Seahawks Salary Cap & Contracts - Q&A

JammerHawk suggested we start a salary cap specific thread which seems like a great idea.

Given the importance of the salary cap it has been a keen interest of mine for a good while now and I'd class it as a hobby outside of football itself.

I initially used Over The Cap (fantastic website) to get to grips with it as I'm sure a lot of you guys use but have started to move away and use my own calculations (often using OTC as a reference point to make sure I'm along the right lines, typically I am, thankfully!).

My numbers are also more up to date than OTC's currently are, but given they are managing 31 other teams they are doing a fantastic job.

If you have any questions relating to the salary cap, how it works, how contracts work etc then fire away :2thumbs:

For reference, Seattle currently has $15,141,601 available.

How much cap would we have available going into next season, if say Avril & Kam are either cut or retire, ET plays this year out & not extended, and we trade Britt for a draft pick?

12forlife":1zl9ca08 said:

How much cap would we have available going into next season, if say Avril & Kam are either cut or retire, ET plays this year out & not extended, and we trade Britt for a draft pick?

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$13,524,517

(less than we currently have) and thats for a number of reasons -

Kam would create a negative impact on the cap if he is released due to the structure in his contract with injury guarantees and signing bonus. (signing bonus is always 100% guaranteed in contracts).

Avril would add $7,125,000 with only $500,000 in dead money

Justin Britt would also have a negative impact on the cap due to his signing bonus and also the $5,000,000 option the team picked up a couple of days ago. Cutting or trading him would LOWER the cap by $2,583,334 as his cap number is $6,166,666 but his dead cap number is $8,750,000

Good thread idea - thank you (let's see how long it takes us to start talking about non-cap/contract issues)...

I heard vague rumblings that cutting Bennett may be more about longer-term cap savings than 2018 cap savings. How much did cutting Bennett save us in 2019 and 2020 respectively, relative to:

1: Cutting him after the 2018 season
2: Cutting him after the 2019 season

JerHawk81":2dzjjenw said:

Good thread idea - thank you.

I heard vague rumblings that cutting Bennett may be more about longer-term cap savings than 2018 cap savings. How much did cutting Bennett save us in 2019 and 2020 respectively, relative to:

1: Cutting him after the 2018 season
2: Cutting him after the 2019 season

Click to expand...

Good question!

The team saved $8,750,000 in 2019 and $10,225,000 in 2020 by cutting him when they did.

If the team kept him around for the 2018 season and either traded or cut him in 2019, the team would have saved $5,262,500 ($3,487,500 less) and still $10,225,000 in 2020 so you can see why the move made sense.

original poster":1wdijc6x said:

JerHawk81":1wdijc6x said:

Good thread idea - thank you.

I heard vague rumblings that cutting Bennett may be more about longer-term cap savings than 2018 cap savings. How much did cutting Bennett save us in 2019 and 2020 respectively, relative to:

1: Cutting him after the 2018 season
2: Cutting him after the 2019 season

Click to expand...

Good question!

The team saved $8,750,000 in 2019 and $10,225,000 in 2020 by cutting him when they did.

If the team kept him around for the 2018 season and either traded or cut him in 2019, the team would have saved $5,262,500 ($3,487,500 less) and still $10,225,000 in 2020 so you can see why the move made sense.

Click to expand...

In a world dominated by instant gratification and tunnel vision, it's nice to see posts that address more forward looking thinking and complete awareness. To the extent that there is sufficient interest in a complete understanding of cap considerations this thread will either thrive or die.

Thanks for posting. :2thumbs: I'll be hoping for the best.

Thanks Jville, appreciate it :2thumbs:

Thanks for doing this OP!

My question is regarding Thomas. If he is traded post June 1 or the trade is designated as such if possible can the cap savings on his dead money of $1.9 mil be prorated over this year and next? I've assumed the answer is no b/c this is the last year of his deal but wonder if I'm right. At present OTC says his cap number for this season is $8.5 million with $1.9 million in dead money, if traded he'd seemingly free up $6.6 million. if we were able to prorate as i ask it'd be $7.4 mil. He is a FA after this season and appears to want to move to Texas.

This area, the cap rules and the calculations of cap numbers, is to some quite arcane our Hawkstorian is very knowledgable and quick to respond if you are ever stumpted, just saying. There are quite a few others here too.

jammerhawk":2u2ttvt4 said:

Thanks for doing this OP!

My question is regarding Thomas. If he is traded post June 1 or the trade is designated as such if possible can the cap savings on his dead money of $1.9 mil be prorated over this year and next? I've assumed the answer is no b/c this is the last year of his deal but wonder if I'm right. At present OTC says his cap number for this season is $8.5 million with $1.9 million in dead money, if traded he'd seemingly free up $6.6 million. if we were able to prorate as i ask it'd be $7.4 mil. He is a FA after this season and appears to want to move to Texas.

