Gibbs the GM

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by #56fanatic

When we keep reworking these deals, like brunell, jansen, and these guys it just keeps putting off the cap hits. The first couple of years on these contracts are so minimal that the salaries dont hurt us that much. Its the 4 and 5th years of these contracts that kills the cap. in the case of some of these players, they never get to the 4th and 5th years because we rework them. LaVar has done it in the past. Twice counting the last contract. Brunell did it this year, and he has only been here 2 years. Dont you remember how long it took the 49ers to straighten out there mess. What I am saying is Gibbs wants somebody and Danny doesn't say no, vinny doesn't say no, they just go get them, then get someone to rework their current deal. We can not keep reworking contracts every year and avoiding those 4th and 5th years. Portis' contract is like that, Moss is like that. All these guys getting these huge contracts have backloaded deals where they are like 1 to 3 million in the first couple then balloon to 6 to 9 million. Like Coles last year, we had to eat what was left on the signing bonus, and that 9 million. We can't keep doing that to try and make a run, I like Dan and wouldn't want a different owner but you can't help but admire teams like the Pats, Eagles, Bengles, that build through the draft, then pick maybe one or two free agents that put them over the top. Dallas just got out of all that cap problem stuff last year.

Sorry fanatic, you're just flat out wrong. We can keep reworking the deals. As you rework the deal, it's not like you're kicking 100% of the cap hit down the road. You're kicking a manageable portion of it down the road, because some of the allocated bonus already came off the books in the years between the initial signing and the renegotiation.

Crazy Canuck, a little love here?

[Hog1]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Moves made under Joe Gibbs:

Traded for:
Mark Brunell
James Thrash
Clinton Portis
Santana Moss

Drafted:
Sean Taylor
Chris Cooley
Carlos Rogers
Jason Campbell

Signed:
Marcus Washington
Cornelius Griffin
Shawn Springs
Walt Harris
David Patten
Pierson Prioleau

Traded Away:
Rod Gardner
Laveraneus Coles
Champ Bailey

Numerous undrafted free agents.

Questions answered:
Do we miss Champ? No.

Do we miss Smoot? No.

Do we miss Antonio Pierce? Maybe just a little, but Marshall is a much better value.

Were the WRs upgraded? Yes, Moss is better than Coles.

Has the game passed Gibbs by? NO WAY.

And most importantly, should we change the current GM alignment where Gibbs makes the calls with input from Cerrato, his coaches, and heavy input from Gregg Williams? NO.

Killer Post S10. It's easy in the heat of battle to to debate all the "stupid moves Gibbs made". We rarely look back to measure those moves in hindsight! Looks much different than they did a couple of months ago!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gmanc711]

To be honest, I miss Fred Smoot when you ask that question. He was one of my favorite players, and I think based on last week we could have used him. In time, Rogers will be better, but i'd take smoot right now.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by Gmanc711

To be honest, I miss Fred Smoot when you ask that question. He was one of my favorite players, and I think based on last week we could have used him. In time, Rogers will be better, but i'd take smoot right now.

I do too, Gmanc! I realize that in time, Rogers will be coming into his own, but I really liked Smoot as well! Maybe he'll get mad at the Vikings and head back to D.C. next year! :headbange

We can at least dream!

[skins052bgr8]

We keep saying we miss Bailey and Smoot, guess what if they were hurt like Champ has been we would not have Shawn Springs as his back up, good ole Ade would be playing. Us missing them is based off injuries which we would be in the same boat if they were here and got injured. We have good starting corners, but like every team you only can have so much quality depth to be dreaming about having Smoot and Bailey Sunday because our starters went down with injury.

[MTK]

Every team in the league re-works deals and backloads contracts. This isn't an exclusive to the Redskins.

#56fanatic, I have to agree with Schneed10 here and say you are flat wrong.

Where is this cap hell anyway? Snyder has been managing things since '99... we should have had major problems years ago but we didn't. We've never had to blow up a team like the Titans did this year. We've never had major cap problems that weren't fixable by re-working deals or taking a cap hit (Coles).

Your take is right in that contracts are backloaded and guys like Portis will eventually have to re-work their deal, but that's not a secret and like I said not something that only the Redskins do.

Think of the cap like a giant puzzle. Snyder always has a 3 year plan in place, and at any given time he is very aware of the cap implications 3 years down the road and contracts are structured accordingly. It's all how you fit the pieces of this 3 year puzzle together. Every year you're going to have a couple of guys that will need to be restructured. Every year there is a rough idea in place of how much dead cap they can carry.

