Let’s talk about the Salary Cap, and teams uses of it
 

Saw this on Reddit. Thought it was a better talking point than trading McDuffie, or trading resources for a LT. Also hoping I can get a better understanding from some of you guys who understand it more than me.

The link https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/s/hPxltIJ2OQ

[OC] Assessing how aggressively teams are using future cap space - the Eagles effectively spent 399 million on their 2024 roster, 32% more than the average team and the most in the league

In recent years, teams have become more aggressive in structuring backloaded contracts to take advantage of the fact that the cap increases every year. Howie has taken this further than any GM in the league.

To assess this, I used APY, which is the average yearly cap hit of a contract. For example, if a player has a cap hit of $5 million this year and $25 million next year, their APY is $15 million.

By [summing the APY of the players on 2024 rosters](https://overthecap.com/contracts) instead of their 2024 cap hits, [we can see which teams are spending future money on current players](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing). I also included current dead cap in the calculation to get a full picture of 2024 spend.

|Team|2024 Effective Spend|
:--|:--|
|Eagles|$ 399,805,070|
|49ers|$ 366,851,304|
|Lions|$ 359,733,177|
|Jaguars|$ 358,339,795|
|Dolphins|$ 353,120,509|
|Vikings|$ 350,201,592|
|Bills|$ 344,423,075|
|Browns|$ 333,851,514|
|Jets|$ 328,251,189|
|Texans|$ 325,446,538|
|Broncos|$ 325,374,288|
|Saints|$ 306,845,039|
|Packers|$ 305,439,917|
|Ravens|$ 298,782,626|
|Buccaneers|$ 298,613,176|
|Panthers|$ 298,160,314|
|Falcons|$ 297,660,693|
|Cowboys|$ 288,264,115|
|Chiefs|$ 287,862,988|
|Seahawks|$ 287,471,672|
|Commanders|$ 283,193,993|
|Titans|$ 282,935,233|
|Giants|$ 282,618,087|
|Chargers|$ 275,610,516|
|Steelers|$ 275,385,342|
|Bengals|$ 274,078,824|
|Bears|$ 268,491,690|
|Patriots|$ 263,299,279|
|Colts|$ 259,613,378|
|Cardinals|$ 259,151,131|
|Rams|$ 245,518,950|
|Raiders|$ 232,167,153|

The average team is effectively spending $303 million on their roster, much higher than the current salary cap of $260 million. While this shows most teams are pushing some of their player's cap hits to the future, none are close to the Eagles. There are multiple reasons the Eagle's value is so high

1. Howie has signed many core players to long term, backloaded contracts
1. Howie aggressively uses void years to push money owed later for even short term contracts. For example, CJGJ has a cap hit of 14.5 million for the Eagles in 2027, even though his three year deal ends in 2026
1. Howie already been employing this strategy, meaning the Eagles had $61 million in dead cap in 2024.

You can see other teams like the Niners and Lions leaning into this strategy, giving long extensions to core players that push their cap hits into the future. Notable, the Chiefs have not, meaning they have the option to start spending more aggressively if they adopt this practice.

The most interesting question is if this practice is sustainable. Howie seems to plan to continually kick the can down the road, always paying the current roster with future cap. The advantage of this is clear, having a larger effective salary cap allows you to assemble/keep a talented roster. But there is a downside, it limits flexibility and can make it hard for a team to reset in a down year. Whether the Eagles will run into this problem, and whether adopts this practice across the board remains to be seen.

Still trying to understand the backloading of contracts. Does that just mean they’re pushing guaranteed money to future years, or is that non guaranteed money to make the contract seem bigger because of APY?

From my limited understanding, these void years allow cap/salary to be turned into cash/singing bonus. The signing bonus can be split over the years of the contract. What I don't understand is how you can write a contract for 5 years and have it void after 3 years. This leaves the cash on the books however the player is free to go elsewhere.

