The Tom Johnson Fiasco

[mikeak]

Thing is if they needed to prune the roster and had made a decision on keeping Ford they should have axed Johnson prior to the season on the cuts to 53. So far, thankfully, it only appears the dead cap number is approx. $1.1 mil.

Why do you think this? Seattle cut him so he can claim that compensation

We will eat $1.8MM

Don’t worry soon it will look like a good deal when we realize we get nothing out of the millions to another overpaid, compensation pick costing player in Dickson....

What really concerns me is that these deals were stupid when done. We ALL knew it. The money didn’t make sense, giving up comp picks for marginal players didn’t make sense and now the professionals in the organization are realizing it....

 

[mikeak]

This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

The issue is not cutting him

It is WHEN

$2 million and Earl doesn’t sit out this offseason

It adds up and it adds up quickly. And the comp pick cost this offseason was significant

 

[DJrmb]

This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

For the 4th time $1.8M including $838,000 in 2019. Look at our cap problems that put us squarely in the shitty position we are in today. Yes...in a vacuum on it's own this looks like just a poor move. Combine it with all the other moves, miscalculations, and poor management moves and it shows a continuing trend many paying attention had hoped would end.

Ok, even at 1.8M over 2 years, that's about 0.5% of cap burnt per year. It's really not a big deal. Every team has low impact cuts like this every year. That's not going to make a difference one way or the other. I'd even say it's worth the cost in dead cap to see a veteran like Johnson play in games, in your scheme and compare to your younger players to see what you really have in them. The biggest reason this team is in a bit of a cap crunch (which isn't exactly accurate in my opinion, but I'll go with it) is because of injuries. Any team that has career ending injuries to two of their higher paid starters would feel a little cap crunch...

 

[Seymour]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

 

[DJrmb]

This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

The issue is not cutting him

It is WHEN

$2 million and Earl doesn’t sit out this offseason

It adds up and it adds up quickly. And the comp pick cost this offseason was significant

Seriously? The difference between Earl holding out and not was 2m we paid a DT? C'mon man...

it's 1.8m over 2 YEARS in a 178m salary cap that will go over 180m next year. This has absolutely zero impact on who we will or won't be able to sign now or in the future.

As for the comp pick, they signed WAY more than just Johnson this offseason. They weren't even close to getting a comp pick whether they signed or didn't sign Johnson so you can't equate the two unless you're assuming we wouldn't have sign Mingo, Dickson, Fluker, Stephon, etc....

 

[Seymour]

This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

The issue is not cutting him

It is WHEN

$2 million and Earl doesn’t sit out this offseason

It adds up and it adds up quickly. And the comp pick cost this offseason was significant

Someone gets it!! Exactly...it adds up and these are tough times we should be clamping down on this crap!

$17.4M dead money in 2018 alone, and money we save this year can be used in 2019!

 

[DJrmb]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

 

[Seymour]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

Wrong! Rarely does a team cut someone so quickly after just guaranteeing their deal. :177692:

Many disagree with you here....

[tweet]https://twitter.com/gbellseattle/status/1042218053688127488[/tweet]

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

Thing is if they needed to prune the roster and had made a decision on keeping Ford they should have axed Johnson prior to the season on the cuts to 53. So far, thankfully, it only appears the dead cap number is approx. $1.1 mil.

Exactly my point!! :2thumbs:

Just not well thought out moves costing us more future players in year we "could" compete.

I could think of reasons:

1. Ford wasn't ready to be active. He's a rookie.
2. Was Naz healthy? Or even better than Johnson?

I mean clearly Ford was talented enough to warrant keeping on the 53. But as a rookie, still not capable of factoring into the active roster reliably.

As for Minnesota adding him. They are in win now mode. He's still a valuable veteran. One they are familiar with and has immediate plug and play quality. Also due to Johnson being able to double dip in salary, they could offer him a modest deal and he could easily oblige.

Seattle made him expendable because we're keeping redshirt talent on the 53. Minnesota isn't.

Ultimately, I don't see this as a big fiasco. It's not great. But it's really a very modest error. It's a low cost hedge that we ultimately didn't need. It's also a hedge that I think would have still been in place if we didn't have a rash of DB injuries out of the gate.

Going forward, I agree with the philosophy: Acquire hedge talent pre draft. If you hit on a late round flier, keep the hedge as long as possible to limit the need to rely on the late round flier.

 

[mikeak]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

We are 10th for 2018 in dead money. It is not a huge number considering it is a rebuilding year. I agree

We are fretting over the process. Signing crappy players losing comp picks were perplexing when it happened. These guys are a dime a dozen and you don’t sign them when we did. Then turns out oops we were wrong he isn’t good enough for our roster period but instead of admitting it prior to season we screw up again

The process is flawed and we use he same process for bigger contracts

Just watch the Dickson contract unfold over this season. Way overpaid to begin with

 

[DJrmb]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

Wrong! Rarely does a team cut someone so quickly after just guaranteeing their deal. :177692:

Many disagree with you here....

