it's JLC - look at the fine print in terms of timeframe... he's making a really odd argument - it's only logging that payroll data between 2016-2019
that's a tiny period of time to make a judgement call about the spending over time and its philosophical importance given that rookie contracts are longer than that time period
So with most of those teams at the bottom there are reasons why they are low in terms of payroll - for the Colts, Bills and Browns it's because they rebuilt their teams during this time, the Browns stocked up on draft picks and didn't give out many major contracts, the colts last offseason hardly spent at all despite huge amounts of cap space and the bills are likewise flush with cap space
This offseason the texans and cowboys are flush with cap space with the expectation that they will have to spend a lot of it - which is the 2nd problem with this article - it's measuring and making a judgement despite the fact that the offseason hasn't even played out (and it seemingly isnt taking into account any of the in-season money spent)
the ravens are pretty unique on that list because we've been consistently up against the cap which limits the amount of money we could spend basically since 2013 - now while im not saying flacco's contract was bad it, among a spate of other inflexible contracts left us with tons of dead money despite not spending money in the timeframe because the way the deals were structured meant the cash was frontloaded in signing bonuses and the cap hits were backloaded because of it - add to that the fact that pitta and rice were taking up cap space but not contributing and you get spending problems
the real dumb thing in this article is JLC advocating for just spending more to fix problems suggesting that the cap isnt important - the problem is you cant spend money if you're right at the edge of the cap - ultimately the cap is just a measure of money spent at some point so cash and cap space in the end come up to the same number but over a longer period of time than the 3-4 seasons he's using in his data (because most major contracts are longer than 3 years)
the other major flaw specifically with regards to him advocating we just pay judon whatever (and also spend large in free agency) is that his numbers dont take into account all the in-season cash we spent (or have locked ourselves in to spend) on those contracts
the biggest common element of all those teams at the bottom of the payroll list is that none of them have given out a QB contract during the period that the data includes
basically because of the shortness of this metric it favours teams that had tons of cap space to begin 2016 and not many good players or contracts so they seemingly had no cap on their spending and it favours teams that are bad because they will be cutting players rather than keeping them and be able to go after other teams's players
and it also doesnt take into account non-player spending - something that the ravens have always done a lot of (as have the cowboys etc.) so no way are either of those 2 franchises "cheap"
the biggest indicator that this is all absolutely bullshit is that if you look at the list of the highest cash spenders since 2016 only the eagles have done well at all (and they find themselves consistently in cap hell)...
the rest of the top 5: jaguars, falcons, bears and packers - the packers probably on this list because after decades of not spending to the max they went ham with their cap space
but it doesnt really apply to the ravens because we've always spent up to the limit of the cap space - for us to have spent more since 2016 we would have had to break the salary cap - which tells you everything you need to know about how bad our cap situation actually was up until this past offseason
TL;DR
1) to look at the highest cash and lowest cash spenders there's no correlation between spending more cash (over a 4 season period) and actually being successful over the long-term
2) the shortness of the data period means that all the lowest spenders on the list just happen to be teams that havent had to give a qb a new contract which makes the whole thing fairly pointless straight away
3) ultimately cash is cap space spent at a point in time - the reason cap space is more important is because it's a hard limit that teams would face major consequences for breaking - if a team is up against the cap it physically cant spend more cash than it has cap space without backloading deals via signing bonuses (at which point that cash just makes it harder to spend more cash later on down the line) - there's no magic money tree for spending without it accounting onto the cap at some point in time
and most importantly of all - it's JLC so it's completely pointless
and even more tellingly it's supported by the guys at spotrac and everyone knows that overthecap is better
so where are those three little dots instead of typing ...