My research indicates that this was allowed during covid because of the reduction in the salary cap. The Saints were in deep trouble so they allowed this. When Brady went to the Bucs, they did something similar: pushed his signing bonus over a longer period. However because Brady retired, everything including the signing bonus was voided.

Seems like this is something that really shouldn't be allowed as it's being leveraged in a way that was not intended. Leave it up to the lawyers to find a way to take advantage of this.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but seems if you’re pushing money (possibly dead money) into future years. Why wouldn’t that be easier to manipulate on those years with the cap going up so much every season? Seems like if that’s what you’re doing it would come much closer to evening out in the future years because of the expanding cap.

Also saw this comment on another post that was related. And thought it was pretty interesting, comparing the Chiefs and Eagles success with GM philosophy and drafting.

Eagles have had a few incredible years of drafting and acquiring players via trade and FA. Devonta Smith in the first round in 2021. Dickerson in the 2nd. Drafted Jurgens in '22 in the 2nd. Traded for AJ Brown in 2022. Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith in 2023. Mitchel and DeJean in the first two rounds in 2024. They are not missing on high end draft picks.

Meanwhile in KC...in 2021 we drafted Bolton and Humphrey in the 2nd rounds. Big win on Humphrey. Bolton is above average but not a star. Biggest win is probably Trey Smith in the 6th. That value is INSANE. But the Chiefs have whiffed on a lot of OL the last 4 years.

2022 was an incredible year for Veach and Co. McDuffie / Karlaftis / Cook / Chenal / Watson / Pacheco. But whiffing on Pickens for Skyy Moore was brutal. Sure we won a SB but you have a guy who barely contributed to the team for 3 years taken in the 2nd round. You can't stack misses in the first 3 rounds and keep winning SBs.

2023 was a disaster. FAU another huge whiff. Rice looks like a top 15 WR but he got hurt early and is facing a huge suspension when he returns. Morris (2nd rounder) isn't playing. Conner is mediocre. None of the other players are anything. You can't have a draft and pick up ONE STARTER and expect to keep winning.

2024 is another mediocre draft. Worthy looks like a star, which is great. Your first round players should be contributing. But then another whiff in the 2nd round with a player who was benched for the SB. Wiley got hurt and Hicks looks promising. Everyone else is a nobody.

Chiefs need to draft better in the first 3 rounds. They also need to ACCUMULATE more draft picks. Trade away players. Trade down. You need more ammo in the draft. Veach's best draft came when he had 10 selections. The last two drafts we've only had 7 picks and we've missed on a lot of early rounders.

Since 2021, Chiefs have drafted 30 players. Their hit rate for quality starters is 46%, which is exactly the hit rate on 1st round QBs. To be a successful team you need to draft better than average. Veach did a great job assemling the junkyard Avengers (JuJu, DHop, Hunt) but he needs more pieces to move around the chessboard. I know it's crazy but I'd think about trading anyone not named Chris Jones or Pat Mahomes in order to do this. Now I know the Chiefs would NEVER but if you can get a 3rd or 4th for Kelce I'd do it.

That is the comment. It’s not mine but found it interesting comparing drafts by the GMs

Every team should do this. 399 mil and the cap is 250? Damn the squad we could have.

.

One last draft comparison from the other thread. Again not my comment, but still eye opening. Especially considering in the last 8 years. Eagles have gone to 3 SBs and won 2, KC been to 5 won 3. Hard to argue their approach isn’t as close to our success than any other team in that time period. And they’ve done it with quarterbacks who aren’t nearly on the same level as Mahomes. Here the comment

For the most part they draft better in first round than us. Some of this is do to draft position (2 of their last 5 first round pics were top 10 pics, they have 9th, 10th, 13th, 22nd and 30th pics of their last 5 first rounders)

If you go back 10 years and evaluate their first round pics. They still have Lane Johnson on their roster, and even though they spent a 1st rounder on Carson Wentz, they traded him for a 1st rounder and 2nd rounder.

Of their 2nd round pics last 5 picks, all but one are on the team and they include Jalen Hurtz, Cooper DeJean, Landon Dickerson (3x pro bowler), and Cam Jurgens the guy who replaced future HOF center Jason Kelce, and has higher PFF than Kelce did.

