The Random Thought Thread

[Simba]

tbf didnt look like Burrow was being wasted - the Jets are awful so it's going to take more than just a QB but they've at least got their LT of the future in place and Denzel Mims looks like he could be something at WR if he can stay healthy

it's a team devoid of talent but Joe Douglas is a good evaluator of talent the jets just dont have much of it so far but they do have 5 picks in the first 3 rounds of the 2021 draft and the 2nd most cap space in the NFL in a year when tons of teams are going to have to get rid of good players because of the salary cap (more than a 3rd of the NFL is already over the 2021 cap)

Really curious to see what the cap number comes in at next year. Although there are still major losses, I've seen that it's not as bad as expected and the salary cap could still come in decently above the $175M floor. I've seen some reports that $185M might be the number with the potential to get to $190-195M if there's a sense that "normal" can return next year. Would still think we're in the lower to mid $180Ms but it sounds like there's not an expectation that they'll be going with the floor.

 

[rossihunter2]

Really curious to see what the cap number comes in at next year. Although there are still major losses, I've seen that it's not as bad as expected and the salary cap could still come in decently above the $175M floor. I've seen some reports that $185M might be the number with the potential to get to $190-195M if there's a sense that "normal" can return next year. Would still think we're in the lower to mid $180Ms but it sounds like there's not an expectation that they'll be going with the floor.

i mean even if we got a 183m salary cap number there'd still be 10 teams in the red lol

sidenote: i cannot believe how screwed the texans are - bad roster, no coach, no GM, no 1st or 2nd round pick, and with a projected 176m salary cap they'd be 8.5m over it going into the offseason

i also have no idea how the saints are going to get under the cap - they're projected right now to be 95m over the cap

 

[Simba]

i mean even if we got a 183m salary cap number there'd still be 10 teams in the red lol

sidenote: i cannot believe how screwed the texans are - bad roster, no coach, no GM, no 1st or 2nd round pick, and with a projected 176m salary cap they'd be 8.5m over it going into the offseason

i also have no idea how the saints are going to get under the cap - they're projected right now to be 95m over the cap

Eagles are screwed too, especially with that Wentz contract. Lots of guys they can cut, but they're still going to have a rough time.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Really curious to see what the cap number comes in at next year. Although there are still major losses, I've seen that it's not as bad as expected and the salary cap could still come in decently above the $175M floor. I've seen some reports that $185M might be the number with the potential to get to $190-195M if there's a sense that "normal" can return next year. Would still think we're in the lower to mid $180Ms but it sounds like there's not an expectation that they'll be going with the floor.

Even if we called it $190M, which is probably optimistic, there's 8 teams over that number right now, and most of those teams only have like 35-40 players on the roster, meaning they're nowhere close to even having top 51. There's another 4-5 teams that basically have no wiggle room, with less than $10M.

Obviously every team will cut players to create space, but some are certainly more screwed than others.

The FA dynamic will be interesting.

That being said, one thing I've cautioned fans about before... Owners don't really care about Salary cap that much. Salary cap isn't "real" in terms of running the business. Like neither the IRS nor any standard of business metrics recognizes "salary cap" as anything other than an industry mandated "Monopoly-like" accounting mechanism.

Its about Cash. When some of these owners take it on the chin this year, and perhaps have operating losses, I'm not convinced there will be a large appetite for those teams to just go spend on players, merely because the salary cap says they can. The biggest fallacy among the public is thinking that NFL franchises, individually, make like hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year. They don't. A good year for an NFL team, in terms of profits, is probably like ~$50M. Some more, some less. But if the NFL sees a 10-15% drop in revenue because of the pandemic, that's trickling straight through to the bottom line this year, because they're not paying the players less at this point. They're stretching that out over many years.

My bet... NFL owners aren't just going to sit there and be like "o that's fine". I think they'll be willing to spend less money in 2021 than they ever have, and that includes cash spend, not just cap spend. Especially true when you factor in that free agency is primarily done in March-April, and the pandemic is unlikely to be anywhere close to "over" by then, so there's zero guarantees they'll get back to stadium capacity by next fall. So its not unreasonable that revenue declines could continue another year.

