"...the
Green Bay Packers were able to use $5.6 million in 2017 salary-cap space, therefore lessening the burden on future caps over the life of those contracts."
Demovsky persists in this faulty line of reasoning despite the obvious fact that unused cap rolls over. It makes absolutely no difference if you use $5.6 mil in cap in both 2017 and 2018, or zero in 2017 and $11.2 in 2018, to take one example.
Whatever reasoning may have resulted in the timing of this extension, it surely is not to use 2017 cap.
As noted elsewhere, it could be the accelerating of $25 million in signing bonuses for the two players into 2017 might yield a $2.5 million cash tax savings for the ballclub with the reduction in corporate tax rates taking affect in 2018. This is certainly far more plausible than Demovsky's empty rationale, a bit of financial engineering right up Ball's alley.
I think Mr. D. was fed a line of crap by a source who did not want to disclose the actual rationale, whatever it might have been.
