Does anyone think Gayle has enough football savvy to pick a better GM than Loomis?

Scouts and coaches should be 1st on the chopping block.

The salary cap is actually not very complex. Anyone with basic high school math skills could manage it. There is nothing Mickey Loomis or Khai Hartley is doing that Christina Aguilera or Carrot Top could not probably do. No genius is required. Its just a shroud of mystery to fans because its boring, and so none of them want to take 2 hours of boring math studies to understand it. There are even multiple websites that will do the math for any of us.

The basic concept is that you take a base salary, say $16 million. You reduce it to a league minimum for that players experience level, always around $1 million (0.8-1.4 or so) . You give the player the $15 million difference as a bonus. You are allowed to prorate that bonus over a max of 5 years, and in our situation you always pick that max. If the contract is not that long you add void years. So, instead of $16 million, the player only counts $1+$3=$4 million against the cap for that year. The remaining $12 million have been prorated out. If you cut them, you owe that $12 million back against the cap instantly, or if you do it post June 1 you owe it for the next league year. None of that $12 million can ever be restructured again, as its already a bonus that was paid and can't be converted. You can also restructure other payments like future roster bonuses by converting them before they are paid, just not prorated money.

The problems add up over time. Say the same player is due $16 million the next year. You can do the same. But $3 million of that prorated money comes due that year so they are actually due $19 million. You can again prorate $15 million of their base salary at $3 million a year and pay them $3+$3+$1=$7 million that year instead. But now $9 million from the first restructure and $12 million from the second restructure is prorated out.

Then the next year you are on the hook for $16+$3+$3=$22 million. But you restructure and reduce that to $3+$3+$3+$1=$10 million. But now you have prorated out $6+$9+$12=$27 million. Now the player takes a major decline in performance but you cannot afford the cap hit to cut them. But they are due $16+3+3+3=$25 million if you dont restructure again. So you restructure again, still have to pay them $13 million, and the dead cap hit increases to $30 million of prorated money. Then you finally probably have to cut them the next year, if you aren't Mickey Loomis, and can afford to. So the final two years you pay a useless player who was worth $16m/yr at their peak $43 million over their final two years when they are washed.

It's really like 7th - 8th grade math. Brian Bozworth could figure it out. Carly Sings could figure it out. Harley and Loomis are nothing special, just a couple con men who passed 7th grade.

The salary cap is actually not very complex. Anyone with basic high school math skills could manage it. There is nothing Mickey Loomis or Khai Hartley is doing that Christina Aguilera or Carrot Top could not probably do.

The salary cap is actually not very complex. Anyone with basic high school math skills could manage it. There is nothing Mickey Loomis or Khai Hartley is doing that Christina Aguilera or Carrot Top could not probably do. No genius is required. Its just a shroud of mystery to fans because its boring, and so none of them want to take 2 hours of boring math studies to understand it. There are even multiple websites that will do the math for any of us.

The basic concept is that you take a base salary, say $16 million. You reduce it to a league minimum for that players experience level, always around $1 million (0.8-1.4 or so) . You give the player the $15 million difference as a bonus. You are allowed to prorate that bonus over a max of 5 years, and in our situation you always pick that max. If the contract is not that long you add void years. So, instead of $16 million, the player only counts $1+$3=$4 million against the cap for that year. The remaining $12 million have been prorated out. If you cut them, you owe that $12 million back against the cap instantly, or if you do it post June 1 you owe it for the next league year. None of that $12 million can ever be restructured again, as its already a bonus that was paid and can't be converted. You can also restructure other payments like future roster bonuses by converting them before they are paid, just not prorated money.

The problems add up over time. Say the same player is due $16 million the next year. You can do the same. But $3 million of that prorated money comes due that year so they are actually due $19 million. You can again prorate $15 million of their base salary at $3 million a year and pay them $3+$3+$1=$7 million that year instead. But now $9 million from the first restructure and $12 million from the second restructure is prorated out.

Then the next year you are on the hook for $16+$3+$3=$22 million. But you restructure and reduce that to $3+$3+$3+$1=$10 million. But now you have prorated out $6+$9+$12=$27 million. Now the player takes a major decline in performance but you cannot afford the cap hit to cut them. But they are due $16+3+3+3=$25 million if you dont restructure again. So you restructure again, still have to pay them $13 million, and the dead cap hit increases to $30 million of prorated money. Then you finally probably have to cut them the next year, if you aren't Mickey Loomis, and can afford to. So the final two years you pay a useless player who was worth $16m/yr at their peak $43 million over their final two years when they are washed.

It's really like 7th - 8th grade math. Brian Bozworth could figure it out. Carly Sings could figure it out. Harley and Loomis are nothing special, just a couple con men who passed 7th grade.

The funny thing though, is that this accounting method is rapidly being integrated into other NFL front offices around the league. Accounting departments in other franchises understand basic 7th and 8th grade math too. I wonder why it took so long to catch on as much as it has? Maybe it's a little more complicated than we think?

I do agree that we push the limits on restructures and owe too many players money that are no longer on the roster.

Every accounting method has its own strengths and weaknesses. That's why some businesses use FIFO and others choose LIFO as the basis of their cost accounting.



The various principles used by Loomis, Harley, and others are similar in nature.

Those, by the way, are better understood with an accounting background rather than middle school math.

There is a difference between flooring it on the straight aways versus taping a lead weight to the accelerator all the way around the track. Of course other teams use restructures as a credit facility to go all in when they see their window if they think they are one player away. But that is very different than what we do, 100% maxxing out the credit card every season forever. We are basically twice as much over the cap as any other team. The Eagles are leveraged a lot too with restructures, but they play the long game in other ways with draft trades to accumulate picks. And they are in their window, having just lost the Super Bowl on the final plays. And we are far more over the 2024 cap. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl and totally ignore our model, they have many players on original base salaries and let expensive aging vets move on. Meanwhile the Rams and Bucs, the other two most recent winners, went all in win now, won, and then rebuilt. Yet still in rebuilding they are both better than us. The Eagles, Chiefs, 49ers, and Ravens are already under the 2024 cap, we are $87 million over. We are not trend setters. We are a cautionary tale.