Bottom line for me... I would temper expectations of teams with salary cap to spend going on wild spending sprees, due to potentially depressed market values.

 

[Simba]

Even if we called it $190M, which is probably optimistic, there's 8 teams over that number right now, and most of those teams only have like 35-40 players on the roster, meaning they're nowhere close to even having top 51. There's another 4-5 teams that basically have no wiggle room, with less than $10M.

Obviously every team will cut players to create space, but some are certainly more screwed than others.

The FA dynamic will be interesting.

That being said, one thing I've cautioned fans about before... Owners don't really care about Salary cap that much. Salary cap isn't "real" in terms of running the business. Like neither the IRS nor any standard of business metrics recognizes "salary cap" as anything other than an industry mandated "Monopoly-like" accounting mechanism.

Its about Cash. When some of these owners take it on the chin this year, and perhaps have operating losses, I'm not convinced there will be a large appetite for those teams to just go spend on players, merely because the salary cap says they can. The biggest fallacy among the public is thinking that NFL franchises, individually, make like hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year. They don't. A good year for an NFL team, in terms of profits, is probably like ~$50M. Some more, some less. But if the NFL sees a 10-15% drop in revenue because of the pandemic, that's trickling straight through to the bottom line this year, because they're not paying the players less at this point. They're stretching that out over many years.

My bet... NFL owners aren't just going to sit there and be like "o that's fine". I think they'll be willing to spend less money in 2021 than they ever have, and that includes cash spend, not just cap spend. Especially true when you factor in that free agency is primarily done in March-April, and the pandemic is unlikely to be anywhere close to "over" by then, so there's zero guarantees they'll get back to stadium capacity by next fall. So its not unreasonable that revenue declines could continue another year.

Bottom line for me... I would temper expectations of teams with salary cap to spend going on wild spending sprees, due to potentially depressed market values.

It's gonna be like baseball, but with a salary cap obviously. Some teams are going to tighten their belts and try not to spend. Other teams that are flush with cash are still going to spend big money. Like, you know Jerry Jones is going to find a way lol

 

[rossihunter2]

Eagles are screwed too, especially with that Wentz contract. Lots of guys they can cut, but they're still going to have a rough time.

you're right - not even sure the Eagles can physically make it down just by cutting players

did some quick maths so could be wrong but to me it looks like if the Eagles cut every player on their roster who they can actually cut they still can't make it under the cap next year lol

 

[rossihunter2]

It's gonna be like baseball, but with a salary cap obviously. Some teams are going to tighten their belts and try not to spend. Other teams that are flush with cash are still going to spend big money. Like, you know Jerry Jones is going to find a way lol

yeah - teams that are strapped for cash arent gonna spend and many wont be able to do much because of the salary cap (even if they wanted to)

and im not sure that values of players drop dramatically but we might see signing bonuses get smaller and guarantees into year 2 go up so that the initial cash paid out in year 1 of a deal is lower while players still get close to market value on the overall deals

 

[rmcjacket23]

i mean even if we got a 183m salary cap number there'd still be 10 teams in the red lol

sidenote: i cannot believe how screwed the texans are - bad roster, no coach, no GM, no 1st or 2nd round pick, and with a projected 176m salary cap they'd be 8.5m over it going into the offseason

i also have no idea how the saints are going to get under the cap - they're projected right now to be 95m over the cap

New Orleans and Philadelphia are royally, royally, royally screwed in my eyes.

Look at Philly's contract structures... they have very little ways to create space. They will cut Jeffery, Jackson and Goodwin and save about $17M and then they'll have to look long and hard at Ertz (possibly getting cut). Outside of that, they have no easy mechanisms to create space. All of their high priced players are on early parts of large contracts with significant dead money. They will have a TON of contract restructuring to do. And of course, the mother of all problems, is Wentz. He's got a $34.6M cap hit, which there's no way you'll want to extend him for, and his salary is fully guaranteed, meaning a restructure (still has 4 years left) or pay cut isn't an option. AND...$15M of his 2022 base salary guarantees in March 2021, meaning you're likely stuck with him through 2022.

