Seahawks committed cap space for 20 & 21, 2nd lowest in NFL

[ivotuk]

Listening to Tom Pelissero on with Clayton, and he said:

The Seattle Seahawks, committed cap space for 2020 & 2021, is the 2nd lowest over those 2 years in the NFL, behind only the Los Angeles Chargers.

So the "rumors of our Cap's demise have been greatly exaggerated. " John and Pete have been planning for Russell, Bobby, Jarran, and Frank Clark's upcoming contracts for some time now. Unlike many fans and Network Analysts, this did NOT catch them by surprise as John Schneider ALWAYS plans his roster and cap 3 to 5 years out.

We are very fortunate to have such a relatively young, and dynamic General Manager at the Helm, not to mention, a powerful Head Coach and ownership that allows him to do his job! (Dem Po' Po' Cowboy fans!)

I see no problem at all with us getting BWagz, and Jarran Reed re-signed, and believe that there is a better than 50% chance that Frank Clark remains in the fold also. I'm thanking my lucky stars that our Front Office has drafted so well.

And comparing the situations between here and Green Bay, I see little, if any chance that JS has interest in that job! :snack:


JOHN CLAYTON -- April 16, 2019 - Hour 1

Then Tom Pelissero, from NFL Network, goes Under Further Review

http://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/ ... hn+Clayton

 

[sutz]

I think the one thing that may have surprised them is Clark's hard line stance about the tag and his potential new deal.

 

[Tical21]

We just went over this in Fade's thread. We have the second fewest players signed through 2020. Signing Wilson, Wagner, Reed and Clark is not possible, unless we can get 35-40 players on minimum deals.

 

[Northwest Seahawk]

There's no point in worrying about Reed right now he's at least a year away from contract talks. Wagner is another matter I would not give him a max contract at his age. LB takes a toll on the body especially MLB so if they can keep him on a reasonable deal i'm fine with it. If he wants to set the market I would trade him.

 

[knownone]

Seattle only has 26 players under contract in 2020 the league average is 35. They only have 12 players under contract in 2021...

Let's assume for a moment that Frank Clark signs a contract worth a million less APY than Lawrence, 20M. That contract alone puts us at 13th in cap space in 2020, and we'd still have the fewest contracts on our books. Now let's assume you sign Wagner at 18M APY, and you get Jarran Reed at 15M APY. That puts you at 24th in cap space, and you'd still have the 3rd fewest contracts on your books.

That puts you at 32M in cap space. The cap hit from rookies from 2019 will bleed into 2020's rookie cap hit which would be about 12M. So given my rough estimations we'll be sitting at 20M in cap space in 2020 with 20 or so roster spots to fill...

 

[Tical21]

There's no point in worrying about Reed right now he's at least a year away from contract talks. Wagner is another matter I would not give him a max contract at his age. LB takes a toll on the body especially MLB so if they can keep him on a reasonable deal i'm fine with it. If he wants to set the market I would trade him.

Reed is going into his last year

 

[mikeak]

Seattle only has 26 players under contract in 2020 the league average is 35. They only have 12 players under contract in 2021...

Let's assume for a moment that Frank Clark signs a contract worth a million less APY than Lawrence, 20M. That contract alone puts us at 13th in cap space in 2020, and we'd still have the fewest contracts on our books. Now let's assume you sign Wagner at 18M APY, and you get Jarran Reed at 15M APY. That puts you at 24th in cap space, and you'd still have the 3rd fewest contracts on your books.

That puts you at 32M in cap space. The cap hit from rookies from 2019 will bleed into 2020's rookie cap hit which would be about 12M. So given my rough estimations we'll be sitting at 20M in cap space in 2020 with 20 or so roster spots to fill...

I (obviously) agree that having so many open spots is why our cap looks the way it does, but assuming an even distribution of the cap hit by year ie using the APY for what the hit is in 2020 and 2021 is not how it will work in real life.

Cap hit in the first two years should be different and most likely a lot less using signing bonus spread etc

and I would not assume to know what the cap will be in 2020 and 2021...…..

 

[Jville]

By spending on the proper leadership, I've rarely had a fear of the prospect of a bunch of hungry competitors on prove it contracts fighting for the remaining roster spots. That has been the Seahawk modus operandi.

