Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501 (Post 10381860)

An NFL contract basically consists of guaranteed money and non-guaranteed money.

Guaranteed money is the signing bonus. You earn that simply by signing the contract. Because this money is guaranteed, a team has to pay you that money. In order to make the contract more manageable under the salary cap, they will spread the signing bonus (or "prorate" the bonus) over X number of years. If you have a $10M signing bonus spread over 5 years, if you cut that player after year 1, they have to take an $8M hit on the cap. If you cut him in year 2, you take a $6M hit on the cap. Because you're paying for a player not on the roster, that's called dead money.

Non-guaranteed money means you have to earn it. Base salary is earned by playing in games. Roster bonuses are earned by making the roster. Workout bonuses are incentives to encourage players to work out in the offseason (because the players union limits mandatory workouts a team can hold). Other incentives can be earned if they make the pro bowl, etc.... If the team decides to cut you tomorrow, then you don't earn any of this money. Hence... non-guaranteed.



I don't know what the **** most of those other things are on the bottom of the list. If I'm explaining that to a 12 year old kid, I'd say "I don't know what the devil most of those other things are."

Originally Posted by cdcox (Post 10381857)

Looking at the first link:

In 2011 Brando Flowers signed a $49.35 M contract. Broken down as follows:

Signing bonus: $14M ($10M in 2011 + $4M in 2013)
Base salary: $28.1 M over 6 years
Roster bonuses: $6M ($2 M each in 20014-2016)
Work out bonuses: $1.25M ($250,000K in 2012-2016)

The signing bonus is given to Flowers at the time he signed in 2011. He got a second guaranteed installment of his signing bonus in 2013. The effect of a signing bonus on the salary cap is prorated over the length of the contract. However if you cut a player the effect of any remaining prorated bonuses are immediately applied to the cap in the year you cut the player.

The base salary is what the player gets payed for the NFL season if he is on the opening day roster. It isn't guaranteed money until he makes the roster. The base salary goes directly to the cap.

The roster bonus is usually paid in the Spring if he hasn't been released. It goes to the cap in that year.

Workout bonuses are paid if the player participates in off season workouts. It goes to the cap that year.

The cap number in any given year is the prorated signing bonus + base + roster + workout.

Dead money only applies if you cut a player. It is the salary cap hit related to the unpaid prorated bonus in the remaining years in the contract. For example, if we cut Flowers before the 2014 season, the prorated bonus for 2014, 2015, and 2016 ($3M + $3 + $1M = $7M) would count against the Chiefs 2014 salary cap, even though Flowers wasn't on the roster.

Cap savings is the difference in the cap number and dead money. Cap number is how much the player will count against the cap if you keep him and dead money is how much the player will count against the cap if you release him.

Cap flow is everything I explained above. It relates to the salary cap.

Cash flow is how much money comes out of Clark's wallet each year if Brandon Flowers is on the roster. Clark cares about this number. Sometimes he will elect not to participate in FA if his cash flow is bad in a given year.

That is the important stuff.

Originally Posted by jkw87 (Post 10381913)

How much would it hurt the cap when Robinson is cut?

Originally Posted by jkw87 (Post 10381913)

How much would it hurt the cap when Robinson is cut?

Originally Posted by cdcox (Post 10381992)

Robinson's cap number for 2014 is $5.3M if he plays. If they cut him, Robinson will count $2M against the cap (that's the dead money). So they would save $3.3M against the cap by cutting him before the roster bonus is due.

Originally Posted by jkw87 (Post 10382234)

I still don't understand how he got such a contract at his age and his previous performance the year before...

Originally Posted by BossChief (Post 10382309)

A signing bonus isn't the same thing as guaranteed money.

Originally Posted by BossChief (Post 10382330)

I'm still wondering what they have cooking with the cash cap this year.

According to overthecap, we have like 125 million spoken for in cap dollars next year, but only 95 million or so in cash spending accounted for and the team needs to be at 99% of the total cap being spent in cash to be compliment with the cap floor that was instituted with the new CBA.

That leaves us about 30 million under the cash spending threshold.

Originally Posted by htismaqe (Post 10382335)

Well, we're going to give a ton of cash to Houston plus there's some restructuring going to happen that is going to convert cap to cash to free up cap room, it will even out over the next few months.

Originally Posted by cdcox (Post 10382281)

If you look at how it was structured it was essentially a 1 year deal for $4.75M. There is no way he was ever going to see year 2 and 3 of that contract. We'll release him in the Spring and suffer the $2M in dead cap money in 2014 and be none the worse for it.

Even so, it was a horrible signing. Clark set fire to almost $5M. heh.