There are certain players in the nfl who make a truly large amount of money. Guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Brett Favre etc tend to make up a huge chunk of a team's salary cap space. In some cases, a guy like brady will take a minor pay cut in the theory that the team will then spend the money on keeping the surrounding cast intact and bringing in new blood.
The question then is this, could a player have included in his contract that he will accept a certain amount of cash, say 80 percent of the money he could have gotten if he had wanted to be a dick and be represented by tom condon etc, and if in any of say the next few seasons if the team opens the season with more than X amount of cap room that this guy gets as additional salary enough dollars to bring them up to X amount of cap room, up to some maximum just to protect the team in case that something major happens and they gain alot of cap room for some reason? This way, big stars like peyton manning could help out the team and do management a favor, but not be just giving money to the owner for no good reason. Is there a reason why this wouldn't fly? I wouldn't expect most players to be doing this sort of thing, but the players' union might not be totally crazy against it because it probly would just be a wash in terms of how much money was spent on player salaries; it would just mean that peyton manning's cap number might be 12 million instead of 15 million, but other players at other positions would be making that money back. There could even be contract language which would prevent a team from signing more than one player to a deal of this kind. I know that the MLB union gave alex rodriguez alot of grief over any possibility of him reducing his salary so that his team could sign other players, but the MLBPA is to MLB what cartman is to his mother, so I don't think we can really take seriously the crap they get away with.
I seriously doubt that any NFL owner/GM would ever allow any player contract to be linked in any way, shape or form to the salary cap. That would set a precedent for others players/agents to pounce on. It would be a give-up of power and control of the owners $$$, and ability to manage it, to the players/agents.
The cap is to be managed by the owner/GM....not the players/agents. The owners would never let egotistical players and sleazy agents in charge of their bank account.
-- Edited by Backinthesaddleagain at 16:49, 2006-11-04
but you could set it up in such a way that a player could never make more than a certain amount, but that the player is opting to give up some of that money so long that it actually gets spent. teams are always asking players to restructure; this would just be a natural next step.
Didn't the Broncos get in trouble for doing that kind of thing in the late 90's?? They were like signing players to lower contracts but making up the difference in cash....or something like that. I think the NFL frowns on that kind of thing. The Broncos got fines and lost draft picks and such. Plus, with the NFL getting tough on agents (see Dunn), I don't think an agent would want to be involved in that kind of thing for fear of getting his reputation tarnished and his livelyhood ruined.
The theory is flawed, becasue the reason teams ask highly paid players to change contracts is that they are already up aginst the salary cap ceiling. The players rarely give back any money, however, as the easiest way to gain cap space is to take part of the players salary and make it a signing bonus. That way they can give the money now and prorate it to future years, when the cap will be higher. the only players it works on are the ones that make more than the minimum., or guys like manning. The NFL contract requires teams to pay players at least the minimum each year, and it can't include any signing bonus money.
It's called salary cap hell. Remember when the cowboys and the 49'rs had to purge themselves in the 90's for overspending on aged players.
But what I propose is an option for a player to make back any money if the money isn't spent. Say a team is in salary cap hell, and it wants to cut the cost of its star quarterback who happens to be named McNair. Well that team could cut him, or ask him to restructure, or it could offer him a restructuring where the player would lose the money so long as it was actually spent, say to allow a team to sign their draft picks or something like that. This would insure him against a team deciding not to spend that money and just to pocket the amount that the kind player gave back to the team. Basically the entire point of my suggestion is that a player who is going to be making many tens of millions of dollars in his career might give up a small bite sized morsel of that so that his team would suck less, but at the same time he wouldn't be just accepting a lower salary on the notion that his team might spend that money elsewhere. Like the patriots currently have a ton of cap room, and the eagles always have a ton of cap room. Under my suggestion, a guy like Tom Brady could sign an extension for huge money, but he would give up a certain amount of his salary each season if his team had their team salaries above a certain number. I'm sure there are complicated notions here, like the complex maths that teams do with bonuses likely and not likely to be earned and stuff like that, but all of that is just gravy for lawyers to work out.
I think the basic idea of it is perfectly sound if you are willing to accept that a player might be worth more than a team could pay him and still pay their other players, and if you are willing to accept that a player in such a situation might be willing to forego a small amount of his money so that his team could sign some valuable veterans and make a playoff run. In my mind, if Carl Malone, who was accustomed to making like 18mil per, can play for the low-level exception for a year in hopes of a championship, then a guy like brett favre can reduce his salary by 2-3 million so the packers could bring in some stronger depth at certain positions.
I think a problem with your sugesstion would be that, if the star QB is giving up a chunk of his $$ for the team, will he want a say in where it goes? How would that turn out? I like your idea, but star players would probably be reluctant to keep their nose out of the front office/head coaches business when it came to spending THEIR money.
Christopher Wallace wrote: I like your idea, but star players would probably be reluctant to keep their nose out of the front office/head coaches business when it came to spending THEIR money.
Exactly the reason the owners would never allow that sort of contractual linkage to the cap.
