League-Wide Salary Cap Space as of Week 2, 2019

[HardRightEdge]

I stumbled across something interesting in this link:

https://www.nflpa.com/public-salary-cap-report

Note the league aggregate cap carryover from 2018 to 2019 as of this writing ($339 mil) vs. the current league aggregate cap space ($653 mil).

That's a very sizeable difference of $314 mil, about $10 mil per team without a lot of cap spending left to do. You may see an in-season extention here or there. Then there are IR replacements as the season progresses that will eat into the current cap space, but it's not like the talent on the street is very expensive while PS promotions at minimum salaries are a typical way teams address the matter.

At the end of the day, the league-wide cap carryover to 2020 is going to be considerably larger than from 2018 to 2019. What gives? Why is the league trimming back their horns?

We know the union is already telling players to save their money in preparation for the CBA renegotiation. The current CBA expires after the 2020 season. That stands to reason. You don't want the membership caving to a less than optimal deal because too many of them need that Week 1 paycheck.

Conversely, teams have considerable non-player expenses in the event of a walkout with no incoming revenue. A team still has to pay all the non-player salaries and benefits, their stadium lease payments, the interest on their loans, maintaining all of the facilities, and anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment. That ain't cheap. So the question is, "Are teams adding to their cash reserves in preparation for a potential walkout?"

Could be. We'll see where it goes.

Of course in the middle of a season after a promising start, an appropriate response might be, "who cares?" I get that.

 

[Raptorman]

Well half of next years rollover is tied up in ten teams.

Indianapolis Colts 73                49,146,053             187,867,327              50,279,386
Cleveland Browns 70                  56,581,986             207,751,868              38,935,703
Houston Texans 72                    18,867,251             174,103,116              37,326,635
Miami Dolphins 72                     5,938,494             158,709,729              37,049,765
Dallas Cowboys 74                    11,777,592             170,702,689              30,352,284
Tennessee Titans 70                  25,676,137             188,334,746              29,774,912
Buffalo Bills 69                      8,726,270             170,216,100              29,395,717
Philadelphia Eagles 66                6,101,096             169,653,507              28,531,339
Chicago Bears 65                      3,693,213             167,676,644              26,877,969
San Francisco 49ers 71               35,031,574             205,183,085              26,712,948
Kansas City Chiefs 74                   715,502             166,299,101              23,848,583

 

[greengold]

11 teams with less cap room than the Packers $16.1M... 6 of them I might consider to be possible contenders this season. Thanks HRE. Interesting stuff. We have more room than I thought. This will be very, very interesting to see what they do along the way this year in terms of potential trades/signings/extensions through the remainder of the season.

Blake Martinez, Mason Crosby, Brian Bulaga, Geronimo Allison, Kyler Fackrell and Trevor Davis come to mind here...

 

[Heyjoe4]

I stumbled across something interesting in this link:

https://www.nflpa.com/public-salary-cap-report

Note the league aggregate cap carryover from 2018 to 2019 as of this writing ($339 mil) vs. the current league aggregate cap space ($653 mil).

That's a very sizeable difference of $314 mil, about $10 mil per team without a lot of cap spending left to do. You may see an in-season extention here or there. Then there are IR replacements as the season progresses that will eat into the current cap space, but it's not like the talent on the street is very expensive while PS promotions at minimum salaries are a typical way teams address the matter.

At the end of the day, the league-wide cap carryover to 2020 is going to be considerably larger than from 2018 to 2019. What gives? Why is the league trimming back their horns?

We know the union is already telling players to save their money in preparation for the CBA renegotiation. The current CBA expires after the 2020 season. That stands to reason. You don't want the membership caving to a less than optimal deal because too many of them need that Week 1 paycheck.

Conversely, teams have considerable non-player expenses in the event of a walkout with no incoming revenue. A team still has to pay all the non-player salaries and benefits, their stadium lease payments, the interest on their loans, maintaining all of the facilities, and anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment. That ain't cheap. So the question is, "Are teams adding to their cash reserves in preparation for a potential walkout?"

Could be. We'll see where it goes.

Of course in the middle of a season after a promising start, an appropriate response might be, "who cares?" I get that.