During the Carroll era, I've come to relish it.

 

[knownone]

Seattle only has 26 players under contract in 2020 the league average is 35. They only have 12 players under contract in 2021...

Let's assume for a moment that Frank Clark signs a contract worth a million less APY than Lawrence, 20M. That contract alone puts us at 13th in cap space in 2020, and we'd still have the fewest contracts on our books. Now let's assume you sign Wagner at 18M APY, and you get Jarran Reed at 15M APY. That puts you at 24th in cap space, and you'd still have the 3rd fewest contracts on your books.

That puts you at 32M in cap space. The cap hit from rookies from 2019 will bleed into 2020's rookie cap hit which would be about 12M. So given my rough estimations we'll be sitting at 20M in cap space in 2020 with 20 or so roster spots to fill...

I (obviously) agree that having so many open spots is why our cap looks the way it does, but assuming an even distribution of the cap hit by year ie using the APY for what the hit is in 2020 and 2021 is not how it will work in real life.

Cap hit in the first two years should be different and most likely a lot less using signing bonus spread etc

and I would not assume to know what the cap will be in 2020 and 2021...…..

Yeah, I wasn't trying to make an all encompassing assessment of what the cap would look like in 2020. I was just providing context to the situations to balance out the narrative that we will be in a great cap situation in 2020.

You are 100% correct. They would most likely spread those cap hits out to better fit their cap needs. However, I don't think that will have a dramatic impact on freeing up cap space in 2020 because it appears to be the best year for them to absorb a large portion of those new contracts. For instance, Russell's cap hit might be 40M in 2020, 30M in 2021, 32M in 2022, and 38M in 2023.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

I think the one thing that may have surprised them is Clark's hard line stance about the tag and his potential new deal.

Or Demarcus Lawrence getting $20M/yr.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Fade has been all over this in other threads. Glad the national media is starting to pay attention.

 

[AirStrike]

There's no way Clark gets the deal he wants, he either takes a huge pay cut or they're trading him.

 

[Fade]

Some of you guys need to do a better job studying the salary cap.

The Seahawks will be adding two rookie classes '19 & '20 to that pool of players. The Seahwks usually keep about 8 rookies total per class (drafted & undrafted) for their 53.

That is 16 players that will be added, with 90% of them making way less than a million dollars against the cap. With most of them being in the $500k-$690K range.


Also too, I get the feeling the critics haven't been following NFL roster construction as it pertains to the cap in the last 10 years.

8-10 players make all of the money. The rest of the roster is on rookie wage scale, or vet minimum type deals. With a couple of RFA tenders, and some modest 1 yr prove-its sprinkled in. This is how teams are constructed in the NFL.


The Vikings are killing it right now with 12 guys making big money, but I need to do a deep dive on them to figure out how they pulled it off, and what ramifications it holds for them in the future.


Point being, think of it as a game of musical chairs.

You can only pay 10 guys, big money. When a young, productive player is coming up for an extension, you may have to bump an older guy off of the roster to make room.

The primary candidates right now are:

Kam Chancellor (already a done deal, and will be happening in the near future.)
Doug Baldwin
Justin Britt
KJ Wright

These 4 guys alone are counting roughly (I rounded) $48.8M against the cap alone in 2020.

Doesn't mean they will all be cut, but the 25 year old, double digit sack artist, is far more important. Than any of these 4 aging players.

The Seahawks have plenty of space. And are one of the better teams at managing their salary cap in the NFL.


The only time Seattle has gone wrong with their salary cap in the last 5 years. Is signing bums like Cary Williams, J'Marcus Webb, Luke Joeckel, Eddy Lacey. That philosophy has passed now. They haven't done these kinds of signings for 2 years, choosing to stay quiet at the start of UFA. Thankfully.

My other problem I have is these 4year extensions they do with their own star players. They are making it more expensive, and creating more work for themselves. But I digress, that would take too long to explain, and this post has gotten long enough.

 

[chris98251]

They also make offers and let guys go and check their value, many come back, Sweezy was one that went to a grass is greener situation and found out different Maxwell another and came back a few years later for a lower end deal.

 

[Tical21]

Some of you guys need to do a better job studying the salary cap.

The Seahawks will be adding two rookie classes '19 & '20 to that pool of players. The Seahwks usually keep about 8 rookies total per class (drafted & undrafted) for their 53.