Chiefs last 5 years.
McDuffie is only probowl drafted.
FAU just started to show some things this year, but not great for draft position
George starting to come on this year, his 3rd year.
No draft pick in 21.
CEH - Love as a person, absolutely bust for 1st rounder.

And in the last 10 years we haven't drafted in 1st round 4 times. With a couple exceptions the pro bowlers we've had are free agents or people we traded for, which costs Cap space.

I think our front office does VERY WELL, hands down one of the best there is. Just that the eagles have stuck gold more often in past 5 years.


So yeah they’ve obviously had much better draft positions over that time span as well. And that plays heavily into the results. But Veach has still been kinda so so at drafting, especially early rounds. But 22 made up for some of that.

Could mean a few things. Sometimes it’s to push the overall number higher so the deal looks better (ex. A top 5 LB contract). You’ll usually have high back years with little to nothing guaranteed in prorated dead cap.

Often times it’s just deferring because you don’t have the cap space in the front years. These are usually guaranteed or guaranteed in principle by dead cap (you’re not cutting a player with $80m in dead cap). Player would likely have guarantees on the back years.

Often times there’s a renegotiation trigger. For example, a huge number in year 3 of a 5 year deal. Usually low guarantees on the back years. It gives some small flexibility for the team to have an out on the contract. It also protects players from not getting paid less. If the player busts the team can just bite the bullet and pay the hump so the back years stay unguaranteed. Usually it means the team will turn base salary into signing bonus which spreads the cap hit longer. The back years are more guaranteed because it creates more dead cap. This might also come in a mid contract roster bonus where the player has way less leverage - unlike base salary the team can just refuse to exercise it

Makes sense. Just seems to me with an ever expanding cap, those hits won’t be as hard to overcome.

I feel bad, I had no idea Chiefs fans were starving and homeless. Poverty moves are the future

Without delving in too deep right now, here’s how I compare the way the Chiefs are building their roster vs. Philly:

If the Eagles draft good to great every year, they’ll continue to be fine and compete atop the NFC because their roster remains elite irregardless of the void cap hits to come.

If the Eagles have a couple subpar, even bad drafts consecutively — they’ll quickly start to feel the impact of their approach as they can’t keep pace with expensive players they’ll still be paying to not be on the team. Being a Super Bowl contender will not be on the table anymore.

The same kinda holds true for all teams, but to me, the pressure to nail the draft is higher on a team who is going Philly’s route. At least if the goal is to win long term, five to ten years or more like Kansas City is trying to do.

I’m of the opinion that the reason Kansas City has maintained this stranglehold on the AFC is because they’ve been the most patient, long term minded team. They always have the flexibility to do anything they want to do, whereas a lot of our top contenders have stretched it to the point that they’re forced to eat these massive dead cap numbers just to put a roster together year to year.

In other words, as someone who still wants to win three or more rings, I’d prefer KC not go into the void year stuff until Patrick is on his last few holes.

Please do not turn this into a political argument. That is not my intention.

Teams using void years like this are essentially banking on the bills never coming due. They're operating like the federal government - just keep borrowing money in present years thinking that money will continue to be printed and you will never have to actually pay for it.

Teams are building these back loaded contracts assuming the salary cap will go up and up and up. It's a calculated risk and if something should happen like a wrench in the CBA, they will come crashing down.

Now, if I were a Philly fan with Jalen Hurts as my QB, I could reasonably hear that it’s the right approach and they wouldn’t have won this Super Bowl otherwise.

But for this current Chiefs team, with Mahomes, I don’t think it’s the way. Not unless the goal is to just win one more. Again, that may be the move in his last five years or so, exactly what Tampa did to form their super team.

So let’s say we decided to extend Pat for 7 more years, and backload that contract. Moving dead cap that far into the future would likely be a much smaller percentage of the cap than current year. I mean even if he’s not on the team (god forbid) or retires (obviously a different story cap wise) the dead cap would be much more manageable if the cap continues to grow. Especially with the possibility of them adding an 18th game in the future. Cap went up 13.6% this past season. Or am I misunderstanding how this works?

