You forgot the theory that Jerry can't afford to pay his players

Well, i've historically taken the position that you win some you lose some and we move on to the next thing.

I guess this has all come to a head for me and it does have me fired up, but know this is a cumulative thing. I don't have to remind everyone how long it's been since this team was relevant in the playoffs. I saw a tweet this morning, can't remember who, that said the Bills were seconds away from the AFC Championship and have been aggressive in their attempts to get better. Dallas got embarassed in home playoff game and is content with standing pat (and actually getting worse based on this moment). I'm tired of it.

Orlando Ayala Cant Read said:

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I don't have to remind everyone how long it's been since this team was relevant in the playoffs.

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27 years since a conference title game. There are 16 teams in each conference title game. Do the math. Simple probability says that if a monkey was the GM of this team instead of JJ they probably get to a conference title game.

Years ago I used to be a huge Jerry fan. Thought he was the best owner in sports. He wasn't, and isn't. I know they never will but they need to sell. I think this teams management and terrible culture will continue to get passed down generation to generation and each generation will think they know how to run a team just because they grew up in it.

I love the history of this organization, the great players that have been a part of it, and the brand itself. Unfortunately for me, I probably always will. My 12 year old kid is starting to get wrapped up in Cowboys fandom pretty intensely and I keep having to remind him to temper his expectations. Its exhausting and frustrating to know the problem lies at the top of this team and it's not going to change any time soon.

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amen

Dumb question, so I apologize. But could someone explain NFL contracts to me like I'm five and how it affects the salary cap?

If someone signs a 5 year deal worth $100 million split evenly over the five years with 40 million of it guaranteed and a 5 million dollar bonus. How is the salary cap affected? How does the bonus affect the guaranteed money? How does the guarantee work? Does the contract have to dictate which dollars are guaranteed and which aren't? If the player fulfills the first year of his contract, does that mean he has 20 million left of guaranteed money (or 15 million if the 5 million bonus is part of the guarantee) on his contract?

And then when deals are "restructured" how is the salary cap affected? And does Salary Cap hit = money paid to the player for that league year?

And how does converting salary to a bonus affect it?

Everyone on twitter and media talk about things like this but I haven't been able to find someone to explain how it all fits together.

Yep. Jerry has still never figured out how to win under a salary cap. He's the last holdever GM from before the cap era, and he learned a lot of bad habits with his success from before. We were all hoping that Stephen was better, but no signs of that now. Though if he intentionally pissed off Gregory then I would give him props. That contract for that guy was nuts, but Jerry was never going to let Gregory go anywhere.

I might actually just a make a new thread about this question.

Shortest answer: It gets really complicated.

Short answer: It's a mix of year to year salary, incentives, and signing bonus. The year to year is easy. If your base salary is 15 million, then 15 million goes against the cap. Guaranteed money counts whether the player is still on your team or not. So a 5 year 10 million per year deal has a cap hit of 10 million every year for 5 years even if you cut them after the first month.

Signing bonuses are spread out over the course of the contract. So a 20 million signing bonus on a 5 year contract hits the cap at 4 million per year. However, if the player is not on your team, that gets accelerated. So if you cut the player after one year, the 16 million leftover after year one hits your cap all at once.

Incentives are graded based on very complicated probabilities of them coming true. So if you get a million dollar bonus for winning the Super Bowl, the league cap people will determine your team's odds for making the Super Bowl and adjust the cap accordingly. So a million dollar Super Bowl bonus counts differently to the cap if you're on the Cowboys versus the Patriots. Basically, if your team has a 10% chance to make the Super Bowl, then 10% of that million counts toward the cap. Incentives get very specific, like number of snaps and number of catches or sacks. So this gets very complicated and can change in big ways from year to year even with a long term contract.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Shortest answer: It gets really complicated.

Short answer: It's a mix of year to year salary, incentives, and signing bonus. The year to year is easy. If your base salary is 15 million, then 15 million goes against the cap. Guaranteed money counts whether the player is still on your team or not. So a 5 year 10 million per year deal has a cap hit of 10 million every year for 5 years even if you cut them after the first month.

Signing bonuses are spread out over the course of the contract. So a 20 million signing bonus on a 5 year contract hits the cap at 4 million per year. However, if the player is not on your team, that gets accelerated. So if you cut the player after one year, the 16 million leftover after year one hits your cap all at once.

Incentives are graded based on very complicated probabilities of them coming true. So if you get a million dollar bonus for winning the Super Bowl, the league cap people will determine your team's odds for making the Super Bowl and adjust the cap accordingly. So a million dollar Super Bowl bonus counts differently to the cap if you're on the Cowboys versus the Patriots. Basically, if your team has a 10% chance to make the Super Bowl, then 10% of that million counts toward the cap. Incentives get very specific, like number of snaps and number of catches or sacks. So this gets very complicated and can change in big ways from year to year even with a long term contract.

