It's possible the Packers end up paying Rodgers an average of $30 million per season if the quarterback continues to play for another seven years but I hope they structure it in a way to limit his cap hit while he's active. I don't mind the contract resulting in a massive amount of dead money counting against the cap in the following season once #12 retires as that will most likely be a rebuilding season anyway.
I doubt it will be as much as $30 mil but it could come close. $27-28 mil maybe. Carr and Stafford are in contract years and might top Luck's $24.6 mil. Cousins is playing under a second franchise tag at $23.9 mil. There may be a waiting game to see what happens with these guys. That said, relative to paying a place holder like Glennon $15 mil per year with Trubisky in the wings (they hope) or the Browns trade for a busted Osweiler and a 2nd. round pick, $30 mil looks quite reasonable.
I highly doubt Thompson/Ball are going to put a dead cap poison pill into Rodgers contract for their successors.
I don't believe spotrac has any inside .information but it seems to me they don't speculate on future numbers like OTC does.
You're probably right. I did more checking and the 70% TV revenue going to the cap I mentioned before, which I recall from around the time of the CBA negotiations. It's actually 55%, with the cap set at roughly 45-47% of total revenue under a complicated formula.
Further, even when TV ratings were better in 2015, the networks break even on ad revenue if they are not broadcasting the Super Bowl, with ESPN taking a bloody beating on ad revenue. Where they make their money is carriage fees from the cable companies. And there's a major hard-to-quantify value to cable companies in paying up to carry NFL games that does not apply to a periodic property such as the Olympics: NFL coverage is an anchor against cable cutting, or on the other side of the same coin, a subscriber acquisition cost in the case of DirecTV.
So, even with a 10% decline in ratings, the decline in ad revenue is not the primary consideration to the networks so long as the cable carriage fees are locked in. If the NFL is waning somewhat in popularity, which will take another year to evaluate, the cap probably won't be impacted much until the TV contracts come up for renewal.
So, if we're to assume $10 mil bumps in the cap continuing apace for the next few years, how do we account for Thompson squirreling away cap? Probably a combination of:
1. The free agent second contracts butting up against an already high 2018 cap commitment on the books. Thompson's bigger contracts (Rodgers, Matthews) have had a pay-as-you-go look to them. Even with Nelson, Cobb and Perry, where the first year has a relatively low cap number, the remaining years start to go flattish in terms of cap. Thompson/Ball just don't mortgage the future to get over the top. A rule of thumb seems to be cap savings by year 3 in the event of a Shields-type event.
2. Rodgers and maybe Clinton-Dix renegotiated before 2018.
3. Maybe Thompson had his eye on a couple of other free agents, looking to add one more such as an OLB, but the prices came in above a disciplined top number, then the players and time ran out.
