Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Handing out a big signing bonus almost always leads to more guaranteed money (and increases the team's "true cash" payroll for that year).
Yes, the signing bonus still counts against the cap... but adding more money to the bonus allows you to be more creative as a team to create cap space in years you need it while still speading the cost out over the rest of the contract.
It just costs a little bit more up front. And when you cut a player (or negotiate a new contract) in the last few years of that deal (which is general practice), you save less actual money (though the cap savings are the same) because you gave more of it in a signing bonus on the front end.
Contract A: 5 years, $50 million ($15 million signing bonus)
1: $5 million (cap hit $8 million)
2: $6 million (cap hit $9 million)
3: $6 million (cap hit $9 million)
4: $8 million (cap hit $11 million)
5: $10 million (cap hit $13 million)
Contract B: 5 years, $50 million ($5 million bonus)
1: $7 million ($8 million)
2: $8 million ($9 million)
3: $8 million ($9 million)
4: $10 million ($11 million)
5: $12 million ($13 million)
In these cases the contract value and dollars and cap hits work out the exact same way. In both cases, you've got a player who is a good candidate for a cut after year. In Contract A, you will have paid said player $32 million. In Contract B, you will have paid said player $28 million ( but saved $4 million in cash).
The bigger the bonuses, the more that different grows. For example, if you bumped Contract A's signing bonus out to $20 million (and subtracted $1 million from each year's actual salary to balance the extra $5 million bonus out while leaving the cap hit the same), you would have paid the player $34 million by the time you hit year 4, the obvious cut/renegotiate year.
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Negotiating a high signing bonus gives you less flexibility to tinker in future years. Restructuring contracts prematurely (I'm assuming you are talking about Hali and Flowers) means pushing today's guaranteed money and spreading that over a few years, making them more difficult to cut when they're 33 without racking up a good chunk of dead money.
I'm glad we're having this conversation because I don't disagree with anything you're saying (even if I called you out earlier). But people have to stop saying that it's because we're being cheap. It has nothing to do with that. Some people are okay taking more of an "all in now" approach even if that means racking up some debt in future years. That's what you're basically implying. That's fine. But that isn't an argument about how much the Chiefs spend in total. That is an argument about whether you spend more of that upfront or if you'd rather free up money for future spending.