Interesting that it's been so slow...

[Sen. John Blutarsky]

There have usually been a flurry of signings by now (about 12 hours into FA) and there hasn't been much yet.

 

I wonder if everyone is feeling the situation out to see what the market actually is.

 

I think that there will be a few guys who hit big dollars (Clements - obviously) but there will be a number of low to mid range guys that don't see the money they are expecting. It has been well publicized that there's a huge amount of free money this year but there aren't many top talents to spend it on. i don't think teams will spend money just for the sake of spending it. We might see more people do the "cash to cap" thing because it preserves cap space for the following year. For example, Kelsay's cap number will be huge this year(like 8 or 9 million) but next year it drops back to his 1 million in base salary so we can go spend difference again next year as opposed to amortizing the bonus over the length of the deal which eats into cap space each season. There's no reason NOT to do the cash to cap if you truly aren't excited about the FAs who are out there. Why spread out the cap hit for a guy you aren't thrilled about? Eat it this year when you've got the space, if you part ways next year no big deal - you aren't eating the cap hit for aguy not on your team anymore. It opens up more trade options as well. If, after this year, Denney really goes nuts and asserts himself as the starter they can either have Kelsay continue to back up with a 1 million cap number or deal him to another team without having to accelarate his bonus amortization and get crushed in the cap just to get rid of him

 

I really like this plan, it's the reverse of typical NFL accounting. Take the hit today and have cash tomorrow. If we keep doing this we should have a good amount of cap space every year (in ADDITION to any cap increases) to be able to keep the people we want and chase after other FAs as opposed to what we had before where we had to hope for big cap increases and make cuts just to get by from year to year.

[Estro]

Acording to NFL Rules and what I've been eharing teams don't have the choice to amortize the bonus over the length of the contarct or acknowledge it all up front. according to the rules it must be amortized over the life of the contract. So even though the Bills look at it as all the bonus was paid this yera to Kelsay the books will show otherwise, becuase his bonuses will indeed be spread out over his 5 year contract.

 

This is why I'm not in favor of cash to the cap: because we're going to acknowledge his full signing bonus this year, yet next year we'll still be acknowledging it because it will be on the books and will therfore count against the cap.

[Sen. John Blutarsky]

That's not the way I read it. I read it to say that a team CAN amortize the bonus money not that they MUST amortize the bonus money.

 

It's usually in the team's interest to spread out the money as much as possible to avoid having it count against your cap all in one year so this type of strategy may not have been used before. In this case, i haven't seen anything that says a team MUST amortize, only that they can, up to a max of 6 years.

 

In addition, neither of us have the contrcat language in front of us, we don't know if it's a "Signing bonus" per se or a "roster bonus" or some ridiculous likely to be earned incentive. Even if all "bonus" money HAS to be spread out (even though I don't think it does) there's nothing stopping a team from putting an incentive in the deal that says, you'll earn 8 million dollars for making 1 tackle this year. That would be a "Likely to earn incentive" which does count against the cap but only in the year in which it occurs.

[sfladave]

Acording to NFL Rules and what I've been eharing teams don't have the choice to amortize the bonus over the length of the contarct or acknowledge it all up front. according to the rules it must be amortized over the life of the contract. So even though the Bills look at it as all the bonus was paid this yera to Kelsay the books will show otherwise, becuase his bonuses will indeed be spread out over his 5 year contract.

 

This is why I'm not in favor of cash to the cap: because we're going to acknowledge his full signing bonus this year, yet next year we'll still be acknowledging it because it will be on the books and will therfore count against the cap.

Not if we do what the Vickings did when they signed Winfield. Instead of a bonus they gave him 12-13 mil in salary for the 1st year of his contract. Therefore it only counted against that 1st year.