Interesting that the cap carryover to 2020 is so much larger than 2019. Some of it is surely insurance against a strike. And the same with the NFLPA advising members to hold some cash. That’s a little funny considering how much these guys make. Then again, they’re mostly young guys without a lot of experience managing money.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Well half of next years rollover is tied up in ten teams.

Indianapolis Colts 73                49,146,053             187,867,327              50,279,386
Cleveland Browns 70                  56,581,986             207,751,868              38,935,703
Houston Texans 72                    18,867,251             174,103,116              37,326,635
Miami Dolphins 72                     5,938,494             158,709,729              37,049,765
Dallas Cowboys 74                    11,777,592             170,702,689              30,352,284
Tennessee Titans 70                  25,676,137             188,334,746              29,774,912
Buffalo Bills 69                      8,726,270             170,216,100              29,395,717
Philadelphia Eagles 66                6,101,096             169,653,507              28,531,339
Chicago Bears 65                      3,693,213             167,676,644              26,877,969
San Francisco 49ers 71               35,031,574             205,183,085              26,712,948
Kansas City Chiefs 74                   715,502             166,299,101              23,848,583

I think you'd find it typical for the top 10, or close to it, accounting for most of the free cap space in most years. You can't deny the aggregate number is quite large.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Interesting that the cap carryover to 2020 is so much larger than 2019. Some of it is surely insurance against a strike. And the same with the NFLPA advising members to hold some cash. That’s a little funny considering how much these guys make. Then again, they’re mostly young guys without a lot of experience managing money.

It's been frequently reported how many pro athletes eventually go broke. This one got a lot of attention at the time, a decade ago:

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/105789480/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke

"By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because $of joblessness or divorce."

Is it any better now with NFL salaries far outpacing inflation in the last decade? Probably not. If you can blow $5 mil or $20 mil or $60 mil out the door, it's easy to blow $7.5 mil or $30 mil or sky's the limit.

What may not be so well understood is how many teams don't generate all that much free cash flow. Some are very profitable, most are meh or worse. One of the theme's from "Ballers" this season is a buyout of the Chiefs for $3 billion on borrowed money. One of the principals in the deal compared owning an NFL franchise to a high yield government bond. While there are no such bonds anymore (this is fiction after all), the point is valid: the retrun on investment is steady and predictable even if not great in most cases--until there is a strike.

 

[Raptorman]

Interesting that the cap carryover to 2020 is so much larger than 2019. Some of it is surely insurance against a strike. And the same with the NFLPA advising members to hold some cash. That’s a little funny considering how much these guys make. Then again, they’re mostly young guys without a lot of experience managing money.

If you notice something about those top 10 teams, they have a lot of younger players on cheaper contracts. Of those top 5 teams only one has a QB with a cap hit this year over $20 million. The titans with Mariotta at $21 million. Most have 3 or fewer players with cap hits over $10 million this year. With Dallas being the exception.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

It's been frequently reported how many pro athletes eventually go broke. This one got a lot of attention at the time, a decade ago:

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/105789480/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke

"By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because $of joblessness or divorce."

These stories of multi-millionaire athletes going bankrupt never surprise me, but I always shake my head when I read their individual stories. Typically it comes down to bad decisions or really the inability to make decisions on their own, that cause them to trust the wrong people with making the decisions. Guessing most of them feel that due to this abundance of wealth that they all of a sudden have, they aren't that risky of decisions in the grand scheme of things or they become hoodwinked very easily into thinking they now have the ability to keep padding their wealth with "easy money" through "sure fire investments. Would probably be like someone asking me to invest $100, with the promise to turn it onto $10,000. I could absorb the loss of $100, but not if I did it 1000 times.

I am sure "upping your lifestyle" to match your new found fortune plays a big factor into it as well. $8M home? No big deal, I will have that paid off in 2 years. Half a dozen $100,000 cars....pocket change, etc.

Would love to see the stats of Lottery Winners and if they face this same thing. My guess is that many do, sudden wealth by someone who suddenly feels like the world is their oyster.