That is 16 players that will be added, with 90% of them making way less than a million dollars against the cap. With most of them being in the $500k-$690K range.


Also too, I get the feeling the critics haven't been following NFL roster construction as it pertains to the cap in the last 10 years.

8-10 players make all of the money. The rest of the roster is on rookie wage scale, or vet minimum type deals. With a couple of RFA tenders, and some modest 1 yr prove-its sprinkled in. This is how teams are constructed in the NFL.


The Vikings are killing it right now with 12 guys making big money, but I need to do a deep dive on them to figure out how they pulled it off, and what ramifications it holds for them in the future.


Point being, think of it as a game of musical chairs.

You can only pay 10 guys, big money. When a young, productive player is coming up for an extension, you may have to bump an older guy off of the roster to make room.

The primary candidates right now are:

Kam Chancellor (already a done deal, and will be happening in the near future.)
Doug Baldwin
Justin Britt
KJ Wright

These 4 guys alone are counting roughly (I rounded) $48.8M against the cap alone in 2020.

Doesn't mean they will all be cut, but the 25 year old, double digit sack artist, is far more important. Than any of these 4 aging players.

The Seahawks have plenty of space. And are one of the better teams at managing their salary cap in the NFL.


The only time Seattle has gone wrong with their salary cap in the last 5 years. Is signing bums like Cary Williams, J'Marcus Webb, Luke Joeckel, Eddy Lacey. That philosophy has passed now. They haven't done these kinds of signings for 2 years, choosing to stay quiet at the start of UFA. Thankfully.

My other problem I have is these 4year extensions they do with their own star players. They are making it more expensive, and creating more work for themselves. But I digress, that would take too long to explain, and this post has gotten long enough.

You need to look at the numbers. Our guys are WAY more expensive than the Vikings players. Our top 8 guys are going to account for like 2/3 of our cap, if not more, adding in Frank/Reed.

The Seahawks have no space, and have been pretty dismal at managing cap. They've been in cap purgatory for 3 years now, backloading and guaranteeing contracts, rolling salary into bonus, borrowing from their future. Kam and Bennett? That's good cap maintenance? You need to look further at the numbers before you make statements like this. For a long time, the Seahawks answer to cap maintenance was to pay just about everybody. That ended with a really expensive, really thin roster with a ton of dead money. That isn't good cap maintenance.

If we sign Russ, Bobby and either Frank or Reed, our most expensive 3 players will be more expensive than ANYONE else's highest 4 players. Saying you can pay 8-10 guys sounds like a nice, warm general statement, and you can, as long as those guys are making 10-12 mil/year, rather than 35 and 20. We've got Lockett, Brown, McDougald as secondary contracts. Are we going to let Carson walk when his contract is up? Any other player that gets good over the next few years, we can't re-sign. Flowers or Griffin gets good? Gotta let them walk. I feel you're not grasping something here.

 

[jammerhawk]

Some of you guys need to do a better job studying the salary cap.

The Seahawks will be adding two rookie classes '19 & '20 to that pool of players. The Seahwks usually keep about 8 rookies total per class (drafted & undrafted) for their 53.

That is 16 players that will be added, with 90% of them making way less than a million dollars against the cap. With most of them being in the $500k-$690K range.


Also too, I get the feeling the critics haven't been following NFL roster construction as it pertains to the cap in the last 10 years.

8-10 players make all of the money. The rest of the roster is on rookie wage scale, or vet minimum type deals. With a couple of RFA tenders, and some modest 1 yr prove-its sprinkled in. This is how teams are constructed in the NFL.


The Vikings are killing it right now with 12 guys making big money, but I need to do a deep dive on them to figure out how they pulled it off, and what ramifications it holds for them in the future.


Point being, think of it as a game of musical chairs.

You can only pay 10 guys, big money. When a young, productive player is coming up for an extension, you may have to bump an older guy off of the roster to make room.

The primary candidates right now are:

Kam Chancellor (already a done deal, and will be happening in the near future.)
Doug Baldwin
Justin Britt
KJ Wright

These 4 guys alone are counting roughly (I rounded) $48.8M against the cap alone in 2020.

Doesn't mean they will all be cut, but the 25 year old, double digit sack artist, is far more important. Than any of these 4 aging players.

