Pittsburgh Steelers will operate as if NFL salary cap remains in place

[mesaSteeler]

Pittsburgh Steelers will operate as if NFL salary cap remains in place
http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...OandS-uKnNB8jQ
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP) – 1 hour ago

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers will treat 2010 as if it were a capped season and will not take advantage of the lack of an NFL collective bargaining agreement to add more quality free agents than usual.

Director of football operations Kevin Colbert acknowledges the Steelers could be at a competitive disadvantage by remaining with the cap framework, especially if big-revenue teams decide to spend freely. But he says the club believes a commonsense approach is the right one.

Unless a new labour deal is reached by this fall, NFL teams will be free to spend any amount they want on salaries without restrictions for the first time since 1993.

Last season, the salary cap was US$128 million and the floor was $111 million, meaning every team had to spend at least that amount. The Steelers will calculate what the cap would have been this season and then remain within that amount.

[Glace]

My question is, if we have an uncapped year, and then get the CBA finished and agreed upon and the salary cap back in place...what happens to the teams that are way over-budget with new signings?

Do players see more 1-year contracts with no salary cap?

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by Glace

My question is, if we have an uncapped year, and then get the CBA finished and agreed upon and the salary cap back in place...what happens to the teams that are way over-budget with new signings?

Do players see more 1-year contracts with no salary cap?

i heard this example today-

take jerry jones and miles austin. if he wants, jerry can sign him to a $35 million dollar deal for 5 years, and give miles $30 mil of it in a roster bonus that would count towards this years "uncap".

the remaining 4 years would only count a mil per season towards the cap (a huge and beneficial savings for future years).

something like this will benefit a team like the patriots who are approaching salary cap hell.

instead of all of vince wilforks signing bonus for his next deal being amortized and spread out for the duration of the contract, it can all count this year at a huge cap savings in future years.

its all part of goodells masterplan to help out snyder, jones, and kraft (they knew this was coming and is why they have been spending like madmen the past few years).

i would expect players like tom brady, marion barber, etc. to sign huge deals or restructure and absorb future cap hits into one year (im not sure there is anything in place to prevent this).

[steelreserve]

Originally Posted by Glace

My question is, if we have an uncapped year, and then get the CBA finished and agreed upon and the salary cap back in place...what happens to the teams that are way over-budget with new signings?

I've wondered about this too. I assume they'll have to work that out in whatever the new CBA is. I can't really figure out how they handled it in 1993, but I imagine that if Al Davis or Dan Snyder starts handing out contracts at $25 million a year, there'll be no love lost and when a cap returns, they'll either have to release players or be docked draft picks. Maybe there'll be a one-year grace period for existing players under contract or something like that.

I don't particularly see a lot of 1-year deals being signed ... but if teams are smart, they'll give out some frontloaded contracts instead of backloaded ones. Like, if Hampton wanted a 3-year, $24 million deal, you could theoretically have it go $20 million in 2010, $2 million in 2011 and $2 million in 2012. Now, that could backfire for obvious reasons (laziness), so maybe Hampton wasn't a very good example, and the frontloading probably shouldn't be so disproportionate. But you can see how that could be advantageous if a cap came back into play.

[MasterOfPuppets]

if that was the case then why let seymour go ?

[steelreserve]

Originally Posted by tony hipchest

i heard this example today-

take jerry jones and miles austin. if he wants, jerry can sign him to a $35 million dollar deal for 5 years, and give miles $30 mil of it in a roster bonus that would count towards this years "uncap".

the remaining 4 years would only count a mil per season towards the cap (a huge and beneficial savings for future years).

something like this will benefit a team like the patriots who are approaching salary cap hell.

instead of all of vince wilforks signing bonus for his next deal being amortized and spread out for the duration of the contract, it can all count this year at a huge cap savings in future years.

its all part of goodells masterplan to help out snyder, jones, and kraft (they knew this was coming and is why they have been spending like madmen the past few years).

i would expect players like tom brady, marion barber, etc. to sign huge deals or restructure and absorb future cap hits into one year (im not sure there is anything in place to prevent this).

Heh, you must have typed this at the same exact time I was making my post. Only thing stopping massive frontloading, as far as I can tell, is the huge risk involved. The $30 million basically becomes a sunk cost and you lose the whole thing. You also run the risk of a player like Hampton deciding he's already got what he wants, so he might as well mail it in for the last couple years of his career, because why break your neck when you're assured of getting $1 million a season either way?

Or the player could turn around after the first year and say, hey, I'm thanks for the $30 million; I'm keeping that, and now I'm holding out unless you also pay me $7 million a year going forward. Maybe not a lot of players would be that way, but their agents would.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Cowboys are forbidden from signing any free agents more than the ones they lose .. so they could only give out those sweetheart deals to their own players, although that would still help them in future years.

Although, wait ... I guess that's not really any ironclad protection, because they could still let 10 free agents go who they wouldn't have re-signed anyway -- think the Cowboy equivalent of Carey Davis or Matt Spaeth or Charlie Batch -- and bring in 10 All-Pros with blockbuster deals. So I guess that protection was in name only the more I think about it.

[steelreserve]

Originally Posted by MasterOfPuppets

if that was the case then why let seymour go ?

Because they just got another Pro Bowl DE from the Raiders three weeks before that, and they got a top pick for an aging, disgruntled player. After Seymour skips town this year, that trade will work out roughly like:

Patriots get:
DE Derrick Burgess
Top-10 draft pick in 2011

Raiders get:
Nothing


I'd do it if I was them, too.

[Chidi29]

I thought the 30% rule was still in place even without the CBA?

[devilsdancefloor]

well if the case is we can pay a gain 35 million 30 of it being upfront why all the worries about casey just pay him 20 or 25 upfront? why not restructure all the contracts ? hmmm sounds like something is missing here?

[steelax04]

Originally Posted by Chidi29

I thought the 30% rule was still in place even without the CBA?

Yeah, I thought there were some "rules" in place so current contracts couldn't be restructured and increased by huge amounts for the uncapped year?