Interesting stuff, it beats picking apart the SB problems.

The Chiefs have been drafting 29-32 for seven years and even before Patrick, the Chiefs were a playoff team. They haven't really had a down year where they have been able to pick up players in the top half of the draft. Success comes at a price.

The Tyreek trade allowed them to pick up some needed players, at this point, I believe they are going to have to really hit their drafts as players age/price themselves out of what the Chiefs can afford. Again, the price of success and having a target on your back.

You can't factor in the Jaguars destroying the WR market by way overpaying

Also hitting those draft picks and trades/FA signings seems to make it easier in those tight years.

It's mainly pushing back guaranteed money. The downside comes when the contract ends, the money that's been spread out over the void years accelerates onto the present year.

For example, Thuney is on the last year of his deal, but hypothetically we could convert most of his base salary into a signing bonus, and spread it out over 5 years (2025 + 4 void years). Then when his contract ends in 2026, the money we spread out over those void years would accelerate and become dead money on the 2026 cap. But effectively we would have moved roughly half his cap hit for 2025 onto 2026. Or we could extend him in 2026 and continue kicking the can down the road.

That's the simple version, I don't entirely understand the option bonus voodoo the Eagles are doing. I gather the principle is the same, but I can't decipher what exactly their Spotrac pages mean.

I’d say two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand the chiefs have been very conservative on using their credit card. So when people say we can’t afford this or that… yes we can. We have plenty of flexibility. We just want to build a long window versus crashing and burning in year 5.

Deshaun Watson is a very very good example of how that comes to bite you. They created Frankenstein contract. In hindsight it was a bad deal. A huge overpay. But the reason the contract is truly awful is because they kept restructuring it. In order to free up more money today they kept pushing guaranteed money to the back. It’s almost comical that the guy is now a $72m cap hit. And $170m to cut. Yikes.

That being said I do feel like we should use our purse a little more. Mahomes is entering the end of his peak and who knows how much longer Reid has. I wonder if the sobering reality of an aging kelce is going to change how we approach this new era.

The Chiefs also have to factor in a possible new stadium. Mahomes time will be short when completed, and new stadium tickets very high

You don't think they are high already?:doh!:

It may make an argument for Kansas and more offerings

Chiefs are only paying 100k in dead money to Kamal Hadden. Eagles are paying $29 million in dead money and almost $27 million of that is going to Kelce and Cox.

Eagles have actually averaged over $60 million dead money since 2021. They had $63 million this year. This is a terrible business plan if you have a young Mahomes.

They didn’t spend hardly anything on FA’s bc of that dead money. They just found 2 of the biggest grand slams in Zack Baun and Mekhi Becton. Drafting Mitchell and DeJean helped as well.

Of course you can’t compare that to us. They drafted in the top 10 multiple times recently and got Jalen Carter and DeVonta Smith.

It’s an overly aggressive plan that requires you to be right far more than being wrong. Last year they were wrong and we saw what happened.

From what I understand they still had to pay him when he retired. Which is the tradeoff with void years. Bucc's had something like 35 million in dead cap space because of these prorated void years.

The league really bailed Howie out last year letting him nab Mitchell AND DeJean. Mixed with Fangio’s hiring, you could see the success coming from a mile away.

And I get it, each team’s gotta do their own thing, it’s not like I’d go back and trade Worthy for DeJean. But damn man he got both those guys far below their projected overall draft rankings.

I wouldn’t count on GMs to not do it again either. Veach has to capitalize on those same opportunities and when you have a player who is far better than where you are being presented an opportunity to draft them, you gotta take them.

Can you imagine if the league lets a CB of that quality drop to us this year and we can pair them with McDuffie for at least five years? Those are layups you gotta sink no matter how you’re managing your cap. If you don’t — and if the Eagles hadn’t — they’re not world champs.