 

[HardRightEdge]

11 teams with less cap room than the Packers $16.1M... 6 of them I might consider to be possible contenders this season. Thanks HRE. Interesting stuff. We have more room than I thought. This will be very, very interesting to see what they do along the way this year in terms of potential trades/signings/extensions through the remainder of the season.

Blake Martinez, Mason Crosby, Brian Bulaga, Geronimo Allison, Kyler Fackrell and Trevor Davis come to mind here...

I would think the first priority is to get Clark extended and not have him play under the 5th. year option. That's if they value him the way we typically do, "we" being the preponderance of posters on this forum.

Having a guy you see as a core player for the long haul play on a 5th. yar option means one of two things: (1) he still has something to prove to earn that second contract or (2) he wants more money in an extension than the team is willing to pay. Either way, it is a sub-optimal situation, and in the latter case you've probably embittered the player.

So, it is possible that Clark's agent is in negotiations now. Adams singed his extension almost immediately after his 3rd. season, the first opportunity under the CBA. Bakhtiari, on the other hand, had his last extension announced between Week 1 and Week 2 in 2016.

As for the guys you mentioned, I doubt any of them will be extended in-season this year, and whether that happens before they hit free agency depends on what each (and the other) players do this season and where the needs are once this year is up.

 

[HardRightEdge]

These stories of multi-millionaire athletes going bankrupt never surprise me, but I always shake my head when I read their individual stories. Typically it comes down to bad decisions or really the inability to make decisions on their own, that cause them to trust the wrong people with making the decisions. Guessing most of them feel that due to this abundance of wealth that they all of a sudden have, they aren't that risky of decisions in the grand scheme of things or they become hoodwinked very easily into thinking they now have the ability to keep padding their wealth with "easy money" through "sure fire investments. Would probably be like someone asking me to invest $100, with the promise to turn it onto $10,000. I could absorb the loss of $100, but not if I did it 1000 times.

I am sure "upping your lifestyle" to match your new found fortune plays a big factor into it as well. $8M home? No big deal, I will have that paid off in 2 years. Half a dozen $100,000 cars....pocket change, etc.

Would love to see the stats of Lottery Winners and if they face this same thing. My guess is that many do, sudden wealth by someone who suddenly feels like the world is their oyster.

There was a story recently of a $500,000 lottery winner, people of modest means to begin with, getting busted for burglery a few years after the fact. When they won, they said it was a life-changer, evidently not in the way they thought. I wouldn't be surprised if blowing through lottery winnings is not uncommon. One thing I've noticed is a lot of the big money winners end up taking the much smaller lump sum payout with the big tax bite instead of the annuity payments over 30 years. If you know what you're doing with $100's of millions of dollars, that would be the way to go. I think many of these folks would be better off with the annuity to protect themselves from themselves and the predators who are bound to come calling.

As for these players, bad investments can be part of it. But there are myriad ways to **** away money, as you suggest.

Andre Rison has told the story of how he blew his money picking up $100,000 restaurant tabs for his posse (the Crystal was flowing back in the day), jewelry, clothes, cocaine, whatnot. That's certainly one way to do it.

There was a very interesting story with direct quotes from Tyron Smith, I believe after his rookie season. He gave his parents something like a $400,000 budget to buy a house, which will buy you a lot of house in Texas. They came back to him with their choice that cost $600,000. I don't recall if he went ahead and bought it for them, but he said he was cutting them off henceforth. That requires a very difficult major life decision.

The point being, a lot of these guys have immediate family they support, every uncle and cousin with a hand out, a posse getting paid for something like "personal services". It all kind of melds together where the player funds the brother-in-law's car wash or some such ill-conceived business opportunity. Even for a guy with his head on reasonably straight, this has got to be the hardest part of conserving money for maybe 60 years after football--all the pressure for handouts from family and friends.

What they ought to do is slam a chunk of their dough into annuities with a guaranteed income stream starting somewhere after the projected retirement date. These may not be the best investments you can make, but it ties up the money. Buy the house or houses with cash. Tie up the money. Then when the open hands come around, they can say, "Sorry, I'm not liquid right now." They have to have a grasp of what that phrase means, however.

 

[HardRightEdge]

As discussed at the top of this thread, the NFLPA showed the Packers having $16+ mil in cap space about 4 weeks ago, after Week 1. I believe I've seen that same number since.