[tweet]https://twitter.com/gbellseattle/status/1042218053688127488[/tweet]

Don't be dense. I'm not referring to being cut after the contract was guaranteed, just that teams sign veterans (with guaranteed money on their contracts) and cut them causing "Dead cap" all the time. I'm more concerned with the amount of money or cap space. It's silly for you to get all worked up over such a small amount. Almost every single team in the NFL has veterans that they cut that cost them 2m in dead cap over a two year span. You're crying over spilled milk. :177692:

 

[DJrmb]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

We are 10th for 2018 in dead money. It is not a huge number considering it is a rebuilding year. I agree

We are fretting over the process. Signing crappy players losing comp picks were perplexing when it happened. These guys are a dime a dozen and you don’t sign them when we did. Then turns out oops we were wrong he isn’t good enough for our roster period but instead of admitting it prior to season we screw up again

The process is flawed and we use he same process for bigger contracts

Just watch the Dickson contract unfold over this season. Way overpaid to begin with

Thank you, that captures more of what I'm trying to say.

I get it, it sucks when they make mistakes like these because we think of the salary cap like our own finite budgets at home and tend to think if we spend such and such here then we can't spend it there. The difference is the salary cap is extremely fluid and moves around way too much to think about it that simply. I would love to see an average dead cap over a 10 year period for each team. That would tell a much more comprehensive story than just looking at one year, when as you said, we're rebuilding.

Also they'll churn through a lot of guys and eat up a lot of cap in dead money with this approach but we've seen it work in the past to find talent. We also found Dion Jordan because of this approach. So it has it's pluses as well as it's minuses.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

The issue is not cutting him

It is WHEN

$2 million and Earl doesn’t sit out this offseason

It adds up and it adds up quickly. And the comp pick cost this offseason was significant

Someone gets it!! Exactly...it adds up and these are tough times we should be clamping down on this crap!

$17.4M dead money in 2018 alone, and money we save this year can be used in 2019!

First off. It didn't cost a comp pick. We would still have to cut 3 other guys before we get it back. As of right now, Johnson's contract does NOT factor in losing a comp pick.

We currently have the following qualified UFAs (6) counting against the 4 we lost:

Mingo
Dickson, Ed
Brown, Jaron
Stephen, Shamar
Fluker, DJ
Johnson, Dontae

Now Johnson is on IR. I don't believe we have the ability to release him to factor in. We'd have to drop three of the remaining 5 in order to get a pick back (Rd 4 comp for Graham).

Also, you're misunderstanding how the dead money is working in 2018. The bulk of that dead money is being incurred this year precisely to free up cap space for 2019. The cost of Johnson's 2019 dead money is 800k. But we're eating a ton of dead money this year on other contracts so that we don't have it on the books for next year. Had we not, our available cap space would be drastically reduced as we'd be allocating guaranteed money against next year's cap. Not to mention be on the hook in 2018 for the base salaries of those dead money contracts this year.

I'm not saying I'm a fan of the deal. I felt it was a mildly stupid deal when we made it. But it sure wasn't a cap crippling gaffe either. His release doesn't impact our comp pick calculation other than to get us actually closer to getting one back.

 

[Seymour]

Bottom line. Make numerous poor roster moves year after year that eats your cap...and you are in the lessor position to compete with other teams. Combine that with poor drafting and FA busts (McDowell, Ifedi, Collins, Michael, Richardson, Joeckel, Sowell....ect) and your front office (all Pete approved) is not putting your team in a position to compete with top caliber teams.

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

Wrong! Rarely does a team cut someone so quickly after just guaranteeing their deal. :177692:

Many disagree with you here....

[tweet]https://twitter.com/gbellseattle/status/1042218053688127488[/tweet]

Don't be dense. I'm not referring to being cut after the contract was guaranteed, just that teams sign veterans (with guaranteed money on their contracts) and cut them causing "Dead cap" all the time. I'm more concerned with the amount of money or cap space. It's silly for you to get all worked up over such a small amount. Almost every single team in the NFL has veterans that they cut that cost them 2m in dead cap over a two year span. You're crying over spilled milk. :177692:

Then don't blow it off as "these things happen all the time". You pick out the unique part of the irritation then re-script it for your rebuttal. Poorly played.