The Seahawks have plenty of space. And are one of the better teams at managing their salary cap in the NFL.


The only time Seattle has gone wrong with their salary cap in the last 5 years. Is signing bums like Cary Williams, J'Marcus Webb, Luke Joeckel, Eddy Lacey. That philosophy has passed now. They haven't done these kinds of signings for 2 years, choosing to stay quiet at the start of UFA. Thankfully.

My other problem I have is these 4year extensions they do with their own star players. They are making it more expensive, and creating more work for themselves. But I digress, that would take too long to explain, and this post has gotten long enough.

Another good post very loaded with information. Cap stuff is not easy

In terms of cap casualties the four mentioned are all potentially expendable. Britt is likely a potential candidate for a trade this year or even next his contract is very expensive next season, and the team has a few capable candidates here already Baldwin has until last season played to his contract and may be getting worn down to a point he will walk away, at present though he remains part of the core of the team and has been true to the team philosophy. KJ Wright almost went away this offseason and is almost physically done. Both he and Baldwin will need to stay healthy or they won’t be here beyond this season. Chancellor’s contract gives the team an out this season. He’s simply done as you say. His contract is a pure reason to avoid 3rd deals for players who have a high chance of being injured. I can see the team avoiding guarantees like his deal contained going forward.

The four year deals on 2nd and third contracts is a response to the size of present contracts for proven players and is combined with the new reality of compensatory draft picks now being able to be traded. I suspect 5 year contracts will become rare as paying the guaranteed money is something that restricts teams in ridding themselves of players who don’t fit any longer, or are injured. It also increases the need to find replacements who are cheaper.

For fans the career on one team type players are extremely rare as the need to reallocate the cap for younger players deserving of big paydays is irresistible. I guess this is the new reality. Basically however, most teams can only really pay 10 players the way things are now. It is rare to see any roster except those with all the chips in for a Bowl run with more. Those rosters are never long lived.

I wonder as well whether the numbers thing with the small number of contracts on the books for 2021 is intentional as a hedge against a potential work stoppage with the need to redo the CBA?

This is an interesting subject however the money of pro sports becomes almost as important as the play of the teams and that is unfortunate.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

I would caution:

Cap flexibility is likely crucial for 2021. There will be a new CBA in force. Changes will be made.

Any opinions I've seen thus far are through the lens of the 2011 CBA reality. Contracts will change after 2021. Possibly drastically.

I would be willing to bet that one or both of the following occurs after 2021: Removal of tagging of any kind. Reduction of rookie cap from 4 years to 2.

Either one of these would greatly alter the cap landscape. Ultimately, I expect that the NFLPA will alter the deal in a way that benefits or increases the relative value for veteran players. That was the rallying cry for 2011 -- only the players grossly misunderstood economics of any form. They were screwed with a hot fork and have never forgiven that since the deal was signed. Expect them to get it right in 2021. That will mean virtually no rookie deal 'cheap labor' structure.

Having a ton of cap space available in 2021 should be a massive advantage.

 

[ivotuk]

I know and appreciate Fade's work in the other thread. But after the Russell Wilson contract, a lot of people were throwing their hands in the air and saying that we don't have enough money to sign anyone. Which is not correct.

Russell Wilson's new contract, per John Clayton, is roughly 15% of the cap. My point is, that since Russell's new contract, not that much has changed.

 

[Hasselbeck]

I know and appreciate Fade's work in the other thread. But after the Russell Wilson contract, a lot of people were throwing their hands in the air and saying that we don't have enough money to sign anyone. Which is not correct.

We have plenty of money to sign people, just not a lot to throw at marquee FA's.

The cap figures look so great because they'll need to sign 30+ players. This contract is going to be a big hurdle to work around no matter what 710 AM podcast you may listen to.

 

[Seymour]

I know and appreciate Fade's work in the other thread. But after the Russell Wilson contract, a lot of people were throwing their hands in the air and saying that we don't have enough money to sign anyone. Which is not correct.

We have plenty of money to sign people, just not a lot to throw at marquee FA's.

The cap figures look so great because they'll need to sign 30+ players. This contract is going to be a big hurdle to work around no matter what 710 AM podcast you may listen to.

This.
2 years ago 2019 looked awesome too!