Now it stands at $9.8 mil with no significant contract moves, just a couple of low paid IR replacements taking up a little of the difference.

https://www.nflpa.com/public-salary-cap-report

The overall league cap space has shrunk from $653 mil to $452 mil since after week 1.

Where did the Packers $6 mil in cap space go?

One thought was the NFLPA is not booking "likely to be earned" per game roster bonuses until earned, but I doubt that's it. The Packer roster bonuses listed on the usual sites are predominantly start-of-league-year bonuses. I don't think there's near enough per game bonus money to account for it. Besides, "likely to be earned" bonuses count against the cap so there would be no reason to exclude them except to be intentionally misleading,

If the Packers have some substantial double-secret "unlikely to be earned" performance bonuses we'd be too early in the season for guys to hit those marks.

Any thoughts? It does paint a different picture of how far up the food chain Gutekunst might go in a trade before the deadline assuming he'd be so inclined at all.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

As discussed at the top of this thread, the NFLPA showed the Packers having $16+ mil in cap space about 4 weeks ago, after Week 1. I believe I've seen that same number since.

Now it stands at $9.8 mil with no significant contract moves, just a couple of low paid IR replacements taking up a little of the difference.

https://www.nflpa.com/public-salary-cap-report

The overall league cap space has shrunk from $653 mil to $452 mil since after week 1.

Where did the Packers $6 mil in cap space go?

One thought was the NFLPA is not booking "likely to be earned" per game roster bonuses until earned, but I doubt that's it. The Packer roster bonuses listed on the usual sites are predominantly start-of-league-year bonuses. I don't think there's near enough per game bonus money to account for it. Besides, "likely to be earned" bonuses count against the cap so there would be no reason to exclude them except to be intentionally misleading,

If the Packers have some substantial double-secret "unlikely to be earned" performance bonuses we'd be too early in the season for guys to hit those marks.

Any thoughts? It does paint a different picture of how far up the food chain Gutekunst might go in a trade before the deadline assuming he'd be so inclined at all.

I have absolutely no idea. Over The Cap had the Packers with close to $10 million in cap space entering the season. It seems they were more accurate than the NFLPA.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/a-snapshot-of-the-packers-salary-cap-situation-116

 

[HardRightEdge]

I have absolutely no idea. Over The Cap had the Packers with close to $10 million in cap space entering the season. It seems they were more accurate than the NFLPA.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/a-snapshot-of-the-packers-salary-cap-situation-116

I'm aware of what O-T-C and Spotrac have been showing since cut downs.

For what it's worth I checked my past posts and I see where I last quoted the NFLPA number as $16.3 mil as recently as Oct. 1, so this is a recent adjustment. It could be very fresh. I think I'd wait a week or so before drawing any conclusions. Maybe there's a double-secret extension that will be announced next week.

In any event, it will be worth comparing the numbers as the trading deadline gets close.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

For what it's worth I checked my past posts and I see where I last quoted the NFLPA number as $16.3 mil as recently as Oct. 1, so this is a recent adjustment. It could be very fresh. I think I'd wait a week or so before drawing any conclusions.

I'm convinced the Packers didn't make any moves over the past two weeks that resulted in an additional cap hit of $6 million.

 

[HardRightEdge]

I'm convinced the Packers didn't make any moves over the past two weeks that resulted in an additional cap hit of $6 million.

That we know of. Swapping in PS guys or Williams off the wire to replace minimum salary guys has a negligible affect. It could be an extension that cleared the league office on Friday, to be announced next week. Highly unlikely.

Though it would appear the NFLPA has corrected some longstanding mistake, I would defer that conclusion until more time has passed.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

That we know of. Swapping in PS guys or Williams off the wire to replace minimum salary guys has a negligible affect. It could be an extension that cleared the league office on Friday, to be announced next week. Highly unlikely.

Though it would appear the NFLPA has corrected some longstanding mistake, I would defer that conclusion until more time has passed.

There hasn't been any transaction announced on the NFL wire, therefore I highly doubt the Packers have made any significant move the NFLPA already included in their salary cap report.