CAP?

[The Sandwich]

With so much talk around the league about moves to save room against the salary cap I have a question? What all exactly counts against the salary cap? Do signing bonuses, or just anual salaries? If only salaries do, then isn't there a huge loophole for a Steinbrenner like owner to offer nearly all signing bonuses to restructure contracts for nearly unl,imited room under the cap? Also, how do performance based contracts effect the cap?

[Homeless]

You pretty much answered your own question. It includes all compensation paid to players. Imagine how massive signing bonuses would be if they werent included.

Hell, players would have salaries as low as the rest of us poor SOB's then

[Roseman]

Well Homeless is partly right things like base salary and signing bonus' do count against the Cap but things like preformace incentives do not count against the CAP.

Why you ask dont teams sign all players to prefomance incnetive contracts? there are several reasons one is the NFL has minimums for player salary based on the length of time a player has been in the league. The other is players and agents dont like preformace incentives because the money is not guaranteed and if the player was injured in preseason he would get jack f#$% all.

There are also other exceptions to the salary cap when it comes to vets after July 1 where they can sign a $750,000 contract and it only count the vet minimun against the cap

[VIPER]

Isn't that one of the reasons Ricky wanted to leave N.O.???? I think his contract had a lot of performance incentives in it and he stayed hurt a lot..

[Indy Dragons]

Signing bonuses can get tricky also. For Example: Let's say Rookie Superstar Player, signs a 10 year contract, and gets a 10 million dollar signing bonus.
A. If he plays all 10 years of the contract, then the signing bonus is calculated at 1 million per year against the cap.
B. If he plays 8 years, then is cut (depending on when he is cut also), the first 8 years was figured at 1 million per year, but the 9th year (which he isn't playing), is figured at 2 million for that year.
C. This is the one that can kill clubs: If he just plays one season then is cut, the first season is figured at 1 million, then the second season gets a whopping 9 million cap hit - and he isn't even playing!!

There are other scenarios, where the signing bonus can get prorated, but I really don't have the time, nor the expertise to go into them into detail. Let's just say the signing bonus does go against the cap, and not usually as easy as saying the bonus was 10 million, and the cap hit is 10 million divided by the number of years of the contract.

[chaindog35]

Thanks for posting this guys, I had no idea how it worked. It's interesting to actually see how the Cap works

[Indy Dragons]

Here is a little article about salary caps:

http://www.ravensnests.com/salary-cap.htm

[chaindog35]

Nice indy, good article

[ScreamingWeasel]

Ever lay on your back on a clear summer night when there's a bazillion stars in the sky and think, really think, about how big the universe is? And then you get this creepy feeling. Like you're worm dirt. Or less than worm dirt. A spec so insignificant it doesn't even qualify as worm dirt.

OK.

The NFL salary cap is the universe.
Anyone even attempting to understand it is worm dirt.

[kashikis]

good article indy, nice find!