when Gibbs won the 3 bowls. He is dannys idol.

I am a HUGE skins fan, and I agree with what you are saying. Taylor was a huge nobrainer, as well as Rogers. One might say we could have taken Williams and then drafted a CB in the second round or Campbell in the 2nd round. Hell, maybe even a DB in the second and taken a QB in the later rounds. Thats up for the staff and they felt they couldn't pass on Campbell. But if you are so intent on Brunell being "your guy" this year, why not wait for another year to take a QB. There are some talented QBs coming in the draft next year that could have been taken with our 1st round pick, which we do not have now. I question alot of the moves, as all of us did last year. They would be questioned this year if we were 1-3 instead of 3-1. the two lineman that Bugel called future hogs, one was cut and one is low on the depth chart. The move to cut Trotter, Gibbs said he made a bad decision on that one, one he admitted. I love gibbs, I know it doesn't sound like it. but lets get real, this organization has been a mess for 10 years. I hope Gibbs can get it turned around, which it looks like he is. But with the cap trouble that will hit in a year or two, to next poor coach is going to have a nice little mess to try and clean up. If you remember, Caserly is the one who went out and scouted and picked those players Gibbs COACHED. He had nothing to do with the draft. The HOGGS the smurfs, pose' , all caserly. I think Gibbs has a bit to learn in the GM dept, which I believe he will learn. But Danny is not going to say no to anything Gibbs asks for, you know that. Danny was a Redskin fan before the owner and grew up when Gibbs won the 3 bowls. He is dannys idol.

Mark my words. OK, I'm waiting while you write them down. OK, got a pen and paper? Here goes:

THERE WILL BE NO SALARY CAP TROUBLE IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS.

That is unless you consider getting rid of Lavar Arrington this offseason to be cap trouble instead of just a team dumping a bad seed. That's all I'll say on the subject. There will be no trouble.

The "experts" have long said the Redskins have some of the best cap people in the business. I believe that. I just find it hard to believe that these same experts who have been doing this for a living are wrong when saying we are getting in trouble at some point the next couple of years. I hope they are all wrong, I hope I am wrong too.