You can say it shouldn't be allowed, but it benefits the teams, because they get cap flexibility, and it benefits the players because they get bigger contracts and more money. Who do you think is going to put a stop to this?

The Eagles won one season. I am unsure of the cohesiveness of the team as a whole. Players and coaches

But most teams attempt to "peak" - they put some good pieces in place and then in an attempt to actually get a superbowl window of 1-3 years they mortgage future cap to win now by creatively structuring a few more superstars into the roster, just spending on the credit card intending to pay it off a few years down the line.

The Chiefs should not be doing that, they don't "only" want a 1-3 year window.

Are we weak? That list makes us look weak.

The idea of a new stadium with Skyy Moores and Nozzy Johnsons, make me weak

I'm not sure, but I don't think that's true - if a contract has multiple void years I think the cap hits stay on those years unless the player is cut before the end of the contract.

It’s true unless the player signs an extension. If he does that, then the void hits stay on for the years he’s still with the team.

If he leaves, it all hits your cap at once. Take Josh Sweat for example. If/when he leaves Philly, all his void year hits are going to go on the ‘25 cap.

Josh Allen's August 2021 contract will be redone. Cap goes up salaries follow

As an organization in the last 8 years they’ve been to 3, and won 2 also beat Brady and Mahomes. In last 8 years. KC has been to 5 and won 3 (plus B2B)

It will be and should be, but Buffalo’s cap still isn’t in a great place. Lot of bad extensions they can’t get out of with any real tangible benefit.

Beane has to nail his next draft class or risk falling behind the top of the AFC as the roster’s best players continue to age out.

That’s where Veach has been pretty masterful. Hasn’t paid everybody — see Tyreek, Sneed for example — so the cap is healthy short and long term. Also hasn’t had any awful draft classes in at least five to seven years.

Just keep doing what you’ve been doing and if you make good picks, it’s AFCCG year after year. If you have a bad class, you aren’t ****ed because you haven’t abused your cap either.

I guess what I mean by that is, if Veach did have a disaster draft — say anything resembling 2018-2020 — the cap is in a place where he can correct for that error the following offseason.

Question. If we can manipulate our player contracts to take advantage of future cap increases, then why do you suggest trading our guys for more picks? Why not sign our best and do better with the picks we have? Or trade down to accumulate more picks?

Sounds like the Eagles are better drafters than budgeters. Wentz's backup caught them off guard. Good job

If people haven’t realized it by yet, the Eagles won this championship through the draft first and foremost. As did we win all ours that way.

They aren’t in that spot without Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Quinyon Mitchell, and DeJean. Period.

Again, they had a $17m AAV pass rusher as a healthy scratch in the Super Bowl. A guy they just signed! And he couldn’t get on the field over Nolan Smith.

They should set a % of the cap that can be pushed past a playing days. If not, we will see more and more teams use the dead cap to help now and then have a "tank" year,

That wont be good for football. Basically the same strategy the small market teams in baseball are forced to use to even have a chance once in a decade.

Just was about to say this. It takes a disciplined approach and having far-ahead plans and different scenarios.

I don't know if this would fit, so correct me if I am wrong. I am just throwing this one out as an example from my perspective.

When Tyreek was about up to get paid in 2022, the Chiefs had a dilemma to either:

A) Make Tyreek the most expensive WR in the league (due to his speed) on a 4 year / $120 million. Not going to go all technical/specifics/backloading/frontloading, etc., we will just use the "average" of $30 million a year. That takes up a big chunk of the cap one way or another, especially if you need to consider Pat Mahomes contract and Chris Jones will need to get paid eventually (which Jones did in 2023 "renegotiation" and a new deal in 2024).

or

B) Trade the player while his value is still high to get similar or better value in return. The old saying is that it is better to trade an asset while its value is high, even if it stays high in the following year or two, because eventually, it will depreciate.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/...ent%20McDuffie.

