Pats salary cap complexity - possible overspending penalty

[Miguel]

Miguel..when was this new CBA actuallu completed?? I remember during the summer it was NOT actually finished in words an ddetails so I am wonderfing if this is not a result of that...later understanding of it all...As for having a luxury tax so to speak...seems pretty weird...esp when one has the cap..

I first noticed the appearance of the new CBA on the NFLPA site in December, 9 months after it was agreed to.

 

[Pats726]

I first noticed the appearance of the new CBA on the NFLPA site in December, 9 months after it was agreed to.

One wonders when the teams fully understood all the fine print....and the ramifictions of all the details there...THANKS!! I was curious if the whole thing was even UP on the site..considering the length of time it took to get all the words in...Have you noticed any other oddities with it???

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

Interesting take on Pats salary cap situation from Reiss:

.

Is there a link to this story?????

Thanks in advance...

 

[DaBruinz]

I remember that the biggest complaint from the "small-market teams" (Colts, Cardinals, Bills, etc) was that teams with new stadiums were able to pay a lot more in Cash over Cap than they were and it put them at a disadvantage.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was something put in, somewhere, that would penalize teams for paying out, in actual cash, more than 75% above the cap.

In other words, if teams spend 188 million this year in actual cash payouts, then they would penalized a % on the 9.5 million in Cash over Cap money they spent.

As others have mentioned, that shouldn't apply to years prior to this one, BUT if the owners AGREED to it, then it could.

I don't pretend to know everything that Miguel knows about the cap as he does a lot more with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the owners did that to placate some of the small market owners.

 

[maxhagen]

I dont understand how the cap works... but yesterday I was listening Moving the Chains on Sirius and Pat Kirwan said that for next year NE is going to be 31 mill under the cap????

When he said that he was praising the organization with all the risks they took (not paying Vinatraitor, Givens, Branch and cutting Gabriel).

Is this true?

 

[DaBruinz]

I dont understand how the cap works... but yesterday I was listening Moving the Chains on Sirius and Pat Kirwan said that for next year NE is going to be 31 mill under the cap????

When he said that he was praising the organization with all the risks they took (not paying Vinatraitor, Givens, Branch and cutting Gabriel).

Is this true?

Those numbers sound very close to what Miguel has on his site. I wouldn't be surprised if Kirwin actually used Miguel's site as his reference.

Remember, though, that 31 million is before any free agent signings and before the draft.

 

[maxhagen]

Thanks DB...

 

[alexhb]

78 cents under cap

I heard the $31M under as well from Pat Kirwan today. He also mentioned that the Pats did some finagling before the end of the cap year and ended up at 78 cents under the cap! I think he said most teams were 600-700 thousand range below.
78 cents.

I guess it'll eventually come out what they did.

 

[PromisedLand]

I remember that the biggest complaint from the "small-market teams" (Colts, Cardinals, Bills, etc) was that teams with new stadiums were able to pay a lot more in Cash over Cap than they were and it put them at a disadvantage.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was something put in, somewhere, that would penalize teams for paying out, in actual cash, more than 75% above the cap.

In other words, if teams spend 188 million this year in actual cash payouts, then they would penalized a % on the 9.5 million in Cash over Cap money they spent.

As others have mentioned, that shouldn't apply to years prior to this one, BUT if the owners AGREED to it, then it could.

I don't pretend to know everything that Miguel knows about the cap as he does a lot more with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the owners did that to placate some of the small market owners.

If that is the case, it would tend to penalize teams which had paid large signing bonuses or other guaranteed bonuses during the cap year. I believe that is the only kind of cash payment which can be prorated over the life of the contract, and therefore, if I am thinking clearly (always a question), the only way a team's actual cash expenditures can exceed it's cap number for the year. (In later years, by the way, it works in reverse - it makes the cap number bigger than the actual cash expenditure.)

The teams that would be affected by this would be teams like the Redskins who like to sign high-priced free agents and give them big signing bonuses. I wouldn't think it would apply to the Pats, especially not in 2006.

 

[solman]

OK, this is for any lawyer types out there.

This is taken from
http://www.nflpa.org/cba/cba_pdf/Ar...lary,_Salary_Cap,_and_Minimum_Team_Salary.pdf

I'm not even going to begin to try and decipher....

I believe this says the following:

In addition to the salary cap, a new threshold is established equal to the league-wide salary cap plus 2% of league-wide gross revenues.

If the league as a whole exceeds this threshold, all the clubs which individually exceed their share of this threshold (1/32th) will have their future salary cap reduced.

If the league as a whole falls short of this threshold, all of the clubs which individually fell short will have their future salary cap increased.

Let me use a concrete example to illustrate.

Suppose at the end of the year, 24 clubs exceed the threshold by a total of $100M, while 8 clubs fall below the threshold by a total of $25M.

In total, the league exceeded the threshold by $75M. Clubs which spent less than the threshold will have no adjustment. Clubs which spent above the threshold will have their future salary cap reduced by 75% of the amount by which they exceeded the threshold ($75M is 75% of $100M). This reduction will be spread out evenly over each remaining capped years (i.e. 15% of the excess in each year from 2007 through 2011).

In future years additional accounting mechanisms will kick in to allow past league and club shortfalls to offset future league and club excesses.

For the Patriots, Suppose that BB believes that both the league and the Patriots will be over the threshold, and that the 75% ratio mentioned above is a reasonable estimate. Then each additional dollar spent this year will result in a 15 cent penalty in each of the subsequent five years. Tricks that the Patriots have traditionally used to move salary cap into future years, such as unlikely to be earned incentives, will be counted towards this year's penalty calculation.

With the Patriots reported to have a bit more than $3M in cap room, and at least two million of that set to be eaten by Unlikely to be earned incentives, I have a hard time begrudging BB that last million. Especially if a large percentage of it (75% was just a random guestimate) would have turned into a penalty applied in future years.

 

[RayClay]

Re: 78 cents under cap

I heard the $31M under as well from Pat Kirwan today. He also mentioned that the Pats did some finagling before the end of the cap year and ended up at 78 cents under the cap! I think he said most teams were 600-700 thousand range below.
78 cents.

I guess it'll eventually come out what they did.

When are we going to spend to the cap!!!

I want to know why we're in the playoffs without the best possible team while we still have .78 on the cap!!!

 

[mgteich]

Re: 78 cents under cap

I suppose you would have been OK with rolling over $30M of 2006 into 2008 and 2009 instead of the several million that we did roll over.

When are we going to spend to the cap!!!

I want to know why we're in the playoffs without the best possible team while we still have .78 on the cap!!!