ESPN: NFC South payrolls

[panthers55]

i mean they could've avoided dumping delhomme's 12 million dollar salary last offseason just by not extending him in 09 after throwing 5 picks against the cardinals since he was due to be a free agent last offseason anyway.

They did that contract in early 09 to free up money to get under the cap to pay Peppers. Jake was going to get the majority of that money anyway. Instead of paying him a bunch in 09 they saved substantially and then guaranteed it in 2010 and 2011. From what I remember they didn't really pay that much more than they were going to have to pay anyway.

[frash.exe]

it's sort of like paying 12 million later to save 2 million now

oh wait a minute what am i talking about it's exactly like paying that

[Urrymonster]

Many of the players cut were paid anyway and were in the last year of the contract so we pissed away much of the money. We didn't save much at all and they wouldn't have counted against our cap next year anyway. Count Jake, Lewis, and Hoover and Kemo in that category. Then you have the stupid which is signing Diggs to a three year extension in January and then cutting him 3 months later.

The validity of the veteran cuts can be debated over and over, with no one really have an opinion with any weight as we don't know the complete picture. Although Jake was in the last year of his deal before we extended him, sould he have been extended? After finishing 12-4 the FO clearly felt they were not too far off and wanted one last run at the superbowl.

From my understanding Kemo & Lewis were pretty expensive to keep together and believe it or not, $3.4 million is a hefty chunk of change. However look at it another way: The FO accepted this was re-building time, so why hang onto two aging, expensive vets for one season, where we can cut them loose with no cap ramifications. Then we can give 3-4 young promising guys a run at being the cornerstone. As it is we know that none have really panned out, but if we left it, we would have had to have done this trial a year after our down year.

The point I am trying to make is that they gave these other guys a shot at being on the team in the future, rather than keeping two guys who may or may not have been any better. Kemo was coming off a major injury afterall...

Those veteran cuts for the most part were poorly thought out and as hindsight has shown, much more problematic than most foks believed.

As for other teams having dead money, they all have some but 30 million??? Maybe Washington who cut a bunch of players to make up for blunders in year's past under a different regime but smart teams like New England for example. Not even close I bet.

I never claimed other teams would have 30 million in dead money as well, but other teams WILL have some. So Tampa is 20 million below us in salary, leaving them with the difference of 10 million. How far off that 10 million do you think they are? Surely they cut SOME players with guarenteed contracts this off season? I would guess Derrick Ward had a few million...

My point is that do not look at our $110 million, subtract the $30 million and then compare us against the other teams. All teams will have a portion of dead money, so before we start crying about how cheap we are being, actually look at the bigger picture.

[panthers55]

it's sort of like paying 12 million later to save 2 million now

oh wait a minute what am i talking about it's exactly like paying that

I think they saved more than that is 2009 but your point is true that it is hard to look back on it now and justify it. Glad it wasn't my money.

[Kettle]

i copied the sig. spreading the idea, and hoping it will catch on with the organization!

[panthers55]

The validity of the veteran cuts can be debated over and over, with no one really have an opinion with any weight as we don't know the complete picture. Although Jake was in the last year of his deal before we extended him, sould he have been extended? After finishing 12-4 the FO clearly felt they were not too far off and wanted one last run at the superbowl.

From my understanding Kemo & Lewis were pretty expensive to keep together and believe it or not, $3.4 million is a hefty chunk of change. However look at it another way: The FO accepted this was re-building time, so why hang onto two aging, expensive vets for one season, where we can cut them loose with no cap ramifications. Then we can give 3-4 young promising guys a run at being the cornerstone. As it is we know that none have really panned out, but if we left it, we would have had to have done this trial a year after our down year.

The point I am trying to make is that they gave these other guys a shot at being on the team in the future, rather than keeping two guys who may or may not have been any better. Kemo was coming off a major injury afterall...

Obviously the FO did believe what you said and thought things would be better. My point all along was that you could argue any one player and make a case for getting rid of him but it was too much at one time when many of the guys that were dumped would not have impacted the cap one way or the other and weren't a factor moving forward. In other words they weren't being dumped because they were bad contracts and wouldn't influence the cap moving forward. They were dumped to save money this year not down the road. So all the arguments of sucking now to be better down the road from a cap or money point of view are crap. We could have kept many of the vets and still been as well off as we will be next year anyway contract wise. But I think we definitely would have been better in the W-L column.

The only argument that holds water about dumping vets for kids was to give them experience. And again we could have done that gradually and used them in the rotation to gain experience instead of making them starters right off the bat. And with a new coaching staff and new schemes next year even the experience angle could be tempered quite a bit. I doubt it happens but if someone came in and decided to put in a 3-4 it would change everything and the expereince gained this year would be minimal on the defense. The same would be true if Harbaugh came in and installed a WCO similar to what he runs at Stanford.