Then to say we could throw away $20M every year and still manage a "good cap" is about as asinine a statement about competing as one could make. Teams win SB's with QB's on rookie deals for good reason. Look it up, that same $20M can be used elsewhere to fill holes. :roll:

 

[DJrmb]

You can call it poor management if you want. These small veteran transaction happen all over the place on every team. People are forgetting that part of how they built up the roster in the beginning was by churning through tons of guys at an NFL record pace (lots of those guys had guarantees too that add up). I'm not saying they haven't made cap mistakes, I'm just saying this is hardly one to fret over. They could make 20 of these kind of "mistakes" every single year and still manage a good cap. It's the big mistakes they need to stop making (Percy Harvin comes to mind).

Wrong! Rarely does a team cut someone so quickly after just guaranteeing their deal. :177692:

Many disagree with you here....

[tweet]https://twitter.com/gbellseattle/status/1042218053688127488[/tweet]

Don't be dense. I'm not referring to being cut after the contract was guaranteed, just that teams sign veterans (with guaranteed money on their contracts) and cut them causing "Dead cap" all the time. I'm more concerned with the amount of money or cap space. It's silly for you to get all worked up over such a small amount. Almost every single team in the NFL has veterans that they cut that cost them 2m in dead cap over a two year span. You're crying over spilled milk. :177692:

Then don't blow it off as "these things happen all the time". You pick out the unique part of the irritation then re-script it for your rebuttal. Poorly played.

Then to say would could throw away $20M every year and still manage a "good cap" is about as asinine a statement about competing as one could make. Teams win SB's with QB's on rookie deals for good reason. Look it up, that same $20M can be used elsewhere to fill holes. :roll:

Again the "these things happen all the time" was in reference to teams having cut players that have guaranteed money (thus making dead cap).

As for 20M it's not assumed that every single cut player would cost you 1m each, but the Eagles who won it all last year did have 19.5m in dead cap... The Patriots the year before? 17.5m dead cap. Look that up...

 

[GeekHawk]

This whole thread is like some people complaining about all the money they wasted on insurance vs others saying that insurance is worth it even if you never use it.

 

[mikeak]

because we think of the salary cap like our own finite budgets at home and tend to think if we spend such and such here then we can't spend it there.

The difference is the salary cap is extremely fluid and moves around way too much to think about it that simply. .

So you are trying to say the difference is how I see my home budget vs how the wife sees it when she goes to the mall?

 

[Seymour]

Too much back tracking for me dude. "These kind" of mistakes...only now you mean "those kind" that actually cost less?? Double talk.

Done with this one...

 

[DJrmb]

because we think of the salary cap like our own finite budgets at home and tend to think if we spend such and such here then we can't spend it there.

The difference is the salary cap is extremely fluid and moves around way too much to think about it that simply. .

So you are trying to say the difference is how I see my home budget vs how the wife sees it when she goes to the mall?

Right? haha! :irishdrinkers:

 

[mikeak]

The issue is not cutting him

It is WHEN

$2 million and Earl doesn’t sit out this offseason

It adds up and it adds up quickly. And the comp pick cost this offseason was significant

Someone gets it!! Exactly...it adds up and these are tough times we should be clamping down on this crap!

$17.4M dead money in 2018 alone, and money we save this year can be used in 2019!

First off. It didn't cost a comp pick. We would still have to cut 3 other guys before we get it back. As of right now, Johnson's contract does NOT factor in losing a comp pick.

We currently have the following qualified UFAs (6) counting against the 4 we lost:

Mingo
Dickson, Ed
Brown, Jaron
Stephen, Shamar
Fluker, DJ
Johnson, Dontae

Now Johnson is on IR. I don't believe we have the ability to release him to factor in. We'd have to drop three of the remaining 5 in order to get a pick back (Rd 4 comp for Graham).

Also, you're misunderstanding how the dead money is working in 2018. The bulk of that dead money is being incurred this year precisely to free up cap space for 2019. The cost of Johnson's 2019 dead money is 800k. But we're eating a ton of dead money this year on other contracts so that we don't have it on the books for next year. Had we not, our available cap space would be drastically reduced as we'd be allocating guaranteed money against next year's cap. Not to mention be on the hook in 2018 for the base salaries of those dead money contracts this year.

I'm not saying I'm a fan of the deal. I felt it was a mildly stupid deal when we made it. But it sure wasn't a cap crippling gaffe either. His release doesn't impact our comp pick calculation other than to get us actually closer to getting one back.

1) that list of people have at least 3 that shouldn't have been signed when counting against comp picks. Probably four...

2) Why would the money go 2019? He was under a one year contract with signing bonus hitting this year, salary will go against 2018 when cut. Don't think you can push this to future years like you can when they have multi-year contract

I am discussing a one year contract and its impact. I understand that shedding future cap cost and taking the hit this year is smart when you rebuild.

Spotract puts it in 2018 - https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/seattle-seahawks/cap/