No problem man, and I appreciate the banter (and Sobe's) because obviously not everything I understand through the cap is understood correctly, so if you see a discrepancy, please dont hesitate to call me out on it and we'll try and find out if it's correct or not.
The presiding logic is that if we survive 3 years through most of these contracts... we should get through the woods, however... think about it this way, if we lose this year, and Ireland gets fired... the team goes into potentially a "full rebuilding mode" depending on the vision of the new GM.... soooo new GM takes over with a 3 year plan in place that wasnt his... yet he cant do much because for 2 more years there are serious consequences.
Thats the irony of this whole situation. If we win... great. If we lose and Jeff gets canned.... why does he care how bad the contracts are... its not his mess to clean up.
And overthecap is a phenomenal resource. Jason, the guy who runs it, started off with NYjetscap.com and then recently launched overthecap... its great. The reality of most NFL extensions with good players is that they arent set up to last the full 5 years or whatever, but it creates flexibility by apportioning giant signing bonus's across more years, so it lowers the hit by each year... however, lets say we give Branden Albert a 5 year deal... who has an injury history.. or Mike Wallace who lets say doesnt become an elite receiver like we hope (and paid him to be)... or ellerbe and wheeler turn out to be serious downgrades in LB.... now you have to make cuts, on giant deals... and assuming that happens... it probably didnt take until year 3 to figure it out...
Either way, the possibility of problems exists.. but right now its all "what if" scenarios.... question is... which ones are more likely than others... and not to be the pessimist, but betting on the team to "finally" win this year... although more likely than past years... is still highly questionable
Jason does a great job. Glad he went to a different site name, told him it was tuff to keep clicking on to a Jets site for Dolphin info. LOL
http://www.rotoworld.com/teams/contracts/nfl/mia/
Here's a good site for Phins contract info breakdowns.
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I somewhat disagree on the cap hell potential with the escalating contracts. A closer look at some of those contracts, with only guaranteed money included. The rest is meaningless IF we need to make changes.
Wheeler's deal is 5 years, with $13M guaranteed. His salary this year is $1M, next year $5M, and both guaranteed. His signing bonus of $7M, pro-rated over the 5 year term, is a cap cost of $1.4 per year. If he did not work out, after 2 years we would be hit with a $4.2M cap hit.
Ellerbe's deal is 4 years, with $14M guaranteed. His salary this year is $1M, next year is $6M, and both are guaranteed. His signing bonus of $7M, pro-rated over the 4 year term, is a cap cost of $1.75M per year. If he did not work out, after 2 years we would be hit with a $3.5M cap hit.
Wallace's deal is 5 years, wit $30M guaranteed. His salary this year is $1M, next year $15M (both guaranteed), and $3M of his $9.85 salary is also guaranteed. His signing bonus of $11M, pro-rated over the 5 year term, is a cap cost of $2.2M per year. If he did not work out, after 2 years, we would be hit with a $6.6M cap hit.
No way we give up on any of the above for at least 2 years, and I do not see the ptential cap hell if we did. IMO, we will re-do the Wallace deal to defer around $5M to down the line. It's not a hard thing to do. We could add the guaranteed money to future years, while increasing it some and/or re-do the signing bonus.
We don't have many "must keep" stars here. Starks, Soliai, Grimes, Keller, Cog, Clemons, Marshall, Patterson, Bess, and Carp, who cost around $45M this year, are all expendable if need be, and they don't play well.
I am really hoping to have a cap problem a few years from now with Tannehill but, until then, no worries.