The Saints have some options, but not many. And none of those options exist with Brees being back on a $36.15M cap hit. He either takes a massive paycut, or he retires/gets cut. That Taysom Hill contract looks laughably bad next year, though they do have a couple of cuts they can make to clear some significant space (Alexander, Sanders, Easton would save them about $25M). They'll probably look at handing out extensions to Ramczyk and Lattimore, with extremely low 2021 cap hits. Can probably save $10-15M if they backload the crap out of those.

 

[rmcjacket23]

It's gonna be like baseball, but with a salary cap obviously. Some teams are going to tighten their belts and try not to spend. Other teams that are flush with cash are still going to spend big money. Like, you know Jerry Jones is going to find a way lol

I think my point is there's not really going to be anybody flush with Cash, because no team in the league is going to have a highly profitable year. Say the cap drops down to $180M next year. Rounded, call it a 10% reduction in revenue basically.

If you take 10% of revenue away from the Owners in the current year, with no cost offset, that's going to be all or the majority of their profits for this year. I can promise you that NFL teams aren't averaging like 20-30% Profitability margins, especially when we know they're already disbursing ~50% of all revenue to just players.

My point is, if I were an Owner, even if I've had good years in the past and can afford it, I'm not waiting a decade or however long they agreed to "offset" by revenue losses with lower costs. I'm simply spending less this year (both in Cash and in Cap) and trying to recoup starting now. And I think most of the owners will think the same way.

 

[Simba]

New Orleans and Philadelphia are royally, royally, royally screwed in my eyes.

Look at Philly's contract structures... they have very little ways to create space. They will cut Jeffery, Jackson and Goodwin and save about $17M and then they'll have to look long and hard at Ertz (possibly getting cut). Outside of that, they have no easy mechanisms to create space. All of their high priced players are on early parts of large contracts with significant dead money. They will have a TON of contract restructuring to do. And of course, the mother of all problems, is Wentz. He's got a $34.6M cap hit, which there's no way you'll want to extend him for, and his salary is fully guaranteed, meaning a restructure (still has 4 years left) or pay cut isn't an option. AND...$15M of his 2022 base salary guarantees in March 2021, meaning you're likely stuck with him through 2022.

The Saints have some options, but not many. And none of those options exist with Brees being back on a $36.15M cap hit. He either takes a massive paycut, or he retires/gets cut. That Taysom Hill contract looks laughably bad next year, though they do have a couple of cuts they can make to clear some significant space (Alexander, Sanders, Easton would save them about $25M). They'll probably look at handing out extensions to Ramczyk and Lattimore, with extremely low 2021 cap hits. Can probably save $10-15M if they backload the crap out of those.

Not that it's ideal by any means, but you almost have to wonder if Brees retires, if your best option is to start trading guys like Lattimore and Ramczyk for draft picks. It's almost a forced rebuild anyways. At least get something out of it instead of kicking the can down the road on a team without a QB, because clearly Taysom Hill is not it.

 

[rossihunter2]

New Orleans and Philadelphia are royally, royally, royally screwed in my eyes.

Look at Philly's contract structures... they have very little ways to create space. They will cut Jeffery, Jackson and Goodwin and save about $17M and then they'll have to look long and hard at Ertz (possibly getting cut). Outside of that, they have no easy mechanisms to create space. All of their high priced players are on early parts of large contracts with significant dead money. They will have a TON of contract restructuring to do. And of course, the mother of all problems, is Wentz. He's got a $34.6M cap hit, which there's no way you'll want to extend him for, and his salary is fully guaranteed, meaning a restructure (still has 4 years left) or pay cut isn't an option. AND...$15M of his 2022 base salary guarantees in March 2021, meaning you're likely stuck with him through 2022.