The Chiefs went option B, traded Hill to Miami who he signed a 4 year / $120 million. The Chiefs received a first-round pick, a second-round pick, two fourth-round picks, and a sixth-round pick. The Chiefs used this no. 29 pick and Miami's 2022 4th-round pick to trade up for cornerback Trent McDuffie, which was a hit.

The bad of course was the Chiefs traded the Dolphins' second-round pick to the Patriots, receiving picks No. 54 and No. 158. They used pick No. 54 to draft WR Skyy Moore and used No. 158 to trade up in the fifth round for OT Darian Kinnard. Unfortunately, this didn't pan out, especially on Moore's case.

But the wild-card here is when the Chiefs traded Miami's 2023 fourth-round pick as part of a package to move up from No. 63 to No. 55 to select WR Rashee Rice. Rice does show flashes of greatness, but the injury and off-field issue remains to be seen.

Finally, that 6th round pack was traded to Dallas for the 5th pick in 2024, which was a lineman Hunter Nourzad, OL, Penn State.

It violates the spirit of the league's sacred cow - parity. Eventually they will crack down on it.

Or the cap will stop going up and these teams' bill will come due all at once.

I said that it seems like it shouldn't be allowed because it, IMO, is against the intent of the cap. Allowing teams to overspend and then, like in 2020 when Covid hit, the league gave the Saints a way out of it and remain competitive despite their mistakes. Since the cap goes up every year, it doesn't seem to be the risk that it used to be.

IMO, this affects the competitive balance by forcing other teams to do the same and again, IMO, it's similar to what teams in other sports do which allow them a competitive advantage over teams that choose not to do this.

Do we want the NFL to return to the pre-salary cap era where certain teams bought up the talent? Shall we turn the NFL into MLB where teams that spend the most win the most?

The Chiefs did this very thing with Chris Jones. We gave him $6.75M in new money 2 years ago. They added 4 void years on his deal but it only added $3.4M of dead cap after the 2023 season, giving the Chiefs a total of $4M on the books so far for 2024. Then they gave him a new deal to balance it out.

This is exactly why I don’t like this approach. Josh Sweat is projected to have $17 million of dead money paid to him moving forward. They already have a little over $29 million in dead cap already and will almost assuredly have the $9.98 million owed to Sweat added onto that for 2025.

That’s almost $39 million dedicated to players not playing on your team. That’s a truly terrible way for us to stay competitive. This board freaked out enough paying Frank Clark dead money.

I don't see how it's against parity or competitive balance if all teams have access to it.

Should we ban trading draft picks just in case some teams are too good at valuing picks and end up finding a competitive edge from it?

All teams don't have access to it. It's basically a high interest credit card and only teams that are cash flush can pay the monthly payments. It flies in the face of competitive parity.

Some teams have access to more money than others. Baseball has a salary cap and a penalty for teams that violate it. However, there are a number of teams that make so much more in revenue that it doesn't matter.

Being better at evaluating players and making deals isn't really bypassing anything so I don't really see your argument as comparable. It's not our fault that Buffalo let the Chiefs grab Mahomes and Worthy. The Bills got fair compensation for the trade.

It seems the kicking the can down the road is worthwhile unless your team really screws things up and then, like what happened with too big to fail, the people making the rules simply change them. Not turning it into a political discussion, just noting how people with money always seem to escape accountability.

Looking back, should we have paid Tyreek? Basically comes down to Tyreek in his prime vs McDuffie and Rice. Both are very good, Rice has and will miss significant time. Hmmmm?

Any nfl owner at this point that is crying poor is full of it

No, teams adjusted to the Chiefs offense and Tyreek was expendable.

The NFL is a copycat league. I anticipate the opponents the Chiefs play in 2025 may consider copying whatever scheme / talent the Eagles did to use against them in 2025.

The other side is also true where the Chiefs will need to seriously upgrade their O-Line, specifically the tackles. This run on "bargain bin" tackles isn't sustainable, so they're going to have to figure this out, and fast.

The Eagles are about the only team with the talent to do it and I believe that Patrick was concussed early in the game. He played like the second half of the Cincinatti AFCCG where he was making uncharacteristic mistakes and missing plays. He took a big whiplash hit on that early scramble.