I never claimed other teams would have 30 million in dead money as well, but other teams WILL have some. So Tampa is 20 million below us in salary, leaving them with the difference of 10 million. How far off that 10 million do you think they are? Surely they cut SOME players with guarenteed contracts this off season? I would guess Derrick Ward had a few million...

My point is that do not look at our $110 million, subtract the $30 million and then compare us against the other teams. All teams will have a portion of dead money, so before we start crying about how cheap we are being, actually look at the bigger picture.

And I never said that other teams wouldn't either. My point was most the 30 million in dead money would have fallen off anyway and we would have gotten use of the veterans this year. Instead we wasted all that money paying players who aren't here. Our players under contract next year are something like 60 million and with the exception of Landon Johnson and Harris, the rest of the supposed bad contracts would have been gone next year anyway. So we sucked this year wasted 30 million this year and did it for little good reason.

And trust me I look at the big picture much more than most here. I also analyze the situation and don't believe the crap I am fed like the youth movement without determining if it is valid or not. We not only went cheap but were foolish and squandered a ton of money in the process.

[Urrymonster]

I doubt it happens but if someone came in and decided to put in a 3-4 it would change everything and the expereince gained this year would be minimal on the defense. The same would be true if Harbaugh came in and installed a WCO similar to what he runs at Stanford.

This has been my concern for a while and I never quite grasped why we would turn the last year of Fox's tenure into a rebuilding project, when the first year of the next coach is likely to having growing pains as it is. It's just unfortunate that the un-capped year fell where it did, however I guess is Fox hadn't got his 12-4 season he may have been fired anyway.

In my mind they kind of had to do one or the other, they went in between. Either go young with a new coaching philosophy and give them 3 years to build, or keep the veterans and let Fox try and go out in style.

And I never said that other teams wouldn't either. My point was most the 30 million in dead money would have fallen off anyway and we would have gotten use of the veterans this year. Instead we wasted all that money paying players who aren't here. Our players under contract next year are something like 60 million and with the exception of Landon Johnson and Harris, the rest of the supposed bad contracts would have been gone next year anyway. So we sucked this year wasted 30 million this year and did it for little good reason.

And trust me I look at the big picture much more than most here. I also analyze the situation and don't believe the crap I am fed like the youth movement without determining if it is valid or not. We not only went cheap but were foolish and squandered a ton of money in the process.

I suppose this is something we will just disagree on. Look at the roster now and add on the vets who got cut, which young guys would we not have been able to keep? Which draft picks would we have had to try and stash on the practice squad?

[panthers55]

I suppose this is something we will just disagree on. Look at the roster now and add on the vets who got cut, which young guys would we not have been able to keep? Which draft picks would we have had to try and stash on the practice squad?

Agree on Fox. Why worry so much about 6 million to Fox when you wasted 30 million this year. Unless the guy we want wasn't available last year, it seems we should have started over from scratch.

As for the young guys and practice squaders, it really depends on who and what. For example we could have kept Moose and not signed who? Clowney or maybe Devin Thomas?

What about Damione Lewis?? We couldn't have kept Andre Neblett??

We could have kept all our draft picks. Sorry Urry we will have to disagree on that. Given how many changes we have made to this roster due to injury and other reasons, we could have kept many of the offensive vets and some of the defensive ones without hurting the youth movement moving forward. Many of the backups this year and practice squaders won't be here next year in any event.

[MadHatter]

Both maybe?

Or maybe the smartest when we come out of this year with no cap unfriendly contracts for aging vets...$30M in space to sign what will be the best FA class in decades (remember all of those UFA that became RFA's at the beginning of the season that will all be hitting the open market)...and the #1 pick in a year where an incredible QB prospect is likely to leave school.

[panthers55]

Or maybe the smartest when we come out of this year with no cap unfriendly contracts for aging vets...$30M in space to sign what will be the best FA class in decades (remember all of those UFA that became RFA's at the beginning of the season that will all be hitting the open market)...and the #1 pick in a year where an incredible QB prospect is likely to leave school.

Only Landon Johnson and Harris had any contracts that would have impacted the cap next year. If you don't count Diggs who they signed to a year in January and cut 3 months later in a stupid move of their own creation.

We would have 60 million in money tied up for next year with or without the cuts.

And look at our history the last 3 years. We won't be bringing in any big name FAs next year either.

Of what you said, the only thing that holds water is we will get a high pick in the draft. And we had to suck horribly to do that.

[Raskle]

Or maybe the smartest when we come out of this year with no cap unfriendly contracts for aging vets...$30M in space to sign what will be the best FA class in decades (remember all of those UFA that became RFA's at the beginning of the season that will all be hitting the open market)...and the #1 pick in a year where an incredible QB prospect is likely to leave school.

Relax.. I was just jokin around