The Saints have some options, but not many. And none of those options exist with Brees being back on a $36.15M cap hit. He either takes a massive paycut, or he retires/gets cut. That Taysom Hill contract looks laughably bad next year, though they do have a couple of cuts they can make to clear some significant space (Alexander, Sanders, Easton would save them about $25M). They'll probably look at handing out extensions to Ramczyk and Lattimore, with extremely low 2021 cap hits. Can probably save $10-15M if they backload the crap out of those.

yeah i was going through the eagles roster and I calculated that they physically can't get under the cap without restructures/extensions lol

they're projected to be 69m over the cap (with a projected 176m salary cap according to over the cap)

if i cut every single player who's cuttable for savings on the eagles roster, that saves them only 59.5m which would still leave them having to find nearly 10m to save and it would also leave them with only 11 players on their roster lol

 

[rmcjacket23]

Not that it's ideal by any means, but you almost have to wonder if Brees retires, if your best option is to start trading guys like Lattimore and Ramczyk for draft picks. It's almost a forced rebuild anyways. At least get something out of it instead of kicking the can down the road on a team without a QB, because clearly Taysom Hill is not it.

I mean Brees cap hit is the biggest problem, so if you take that out of 2022, they should realistically be fine either way. Even if you're paying guys like Thomas or Lattimore like $20M per, without a QB taking up $30-40M, you should be able to field a competent roster with a rookie QB. Pretty much all of the teams with cap problems have the same issue... a QB taking up a large chunk.

So they can just sign extensions with those guys, backload them, and then by 2022-2023, they should have the cap space to be able to afford them. They just can't like replace Brees with like a $20M veteran though. They'd have to stick with Jameis for dirt cheap or draft somebody.

Like even Taysom Hill isn't "cheap" next year. I think his cap hit is like $17M.

 

[Simba]

I think my point is there's not really going to be anybody flush with Cash, because no team in the league is going to have a highly profitable year. Say the cap drops down to $180M next year. Rounded, call it a 10% reduction in revenue basically.

If you take 10% of revenue away from the Owners in the current year, with no cost offset, that's going to be all or the majority of their profits for this year. I can promise you that NFL teams aren't averaging like 20-30% Profitability margins, especially when we know they're already disbursing ~50% of all revenue to just players.

My point is, if I were an Owner, even if I've had good years in the past and can afford it, I'm not waiting a decade or however long they agreed to "offset" by revenue losses with lower costs. I'm simply spending less this year (both in Cash and in Cap) and trying to recoup starting now. And I think most of the owners will think the same way.

I don't necessarily agree with that. There are still owners flush with cash regardless of what happens this year. Jerry Jones has more money than he knows what to do with and is still packing in 20000 people a game just to make more. A lot of these owners have other businesses that are still highly profitable in the current times. Hell, I can say for a fact that 3 of Bisciotti's businesses have made more money this year than ever before. They have a portfolio of different stakes in different companies. They're going to be just fine.

Spending as a whole is going to be down but you're absolutely still going to see some big deals being signed. It just might not be as competitive with some of the "smaller market" teams.

 

[rossihunter2]

Not that it's ideal by any means, but you almost have to wonder if Brees retires, if your best option is to start trading guys like Lattimore and Ramczyk for draft picks. It's almost a forced rebuild anyways. At least get something out of it instead of kicking the can down the road on a team without a QB, because clearly Taysom Hill is not it.

yeah i was looking at the saints roster and those guys are the easiest way to get cap back - that would get them nearly a quarter of the way there - a adding in brees and kwon alexander gets you nearly half the way there with just 4 players

it's ugly cutting good players but the saints have at least a feasible way of getting under the cap to at least start a rebuild whereas the eagles i just dont see a pathway lol

 

[rossihunter2]

I don't necessarily agree with that. There are still owners flush with cash regardless of what happens this year. Jerry Jones has more money than he knows what to do with and is still packing in 20000 people a game just to make more. A lot of these owners have other businesses that are still highly profitable in the current times. Hell, I can say for a fact that 3 of Bisciotti's businesses have made more money this year than ever before. They have a portfolio of different stakes in different companies. They're going to be just fine.