If the Eagles have the Chiefs success. Other teams will find a way to use that debt against them. It may be interesting to watch

So maybe at any given time the NFL will have 3 to 5 QBs that might really carry their teams and then another half dozen that could certainly win a SB if the rest of the team was elite.

So comparing KC to whichever team happened to do the greatest job drafting and saying why can't KC draft like that? While ignoring all the teams that didn't draft like that...

It's equivalent to all the teams that keep asking, team X has an elite QB (elite LT), why don't we?

Imagine the Chiefs still paying Frank Clark dead money this year bc of void years?

Imagine paying Jawaan Taylor dead money in 2027 when he’s been off the team bc we utilized void years?

Imagine paying Justin Reid dead money in 2025 and 2026 when he’s off the team?

This board would melt down if we did that. It’s infinitely better to simply pay them higher cap hits so that you can get them off the books clean/minimal damage rather than paying guys to not play for you.

Anyone who thinks dead money doesn’t matter look at the Broncos. Richest owners in the league by far and they couldn’t spend on FA’s this year bc of Russell Wilson’s enormous dead money.

Yeah it's available to every team., but not every team has an owner that can afford to pay all of that money out.

I just posted on this in the draft forum the other day so I won't dive balls-deep into it here but the reality is exactly what's been expressed already, "the bill does come due."

Void years work when you want to buy a guy now and pay for it later but you will. The thing about voids is that while they spread over a contract length of up to 5 years, they do accelerate onto the cap in the year the void activates. So you can buy a guy for $20m on a 1-year deal with 4 void years. That spreads the hit evenly over 5 years so that you pay $4m now, but you are paying $16m next year when the voids accelerate. This is the same premise as a June 1 cut. The only way to avoid accelerating the voids is to actually re-sign that player.

Accelerated voids will cost the Eagles about $30.7m this offseason. Added to the $29m they already owe from other contracts like Kelce, they'll have $60m tied up in dead money to nobody this offseason. This is not perpetually sustainable unless the cap keeps growing at a near-equivalent amount.

The Saints are the bar for playing this game for too long without paying the Piper. They are paying said Piper now. They are sitting $54m over the cap with a shit roster and 35/36-year-old players they can't really cut. They can do some June 1 cuts and kick some more down the road but they are still a year or two away from righting that ship. It's a mess that is nearly impossible to get out of once you're balls-deep in it.

The post you quoted is also not counting the cash that was freed up by trading Tyreek. Not only did you get young great talent like Rice and McDuffie, but you also had 30m APY to spend on other players (minus the rookie deal costs of the young players).

It's a slam dunk that trading him was the right move.

Go team Sean in Broncoville! Spend! Spend! Spend!
Nix is the cat's meow

Tryin ta figure out how the beagles BS is different from the cheating the donkos did ta win the SB.

I have not been able to read the entire thread so my apologies if this has been asked.

As for the Chiefs using back loaded contracts, you have to have the right type of players to do it. Right? We kinda do it with Mahomes. Which makes me wonder if Veach gets creative with guys like McDuffie, George, and some future FAs at expensive positions.

Quoting Prison Bitch: "That God Damn Jew Howie Roseman taking advantage of all the Gentiles!"

So it’s the signing bonus that is being pushed to the void years only? And also looks like post June 1 releases then allows the team to split that remaining signing bonus over 2 years instead of 1.

Am I reading this correctly?

Yes, you can't prorate salary.

So you’re then talking about the rest of the signing bonus that can be spread over 2 seasons with the cap raising a decent amount every year. Seems like it would be fairly manageable at that point because the rest of the bonus owed may not have that much left, plus splitting it between 2 years, and cap inflation.

ASSUMING the cap raises a decent amount every year. There might come a day when that doesn't happen. Or somethings worse happens like a fallout in the CBA. At that point, all of that future spending becomes a current crisis. Like I said before, it's a calculated risk. If things continue as they are, they will be fine. If things don't, the piper comes calling and the whole thing implodes.

