The Cap - Seems it's a small market vs. big market thing

[Superman]

21 hours ago, stitches said:

Yeah... I guess that's the biggest disagreement here. I think the Bengals are the exception to the rule. If you get a top 5-7 QB in the league on a rookie deal... yeah... I guess you can compete without selling the future. But I admitted to this in my previous post too - QBs continue to be the biggest competitive advantage in the league. But I do think with the success of teams like the Bucs, the Rams, etc that sell the future for the present we will continue to see more and more teams come to that conclusion and this will become more and more prevalent as a team building and contention strategy. 

 

I think so too. There are definitely advantages to the Colts more disciplined philosophy, especially over a sustained period of time. But we're not just competing with two or three teams that are willing to push hard and then take a step back. I think we're competing with half the league, if not more, that are taking turns going through this cycle. That means when one team is paying the consequences for a hard push, another team is taking their place with aggressive spending. 

 

And that probably puts us at a disadvantage in any given season. But that's by choice. Ballard is conservative, possibly risk averse. Reich is all about the guys on the roster now, never feels he needs better players. (For better or worse, in the case of both men.) It's hard to see the Colts suddenly embracing a more aggressive contract/cap strategy. Maybe if they felt they had the QB situation more settled, they might let their hair down, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[throwing BBZ]

 

  2023 will be the first year that CB, Irsay and Frank's vision of an experienced, deep, SB Worthy roster will be ready for aggressive Cap spending. 

 So we really haven't seen what they will do when the pieces are ready.

  They have had to develop the draftees, and we will soon get to enjoy the fruit of their labors.

[sb41champs]

Every NFL team is allotted the same amount of cap money.  It is incumbent on each team to manage the cap effectively in order to maximize the roster for the longest period of time.

 

Bill Polian had a staff that was very good at managing the cap.  There MUST be balance across the contracts given to players - from the superstars to the special team role players.  That is why the ability to play more than one position is key.

 

Chris Ballard and his staff are shaping up as another front office staff that is good at maintaining balance - maximizing the roster - and - rewarding players who deserve to be rewarded.  Ballard is clearly on his way to a HOF career.

 

In a couple of years a few of the "loaded teams" will take a journey in to "salary cap hell" when they'll be eating a lot of "dead money" from the high $$ contracts they have paid veteran superstars to join their team.  The Rams are one of those teams.

 

It's like anything else in the "real world" - you must live by the budget - and - occasionally you die by the budget choices you make

[TaylorTheStudMuffin]

It’s more rich owner vs Mega rich owner. Doesn’t matter how big or small the market is.

[Boondoggle]

18 hours ago, sb41champs said:

In a couple of years a few of the "loaded teams" will take a journey in to "salary cap hell" when they'll be eating a lot of "dead money" from the high $$ contracts they have paid veteran superstars to join their team.  The Rams are one of those teams.

This is an old and dated line of thought.  The Rams interestingly enough have had to get out from under terrible contracts in the recent past and emerged as a better team.  They missed badly on Goff when they paid him for example.  All it took to get out from under that one was multiple picks and they also added Stafford who was an enormous upgrade.

 

At some point logic tells me the Rams will pay, but I am no longer so sure about that.  Seems like they'll probably wriggle out of it somehow by giving up some high picks and reload.

[throwing BBZ]

52 minutes ago, Boondoggle said:

This is an old and dated line of thought.  The Rams interestingly enough have had to get out from under terrible contracts in the recent past and emerged as a better team.  They missed badly on Goff when they paid him for example.  All it took to get out from under that one was multiple picks and they also added Stafford who was an enormous upgrade.

 

At some point logic tells me the Rams will pay, but I am no longer so sure about that.  Seems like they'll probably wriggle out of it somehow by giving up some high picks and reload.

 

 Well they did have to take on the substantial guaranteed $$$ of Goff.
 In a rebuild  (perpetual) mode the #'s don't look so bad. Wentz like.

[EastStreet]

We have talked about this topic a lot. In short, it's become a shell game. Some owners are willing to gamble more, and the NFL rules allow for the shell game to happen. If they seriously wanted to tame the wild west, they'd get rid of void years and similar nonsense, and put some limitations on the way contracts are structured. They could also define future caps (that would be normalized every 3-6 years) to create a baseline of cap limitations down the road. 

 

But highly doubt they ever try seriously to tame the wild west. The NFLPA won't support anything to curb attempts for players to get paid, even though it would likely help players that aren't in the top 10%.