This area, the cap rules and the calculations of cap numbers, is to some quite arcane our Hawkstorian is very knowledgable and quick to respond if you are ever stumpted, just saying. There are quite a few others here too.

Click to expand...

:2thumbs:

With a trade you couldn't do a post June 1st (actually the 12th May this year) to split the dead money over 2 years unfortunately. It makes no difference that he isn't under contract in 2019, even if he was the dead money would have to be absorbed in the year the trade was completed.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is addressed in the next CBA in a couple of years though as fans love trades and making them more appealing in certain situations with teams can only benefit the league as a whole.

Given the team would have very likely already paid the player his signing bonus (it's usually paid in either 2, 3 or 4 instalments) it would be a good move to allow teams to split the money over two years in certain scenarios (the JPP trade from the Giants today being a prime example!)

[tweet]https://twitter.com/nickkorte/status/977918101621587970[/tweet]

12forlife":orbi8vdu said:

How much cap would we have available going into next season, if say Avril & Kam are either cut or retire, ET plays this year out & not extended, and we trade Britt for a draft pick?

Click to expand...

From cap's perspective, there must be reasons why we haven't released Kam and Avril?

Wait, what. Going into next year if they do not come back and Kam retires we have over 84 million cap space.

original poster":xui7r6lq said:

12forlife":xui7r6lq said:

How much cap would we have available going into next season, if say Avril & Kam are either cut or retire, ET plays this year out & not extended, and we trade Britt for a draft pick?

Click to expand...

$13,524,517

(less than we currently have) and thats for a number of reasons -

Kam would create a negative impact on the cap if he is released due to the structure in his contract with injury guarantees and signing bonus. (signing bonus is always 100% guaranteed in contracts).

Avril would add $7,125,000 with only $500,000 in dead money

Justin Britt would also have a negative impact on the cap due to his signing bonus and also the $5,000,000 option the team picked up a couple of days ago. Cutting or trading him would LOWER the cap by $2,583,334 as his cap number is $6,166,666 but his dead cap number is $8,750,000

Click to expand...

I would say who cares. Seattle has been terrable if the 4th round. They grabbed KJ and dare I say WT3. Other than that comlete busts, EJ Wilson, Kris Durham, Robert Turbin, Jaye Howard, Chris Harper, Marsh, Norwood, KPL, Poole, Glow,

KitsapGuy":297kqdjx said:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/nickkorte/status/977918101621587970[/tweet]

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toffee":15gjpo5m said:

12forlife":15gjpo5m said:

How much cap would we have available going into next season, if say Avril & Kam are either cut or retire, ET plays this year out & not extended, and we trade Britt for a draft pick?

Click to expand...

From cap's perspective, there must be reasons why we haven't released Kam and Avril?

Click to expand...

Kam has injury guarantees in his contract that would make it very unwise to cut him this season.

RE Avril, there doesn't really need to be any urgency there. They don't currently need the cap space the team would save ($7,125,000) so there's no real rush there. Expect it to happen, though.

stang233":15oatzii said:

Wait, what. Going into next year if they do not come back and Kam retires we have over 84 million cap space.]

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As it stands right now it's around $80,000,000.

However that doesn't account for any 2018 rookies, extensions etc.

They have planned all of this. They have room to do absolutely anything they want next season. Extending Bobby Wagner and Russ will likely be priority number 1 and 2.

original poster":vviiui5a said:

stang233":vviiui5a said:

Wait, what. Going into next year if they do not come back and Kam retires we have over 84 million cap space.]

Click to expand...

As it stands right now it's around $80,000,000.

However that doesn't account for any 2018 rookies, extensions etc.

They have planned all of this. They have room to do absolutely anything they want next season. Extending Bobby Wagner and Russ will likely be priority number 1 and 2.

Click to expand...

Ok now that was more along the lines I was thinking, thought we may be upwards of 90 mil, but wanted to ask before sounding a fool. 80 mil will give us some serious leverage going into the next off season. I totally agree Wags & Wilson will be priority 1 & 2, with plenty left over to help fill any glaring wholes that remain. PC/JS really need to hit on these next 2 drafts!

Yeah I can't remember off the top of my head but I think there's either 24 or 25 players under contract next season, too. :2thumbs:

Any other questions chaps?

I haven't talked about the cap in almost 3 days now, I'm starting to shake a little.

original poster":2zz77msw said:

Any other questions chaps?

I haven't talked about the cap in almost 3 days now, I'm starting to shake a little.

Click to expand...

I have another.

Rapoport reported that we may release Malik in hopes that another team clears him. Why? Specifically, what is the cap savings of cutting Malik, and how would another team clearing/playing him impact our cap hit?