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Thank you. I've always wondered how incentives work against the cap and that makes sense. Simple math based upon odds. I wonder when teams are notified of the odds so they can plan their cap out accordingly.

Your signing bonus explanation makes sense too. So if a team converts someone's salary into a bonus, that's just a ploy to spread that players cap hit across the rest of the years on his contract presumably giving them more cap space in the current year? One question I have is if the signing bonus is factored into their guaranteed money?

So in my scenario of someone signing a 5yr/$100mil deal with 40 of it guaranteed and a 5 million bonus their cap hit would be as follows:

Year 1: $21mil
Year 2: $21mil
Year 3: $21mil
Year 4: $21mil
Year 5: $21mil

After the first year of the contract is fulfilled, he has $19mil guaranteed left on his deal, or $15? So if the team decides to cut him at that point, his dead money cap hit would be $23mil? That's $19mil of guaranteed plus the 4 years of the signing bonus that was spread out over the contract of $1mil each year?

Then let's say they don't cut him but convert his Year 2 salary into a bonus making his cap hit be only $6mil ($5mil plus the 1 million of the original bonus). Year 2 is fulfilled and the team decides to finally cut him. His dead money then would be the $18mil but the player himself would not get a dime because he already was paid over his $40mil guarantee, right?

I got that 18mil number by adding up the signing bonus cap hit (6mil) spread out across his contract (3 years left), and no guarantee since he was already paid $40mil of his contract. Did I do all of that right?

Looks like we didn't find a trade partner for Collins.

The Cowboys will release La'el Collins today, per source. Expected to be a post-June 1 cut, saves $10 million. No trade but Collins will have a good market once he's free to sign.

— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) March 17, 2022

I've heard that they are concerned about the hip injury... he's lost mobility. That and he did some knuckle head stuff last couple years and they have a young guy that filled in decently last year.

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Your signing bonus explanation makes sense too. So if a team converts someone's salary into a bonus, that's just a ploy to spread that players cap hit across the rest of the years on his contract presumably giving them more cap space in the current year? One question I have is if the signing bonus is factored into their guaranteed money?

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It counts as guaranteed money for the headlines, but it's counted differently from annual salaries. So with your example of 5 yr 100 million with 40 guaranteed and 5 million bonus. The easiest way to do that contract math is to make each year 20 mil, guaranteed the first 2 years, and have the 5 million on top. The media would report that as a 5 year 100 million contract with 45 million guaranteed. So if you're reading a headline, the signing bonus is part of the guaranteed money.

The other way to interpret that is a 5 million signing bonus, 19 million per year for 5 years with the 1st year fully guaranteed and the second year guaranteed for 16 million of the 19 million base. 5 plus 19 plus 16 equals your 40 million guarantee. You could cut the player after the first year and save the difference between 19 base and 16 guarantee, but the other 4 years of signing bonus would accelerate to make a cap hit of 20 million if cut year 2 and a cap hit of 3 million if cut year 3.

Turning annual salaries into signing bonuses does exactly what you think, it spreads that cap hit over several years instead of one. Cowboys did this over and over with Romo. Kept giving renegotiated contracts to extend the length and give signing bonuses. When he finally retired, we have several years of horrible cap hits that squandered Dak's team friendly rookie contract.

Vince Blake said:

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Looks like we didn't find a trade partner for Collins.

The Cowboys will release La'el Collins today, per source. Expected to be a post-June 1 cut, saves $10 million. No trade but Collins will have a good market once he's free to sign.

— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) March 17, 2022

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Really unbelievable to me they couldn't find someone that would give you something for a starting RT.

Collins is not the same player anymore and is pushing 30. He's gotten old in a hurry. This is the right move. And as much hand-wringing as there has been this week, I think one of the most fundamental faults of this franchise over 25 years has been giving the wrong current players bad deals. So no, I'm not upset that a $70 million deal for a guy that has never played a full season fell through. The narrative as to why is nonsense because the dude was getting half his guaranteed money right away and the rest next year, but don't care. I'm also not panicked about DE. Parsons was a beast there. Plan A is still hit OL hard in this draft .

Well everyone else has the film from last season.

So that'll open up $36mil in cap space. That's great we are getting some room, but what are we actually going to do with it?? We'll need something like $7mil probably for draft picks? But what do we do with the rest?

Ag Natural said:

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Well everyone else has the film from last season.

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They were impressed at how in spite of only starting 10 games (and playing 12), he finished tied for 3rd among all tackles in penalties

Im okay with letting go of Cooper, Gregory, Collins and tsip Williams. I am curious who they try to acquire now with all this space. I just pray they aren't trying to offer LVE a bunch of money. I'd rather make sure Armstrong, Kearse, Urban and Watkins get reasonable deals.

Z. Smith is not signing with the ravens after all & he's back on the market. Dallas should jump all over that offering a similar deal to what he accepted with Baltimore

Ag Natural said:

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Im okay with letting go of Cooper, Gregory, Collins and tsip Williams. I am curious who they try to acquire now with all this space. I just pray they aren't trying to offer LVE a bunch of money. I'd rather make sure Armstrong, Kearse, Urban and Watkins get reasonable deals.