It's all carefully planned out and structured. If Snyder knows how to do one thing, it's run a business, and if he's done anything well in his time here, it's manage the cap and manage it very well.

[CrazyCanuck]

Originally Posted by #56fanatic

we lead the NFL in dead money every year. When you
rework these deals, it sets the 1st couple years at very low salaries then the contract money excelerates towards the end of the deal, like the last two years.

I think you answered your own question here. By setting the 1st couple years at low cap numbers, you are pushing the money to the future. But in the future, any deadcap hit you take will be offset by more bargains on new guys you sign. Deadcap is a GOOD thing. It's like a growing company. If you finance yourself with too much debt, yes you will get into trouble down the road. But if you have no debt then that's no good either. It means you probably won't be able to grow quick enough. You need a balance between debt and equity. Deadcap is the ONLY way a GM can get any fleixibility or timing into his plans. IMO a team with no deadcap is doing something wrong. I suspect the Skins allocate 10-20% of their annual cap budget on deadcap. The deadcap is offset by "bargains" in the short term. Of course there are limits.

[#56fanatic]

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.

[CrazyCanuck]

Originally Posted by #56fanatic

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.

The examples you give about Deion, Trotter, Coles are not wrong. The problem in these cases is that the players left or were cut even earlier than expected. Hopefully with Coach Gibbs bringing in "Redskins" these unexpected and early cuts will be at a minimum in the future.

But let's take Coles as an example. We are paying $9M of our 2005 deadcap towards Coles, and our total 2005 deadcap is close to $20M! That's almost 25% of our total cap for nothing. How can we possibly be competitive? It's because the deadcap is offset by bargains in the short-term. Look at some our other 2005 cap hits:

Chris Samuels $4,768
Sean Taylor $3,970
Mark Brunell $2,433
Clinton Portis $2,386
Shawn Springs $2,373
Jon Jansen $2,143
Randy Thomas $1,952
C. Griffin $1,923
M. Washington $1,707
Walt Harris $1,415
Santana Moss $1,140
David Patten $1,115
Casey Rabach $1,040
James Thrash $896
Ladell Betts $720
Joe Salave'a $707
Pierson Prioleau $690
Lemar Marshall $637
Mike Sellers $590

You can argue as to which of these are actual bargains, but I think we'd all agree most are cheap compared to their market value. If you add up all the savings here there's defintely more than a few million dollars. So yes if we never gave out signing bonuses, we wouldn't have Coles' ugly deadcap hit. But we also wouldn't have a starting QB at $2.4M, a starting RB at $2.4M, a #1 receiver at $1M, etc. You get the picture.

The key is to pick the right players that will be around for a while, so you don't get too much deadcap when you do have to cut them. And it seems we've been doing a much better job of this lately.

[#56fanatic]

do you think Portis is playing for 2.4mil a year for next 6 or 8 years, however long his contract is? Thats just not true. It may be 2.4mil this year and 3. something next year, but it will go up to an awful high salary, which probably will get redone for cap space. Those players are all making low amount because of the year of the contract, samuels just signed a deal this offseason, brunell redid his this offseason, Washington is in the second year, Griffin too, only the second year. Although I think we did actually get griffin cheap because I dont think his deal escalates more than 4 or 5 million at its highest. Moss, 1st year. You get where I am going. Now some of the players are cheap, sellers, BIG JOE, they wont be cap problems. I am tired of talking about this thread, its giving me a headache. have fun!!

[REDSKIN2]

You forgot one question below Smoot:

Do we miss Lavar? No.

[Hog1]

Originally Posted by REDSKIN2

You forgot one question below Smoot:

Do we miss Lavar? No.

That's gonna' start a war..................Is this the Brunell/Ramsey thread?

[That Guy]

about the cap: this year we've had to back away from a bunch of deals (smoot, pierce, brown, etc) because we've got the second least amount of cap space to work with (besides the raiders) and with the coles incident... I don't think there was really a lot out there out there this offseason (besides the three starters we got), but it has affected us in some ways.

Its good they've decided to start cleaning up now, cause brunell and lavar are going to be big hits when/if they go (portis and samuels have insane contracts too). Tightening up on the huge payoffs (as it seems we have) and not throwing away draft picks are always good things though.

[#56fanatic]

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.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by #56fanatic

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.