Capology

[cashpath]

Could someone who understands the cap and penalties please explain it.. I would but am only 1 handed. Then we can make it a required read for new owners.

Here is fine .. Thanks..

ish I could help on this, but I am not that "edamacated" on it. LOL!

[TheBillster]

If nobody does it till the evening i will maybe try it. But i fear i will make mistakes or sometimes will explain it in a very strange way...

[Disturbed]

Cap hits are very easy.

This is how it works, I will use a fictional player as an example:

John Holmes signs a contract for 5 years, 100 million, 20 million signing bonus.

Now, in the NFL and MADDEN only the SIGNING BONUS is guaranteed money. The signing bonus is broke down evenly for each year of the contract. In this case, it would equal 4 million a year.

So lets say you want to trade Holmes. What ever is left of his signing bonus will be taken off your cap all in one season because the signing bonus is guaranteed money. This is how your cap hits would break down.

5 years left $20 million cap hit
4 years left $16 million cap hit
3 years left $12 million cap hit
2 years left $ 8 million cap hit
1 year left $ 4 million cap hit

The $100 million part of the contract means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when you trade a player because that money is non-guaranteed.

This is why you see a player like Terrell Owens trying to get a new deal. His contract only calls for him to make around $3 million this year. What the Eagles did was backload the higher salary numbers into the last years of his deal. The Eagles more than likely (if he is still on the team) release him after this year to avoid having to pay him a huge salary. TO wants a new deal so he doesn't miss out on the money that is backloaded in his contract.

Again. The ONLY part of a NFL contract that is guaranteed is the signing bonus. The rest can be taken away as easy as a team releasing you.

In the NFL there are some other things that you can do to work around the cap, but there isn't much of a reason to go into that here. This is for the sim league.

I hope this helps people understand it better.

[Chaos6]

Also as far a bonuses....

If you trade or release a player the cap hit is applied to the next seasons cap. Not the season you made the trade/release. However the salary Immediately comes off your cap.

So if you have the fictional player above. And you trade or release him in year 4 of his contract his salary will come off your cap as soon as the trade/release is made. An you will get a $16 Million Cap hit towards next seasons cap.

A cap hit means that money is not there. You are charged money against the cap that you cannot use. So in this case the next season you will be short $16 Million against the Cap.

[Disturbed]

Oh yeah, forgot that part. Thanks.

[Chaos6]

What is the Salary Cap?

The salary cap is a set amount of money EVERY team is limited to in a season to pay its players. So lets say the cap for a season is $80 million. Then the amount of money (Total of all salaries for that season) you are paying all your players on your roster cannot exceed $80 Million.

Determining the amount of money that will count against your cap next season is difficult because you dont know exactly how much each players salary will raise for next season. In general figure a 10% raise in salary for each player. Remeber it is Salary only. Not total, not bonus. Just the salary for each player.

Now lets say you made releases or trades the prior season totaling $30 Million in cap hits. Then the amount of money your cap would be because of the penalties would be $50 million. Your players salaries for the season cannot total more than $50 Million.

The cap goes up a certain amount each season. The amount is not known for sure. In the real NFL it is based on revenue. TV deals, Ticket sales throughout the league, etc. Basically the amount of money the league will make determines what the cap will be. I dont know how Madden determines what the cap will be.

So you cannot predict what the cap raise will be for the next season. You can guess. But if you guess wrong then you may end up over the cap and releasing players to get under. Thus getting more cap penalties for the next season.

[Duke Raoul]

Those are some good explanations and hopefully everyone will catch on to the salary cap so we have a fairly equal league.

GMs need to realize that trading players away for draft picks are fine but you need to have enough cap room to sign those draft picks. I see one team (that I will not name) that now has a projected cap penalty of over 42 million. Sure they got lots of draft picks for the player(s) they traded, but they have to realize that all of the cap hits will be applied to NEXT year's cap and it will likely not give them enough cap room to sign the picks they received. In fact, they will be lucky to have enough room to sign their current players.

Like Disturbed said, the salary part of the contract means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when you trade a player. You have to look at the bonus and realize it will all have applied as a cap penalty to next year's cap if you trade or cut the player.

Here is a great example of some contracts I found that would make the players VERY unlikely trade candidates (just look at the bonuses):

LaVar Arrington ROLB 99 6 $59.50M $17.50M $5.61M
Peyton Manning QB 98 6 $99.20M $35.00M $9.75M
Torry Holt WR 96 5 $42.00M $14.00M $4.69M
Drew Bledsoe QB 91 7 $44.00M $14.00M $3.71M 33
Eli Manning QB 92 5 $54.00M $18.00M $6.67M
Champ Bailey CB 99 6 $63.00M $21.00M $6.11M

Here are some flexible contracts that would allow the GM to trade the player without taking a cap hit the following season:

Mario Edwards CB 84 5 $18.00M 0 $1.89M
Jerry Porter WR 86 5 $27.28M 0 $2.48M
Fred Taylor HB 92 3 $16.83M 0 $1.65M
Brad Scioli LE 85 4 $10.65M 0 $1.78M

You should take this into concideration when you resign players or sign draft picks and free agents.

GMs should also read up on the franchise tag while they are getting familiar with how things work. The franchise tag may help or hurt you in the offseason, depending on how you use it.....but thats another topic

[cashpath]

Here are some flexible contracts that would allow the GM to trade the player without taking a cap hit the following season:

Mario Edwards CB 84 5 $18.00M 0 $1.89M
Jerry Porter WR 86 5 $27.28M 0 $2.48M
Fred Taylor HB 92 3 $16.83M 0 $1.65M
Brad Scioli LE 85 4 $10.65M 0 $1.78M

gotta watch those 0 bonus guys .. theres a chance they aren't tradable even if the site may be wrong and says they are.. some get by but I recheck if a 0 bon player gets traded

[Chaos6]

Originally Posted by Duke Raoul

Like Disturbed said, the salary part of the contract means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when you trade a player. You have to look at the bonus and realize it will all have applied as a cap penalty to next year's cap if you trade or cut the player.

This is not completly true. The salary does mean something when trading or Releasing a player if you are trying to clear cap space.

Let say that you have a player that is making $8 Million a year in salary. He has 3 years left and his remaining prorated bonus equals out to $3 Million.

Now also you have to realize that next season that players salary is going to go up to somewhere near $10 Million.

So if you trade the guy you clear $8 million in cap space. You get a $3 Million hit the next season but you also saved the $10 million in cap space you would have payed him the next season. So even though you got Hit with a $3 Million penalty you saved $7 million in space.