Yeah, obviously you wouldn’t want to do it for every player. But the bigger players with the higher salaries and signing bonuses that are just entering their prime seem like good candidates, especially if you’re trying to stay in your window.

You’d have to assume the players association will want changes on the void year process. The players get no benefit from it, while some teams are using it to stretch the cap significantly.

It’s a shared truth that a draft pick today is worth more than one next year. The same is true for cap dollars.

The best way to fix this? It would be for KC to do it as well. It might sting at first, but as with all things KC, if it appears that it gives KC an advantage, the league will change the format.

The void years are just more years to spread the players bonus on, so it means the team can pay the player a bigger bonus.

I’m really thankful our GM is Brett Veach. I don’t think people understand how good of a job he’s done for us. 100k of dead money this year. That’s it. A clean cap sheet and an extra high draft pick bc of it.

This offseason is gonna be a transition. They have needs. It’s gonna be similar to 2022 when they traded Tyreek and got rid of Matheiu. The best thing to have for that is flexibility. They’ve got a good amount of assets to use at their disposal. Extra picks and money.

Veach can cut Jawaan Taylor, Drue Tranquill and Mike Danna after next year and save $35 million while only having $11 million in dead money for 1 year while having all 3 off the books completely at he next year. That’s $112 million in cap space in 2026 (12th in NFL) before utilizing a Mahomes restructure.

We have money to use on big FA’s if we really want to. This is how you keep a dynasty moving forward and don’t flame out.

While i get that KC has to make some moves to free up cap space, I don't understand why we would just cut Jawaan. Do we have a better option at RT hanging around that I'm unaware of?

Which makes me wonder if we could tag Tre Smith and trade him to the Bears.

The Bears have some nice draft picks like 39, 41, 72 that I'd love to have. Clearing the money to allow the tag would be difficult I know, but if you could make it happen I'd love to try and pry one of those picks away from them.

He's our RT next season. There is no questioning that. We will cut him in 2026 to save a chunk of change.

He’s 27, no?

I mean, how long/many more times do you want to hunt for a legit RT/OT? We already desperately need to find a legit LT in the immediate future, but we also want to try and find yet another RT at the same time?


This doesn’t sound like a very smart idea.

I'm fine with him. But I do think its an area where you can save some money. It's a lot easier finding a RT than LT, and we might already have a solid replacement in Morris in house.

you could realistically play void year musical chairs for roughly 10 years before the dam breaks. ironically this matches up perfectly with what you'd anticipate being mahomes remaining prime years.

got no clue why we aren't shooting our shot. sti down, make a 10 year plan. do everything to win for the decade. you will bleed afterwards for a few years, like it will be extremely dark and painful. but it would be worth it if it gets mahomes above bradys ring count.

The Eagles will be in contention for many years. The biggest threat to them remaining in contention is themselves. In 2023 they simply imploded and didn't have a secondary. The next year they drafted Dejean, Mitchell, and got Saquan to go along with the stellar OL

I knew that were scary good going into the Super Bowl just by viewing their offensive and defensive lineup on PFF. I was stunned when I heard Thuney would be starting at LT and not Humphries or somebody else.

It was going to take a perfect game from Patrick and the offense in order to beat them just like in 2022. The Eagles did nothing that surprised us. The only surprise was how horrible Kelce and Patrick played. Little did we know that game was over before it started.

We can blame Nagy all we want but there was no fixing Patrick and Kelce on that day. Wasn't going to happen.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Patrick Mahomes&#39;s cap number balloons to more than $66 million for 2025. With a simple restructuring, the Chiefs can easily drop his total cap number to $28 million. <a href="https://t.co/IZCFNPmiwZ">https://t.co/IZCFNPmiwZ</a></p>&mdash; ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) <a href="https://twitter.com/ProFootballTalk/status/1891535337085600114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

There aren’t broke owners. All teams could afford this. There are cheap owners who refuse to pay up.

FYP