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They already have the heir apparent to Collins so that just leaves us with left guard as a "have to" replace. I think we are all praying Green or Johnson fall to them in the draft. After that I think most people think we'll continue to go heavy offense in the draft.

So IMO, the available defenders give you the most bang for your buck in free agency. LVE can walk (talk about getting old fast!)... instead bring back Kearse and go sign somebody like Bobby Wagner. These two guys along with Cox will allow Parsons to rush the passer more frequently. I can see somebody like Armstrong being re-signed as well to help with the DE rotation. (Edit for post above: Somebody like Z Smith would be fine here as well, just don't need to break the bank for a DE).




Go make some moves and our defense could easily be better than they were last year and be the strength of this team. If we can also find that plug and play LG in the draft + a nifty rookie WR, our offense could become that steady/reliable unit that we desperately needed last year. All is not lost... yet!

I would add Center to the list of "upgrade needed" positions.

I would too. I feel a little better about it than LG because we did see improvement from Tyler in year 2, but definitely upgrade C if you can.

Really disappointing how McGovern never developed for us. Heard such high praise about him early on... then he had injury set backs and really hasn't drawn much praise since.

Eagles releasing Fletcher Cox

As crazy as the Cowboy Front Office is, they are probably the least drama-filled front office in DFW sports currently or at least they were until the Dalrymple stuff came out.

Mavs are in a world of hurt right now dealing with GM changes, coach changes, and sexual misconduct allegations (and have been since Pants DJ)
Stars GM and Owners have constantly made their feelings about their own players being overpaid and make public comments all the time that piss off the locker room.
Rangers Front Office didn't care about anything until this past October and seemingly had no plan until Chris Young came along as the new GM. So they at least are on the up&up.

Ag Natural said:

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Well everyone else has the film from last season.

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True

Legal Custodian said:

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As crazy as the Cowboy Front Office is, they are probably the least drama-filled front office in DFW sports currently or at least they were until the Dalrymple stuff came out.

Mavs are in a world of hurt right now dealing with GM changes, coach changes, and sexual misconduct allegations (and have been since Pants DJ)
Stars GM and Owners have constantly made their feelings about their own players being overpaid and make public comments all the time that piss off the locker room.
Rangers Front Office didn't care about anything until this past October and seemingly had no plan until Chris Young came along as the new GM. So they at least are on the up&up.

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Yeah, but how much of the cowboys drama is there that we just don't know about because of NDA's.

Cowboys have a good amount of money under the cap now.

They still have an opportunity to return a better team next year. Some good players out there still.

That said, this team has a reputation for making big splash signings by a lot of people when that's simply not the case really. At the end of the day, recent history has told us they are actually quite conservative in the free agent market.

Macarthur said:

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Legal Custodian said:

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As crazy as the Cowboy Front Office is, they are probably the least drama-filled front office in DFW sports currently or at least they were until the Dalrymple stuff came out.

Mavs are in a world of hurt right now dealing with GM changes, coach changes, and sexual misconduct allegations (and have been since Pants DJ)
Stars GM and Owners have constantly made their feelings about their own players being overpaid and make public comments all the time that piss off the locker room.
Rangers Front Office didn't care about anything until this past October and seemingly had no plan until Chris Young came along as the new GM. So they at least are on the up&up.

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Yeah, but how much of the cowboys drama is there that we just don't know about because of NDA's.

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I mean sure but you can say that about every club. I mean I would not have thought there was Mavs drama before 2018.

So we have top 10 cap room in the league right now correct?

Are there any players we have an eye on? I don't keep up with NFL off-season very closely, but it seems like we set ourselves up to make some big moves and just haven't yet? I need an NFL guru to help me out here. What is our strategy, or do we even have one for that matter?

Its not the norm for the Cowboys to make big signings. They usually blow all the cap space on current players. This year they definitely have the space and there's a few options still out there. I'll believe it when I see it though.

Unless it's a lack of him not wanting to come here, I don't understand how Wagner isn't a cowboy yet. Just makes too much sense.

If they could pair that with a trade for Hunter and/ or sign Smith/ Clowney/ Barnett I'd be thrilled.

Yeah, those would be solid moves.

It appears the offer to Kearse was very low so it doesn't look good on that front.

Kearse is a strange one... he was an absolute NOBODY before he came here. From his perspective, at 28, this is his only chance to get a deal with some decent guaranteed money and a signing bonus.

The Cowboys can't overpay. They have to play the waiting game and hope the rest of the league passes on a 28 year old that benefited from Dan Quinn's system. I think it's the right move and hopefully we can get him back.

I def understand being cautious, but we got something like $35m in cap space now. Unless they have some blockbuster deal, I think Kearse wants to be here. I just don't like the strategy of deliberately offering well below market for these guys and hoping they just 'want to be a Cowboy'. I think that strategy will be a long term loser.