I need a know-it-all
 

Ok. So Nicks is gone, Colston signed, LB's and G's inbound for interviews. Where does this leave the team with Drew and the money we'll need to pay him. I only partially understand the way a contract is structured and salary caps work. Someone said we had $6m to play with. We already gave Colston a bunch of money. And we're interviewing guys that will cost us $3m each, easy. Drew is going to cost us more than the $14m the tag carries with it once he gets signed. How does ML structure these things with bonus money and everything else so we can afford everyone. I am a fairly smart guy by my math is out of practice. With the contracts we have, it seems we'll be over. Somebody, please enlighten me!

Good questions.

If you put most of the money in bonus, you can evenly spread it out over the life of the contract. You can then manipulate/adjust the yearly salary to fit how you want.

Will smith is making barely over vet minimum right now, but he received a big fat check that we can spread over several years, reducing his cap hit this year. We'll eventually have to pay the piper, but thats several years down the road when likely the cap increases.

My wife says I'm a know it all. But I have the same questions as you do, brother.

So do we have $21m to give Brees after we sign Grubbs (or similar) and Hawthorne (or similar)?
And we need to cut Vilma. He's going to be dead weight once this ruling comes down.

Like Danno said, teams can "massage" the cap in various ways, one of the most usual one is to restructure deals and include said type of bonuses.

Teams can do this if they are willing to accept the fact that they will, in all likelihood, have to pay the players the big money eventually or if they feel comfortable in the fact that their players will be willing to restructure once again in the future.

The Saints also still have plenty of candidates for further restructures or roster cuts, so Loomis has plenty of ways to manipulate the cap figures to fit in the players they need/want signed.

If need be: yes, definitely. But it means that they have to do some sacrifices in other areas.

Isn't it funny how the cap isn't simple. Every year it seems like it gets more complicated. The NFL is the new IRS or what?

Instead of...


http://media-cdn.pinterest.com/uploa...aiGZi151_b.jpg


we should have...


http://www.cacetech.com/assets/legac...ocap_small.gif

That glitch could be a doozy

"So we have cut Chris Ivory and Jonathan Vilma to sign Tiki Barber to 3 yr/15m deal and offer Brees 7 yrs/165mil"