Not since Kahn , at least
Best available has been pretty much the move
OT: NFL news
- Thread starter RaleighPittFan
- Start date
Best available has been pretty much the move
I think there’s some missing context here. The NFL implanted free agency shortly before Woodson left and, if I recall correctly, Mr. Rooney offered him several contracts before he ultimately walked. There was also no chance we’d re-sign Faneca- he became the highest-paid lineman while we were getting ready to extend Big Ben past his rookie contract. Franco and Webster were also on the tail end of their careers, much different situations than TJ and Fitzpatrick.
The only one I’d agree with here is Porter, whose exit coincided with Tomlin’s hiring. That turned out to be a good decision with Harrison waiting in the wings.
Woodson didn’t want to move to safety so he walked
Only to play safety elsewhere
Minkah I can agree with.
But TJ is an edge rusher regardless of what his official position is listed as. You've got to go pretty far down the list of good edge rushers before you're under the $20million/year mark.
Something like 8 of the 10 highest paid defensive players are edge rushers. Paying one of the best of them a lot of money isn't paying a guy at the wrong position.
Well it also means they don't have a starting QB or basically any good offensive players on 2nd contracts.
So yeah, they have "flexibility" but they also have no good players on one side of the ball. Not great!
I'd rather have Egbuka because I think he's scheme neutral. Burden is more of a Rashee Rice type player that you have to scheme the right kind of touches for. And this coaching staff is useless at that kind of thing so taking a player who needs to be used thoughtfully is just a recipe for disaster.
To add to this, maybe I'm just behind the times but I don't understand how the Eagles are getting away with some of their contracts.
Take Landon Dickerson. Big news a while back that he signed the largest contract ever for an interior lineman at 4 years, $84 million. But the contract is actually an 8-year contract, that automatically voids after the 4th season. This allowed the Eagles to spread his cap his for the first 4 years out over 8 seasons, and in the fifth season it automatically voids and they get hit with a $35 million dollar dead cap hit to their payroll unless I'm assuming there are ways around that through restructuring before that date or something.
So instead of him counting $21 million against the cap next year, he'll only count $6.5 million.
Take Landon Dickerson. Big news a while back that he signed the largest contract ever for an interior lineman at 4 years, $84 million. But the contract is actually an 8-year contract, that automatically voids after the 4th season. This allowed the Eagles to spread his cap his for the first 4 years out over 8 seasons, and in the fifth season it automatically voids and they get hit with a $35 million dollar dead cap hit to their payroll unless I'm assuming there are ways around that through restructuring before that date or something.
So instead of him counting $21 million against the cap next year, he'll only count $6.5 million.
That chart was just showing soft money against the cap. Not actual cap obligations. The Steelers are middle of the pack in terms of cap space. Projected cap space is something like $43 million with only one QB (Skylar Thompson) on the roster.
So for $43 million, they have to somehow get a starting QB, a backup, and a #1 RB. And of course fix all of the other holes on offense and defense.
So for $43 million, they have to somehow get a starting QB, a backup, and a #1 RB. And of course fix all of the other holes on offense and defense.
What is there to not get? They sign guys to longer contracts than either side intends to honor in order for the team to be able to spread the bonus money over more years (on the cap). Then when those years are voided, just like any other contract for a guy who is removed from the roster, all the unaccounted for (on the cap) bonus money comes due, it can't be spread out any more. Over the life of the player being with the team the amount charged to the cap in total doesn't change, but it allows teams to take less of a hit now in exchange for taking a bigger hit later.
It wouldn't surprise me if the league tries to make changes to the rules in the future to stop teams from doing this, but for now it is allowed. If the Iggles want to take a $35 million cap hit in four years so they can spend $9 million more per season for the first four years, the rules allow it.
Yes, I know. That's literally the same explanation that I gave for what they're doing.
What I'm saying is that I can't believe that this loophole hasn't been closed yet. It's not like it's something new, the Steelers have done it recently (JuJu, Roethlisberger I think). But I don't think anyone has done it to the extreme that the Eagles are. The Eagles just broke the NFL and have $350+ million in voidable salary cap debt. They can continue to kick the can down the road permanently as long as NFL revenue continues to climb. They can tank a single season and get rewarded with a top-5 pick, then do it all again.
Joe Burrow just talked about having his contract renegotiated to keep the teams' talen together, using the Eagles' ability to make sure everyone gets paid as the example. I can only imagine this will be the first thing on the chopping block when the next CBA comes around.
But at some level it's not really a loophole, and it's going to be very hard to change.
I mean look at what Denver did with Russell Wilson. At the end of the day that isn't really any different than what the Iggles are doing with Dickerson, other than the Iggles are certainly hoping that Dickerson isn't washed up before his deal runs out. Every year teams cut guys and take the cap hit for the rest of their bonuses because they don't think they are worth it any more. How is the NFL going to decide if the years at the end of a contract are designed to never get paid or if the team hopes the player stays the whole length of the deal?
I don't think it will be hard to fix at all. I'm sure the other owners are pissed as hell because it's driving up the labor market toward higher guaranteed contracts and signing bonuses. It's completely breaking the competitive balance as well. I will be amazed if the loophole lasts until the next CBA in 2031 and they don't try and fix it before. They are trying to get an 18th game, so maybe when they renegotiate that with the union they will also include a fix for void years.
Both the NBA and NHL have already fixed these types of contracts and have systems in place to not only void the contracts, but to also levy fines against owners that attempt to exploit the system.
The NFL could impose additional penalties for having a certain dead money threshold, like a luxury tax, reduced draft picks, etc. I guarantee you that the Eagles don't have a single fan among the other 31 owners right now.
Well pretty much every team in the league has done the equivalent to what the Eagles are doing now in the past, so why would they complain now?
Almost every time a team renegotiates a player contract before it expires they are doing exactly what the Eagles are doing. When the Stillers renegotiate a contract to convert a contract that is supposed to pay a player $10 million this year into one that pays a $1 million base salary with a $9 million signing bonus while leaving the rest of the contract the same, they are doing exactly what the Eagles are doing here. And the Stillers have done that multiple times almost every season going back many years. They've done it with guys like Cam Heyward and Ben Roethlisberger, they've done it with guys like Cole Holcomb.
Every team in the NFL, literally every one, does this kind of thing all the time.
As of right now they have zero dollars tied up in a QB. I don’t know if that’s true of any other team. So let’s see what it looks like after free agency.
And by the way, what the NHL does to stop this is that after a player gets to a certain age they force the team to carry the whole value of the contract each year remaining on the deal, as opposed to the NFL that forces the team to take the cap hit all at once. Do you think that if you told the Iggles that instead of taking that $35 million cap hit all at once four years from now for Dickerson that they would be "forced" to keep that deal on the books at the original cap hit for the ensuing four years that the Iggles would care about that, even a little bit? Hell, they'd probably be happy to not have to take that whole hit all at once.
It's a big difference in the way teams can manage a salary cap when the limit is $272 million versus what you can do when it is $88 million.
Going into year 3, the GM has zero dollars tied to the most important position on the field, going into an off season where they felt the FA options weren't good.
That's special.
I know every team is doing, I stated as much. But no team has done it to the extent that the Eagles are. They have as much as the #2 and #3 team combined. The number keep climbing, which is why it will get stamped out.
Last year only two teams were over $100 million in void liabilities and six were over $50 million. This year there are five teams over $100 million and nearly a dozen over $50 million. I can't even find a list of voided liability from 2022, so I can't imagine it was substantial.
But it's pointless for us to keep arguing over whether it will get fixed or not. Let's meet back here in the summer of 2031 so that one of us can say "I told you so".
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