Spending as a whole is going to be down but you're absolutely still going to see some big deals being signed. It just might not be as competitive with some of the "smaller market" teams.

yeah there's probably going to be a smaller group of teams in on each of the marquee players but i imagine they're still going to get compensated well

 

[Simba]

yeah there's probably going to be a smaller group of teams in on each of the marquee players but i imagine they're still going to get compensated well

It's the mid-tier players that are going to be hurt. Marquee players are going to get their big money and veteran role players will still find cheap deals. Hard to justify dropping big cash on solid to good players. Should help prevent some of those massive overpays though.

 

[rossihunter2]

It's the mid-tier players that are going to be hurt. Marquee players are going to get their big money and veteran role players will still find cheap deals. Hard to justify dropping big cash on solid to good players. Should help prevent some of those massive overpays though.

yeah i dont know if that makes the ravens more or less likely to get involved lol

 

[rmcjacket23]

I don't necessarily agree with that. There are still owners flush with cash regardless of what happens this year. Jerry Jones has more money than he knows what to do with and is still packing in 20000 people a game just to make more. A lot of these owners have other businesses that are still highly profitable in the current times. Hell, I can say for a fact that 3 of Bisciotti's businesses have made more money this year than ever before. They have a portfolio of different stakes in different companies. They're going to be just fine.

Spending as a whole is going to be down but you're absolutely still going to see some big deals being signed. It just might not be as competitive with some of the "smaller market" teams.

I think the "big deals" are going to be in the form of retaining your own players. I don't think because the Jets have $80M in cap space that they're going to go spend $100M+ in cash or more on FA players. I think if they still have $40,50,60M in cap space left as they go into the season, then so be it.

To put in perspective... Dallas, Washington, New England, and the Jets. All four HUGE market teams, lucrative franchises, essentially print money. They, collectively, left over $100M on the table this year. They had the ability to spend that money on salary cap in 2020, and they simply declined to do so. Wasn't an affordability issue. Wasn't a cap space issue. Just simply said "no thank you".

There were 10 NFL franchises in 2020 who spent under the salary cap in CASH spend. Like literally didn't even doll out payroll that matched the salary cap. Among those are, again, a "who's who" of NFL franchises... Washington, New England, both NY franchises, Pittsburgh, KC, Denver and Atlanta, among others.

I made an argument to a friend about how its possible the Eagles cut Carson Wentz even with large amounts of dead money, and even with negative cap savings. Why? Because the owner will save Cash, and thus, profits. The dead cap money has already been spent. Ownership may decide that "hey, I owe him over $47M in cash over the next two years. Maybe I just don't want to pay it". And that's not entirely unreasonable. It'll have roster ramifications elsewhere and obviously will impact how good the team is, but ultimately, its still a business. And $47M is a lot of money to even Billionaires.

Furthermore, put it in business context. These owners are all Billionaires, and many of them were before they got the franchise. Do you think they got that way by pissing away money? You think they got there by spending tens of millions of dollars on employees who aren't providing a positive ROI? No. Despite what the public thinks, these aren't just uber wealthy entitled brats who fell ass backwards into an NFL franchise. Many were titans of industry before, and they'll be titans of industry after.

 

[Willbacker]

I damn sure ain't gonna boo hoo when player salaries have been spiraling out of control and owners been lavishing ridiculous contracts like spoiled little rich kids. Cap in 2015 (143.28 mil). Cap in 2020 (198.20). What other job has been getting pay raises like these? I've been saying for the last couple years that this cannot be sustained even without Covid. Owners should just suck it up cuz they the engine thats been driving this gravy (crazy) train.

 

[cdp]

yeah i was going through the eagles roster and I calculated that they physically can't get under the cap without restructures/extensions lol

they're projected to be 69m over the cap (with a projected 176m salary cap according to over the cap)

if i cut every single player who's cuttable for savings on the eagles roster, that saves them only 59.5m which would still leave them having to find nearly 10m to save and it would also leave them with only 11 players on their roster lol

I used the salary cap simulator and you're absolutely right. They basically have to cut/restructure/extend every player who will earn more than a couple of M$. I think they're better off dumping most of their contracts to be competitive again in let's say 2 years. Otherwise you're not really fixing your salary cap situation. Which is essentially what we did from 2013 to 2019.