Cap hit question9 bonus vs no bonus

[PMO]

I know I can test this out but I am at work and currently can not.........here is an easy example of what I wanna know. Lions re-sign Stafford to a 5yr 100M contract.............

1. Total is 5yrs 100M with 40M bonus, so still total 100M. Cap hits are somewhere around 11, 14, 18, 22, 30M a year (which annoys me that all contracts are back loaded BTW!!!)

2. Total is 5yrs 100M with 0M bonus and giving him 20M per year. Are the Cap hits any different?

If they are not different then this would be the easy way to go since you can then cut players at any time with no penalty at all.

I know the bonus is suppose to to entice them more to sign and blah blah blah but even if you were to give them a bit more per year I think its worth it to sign all players with no Bonus (Guaranteed money)

[CM Hooe]

Foremost, someone please correct me if I'm wrong about any of the below, going off memory here.

In Madden you cut a player with a signing bonus in his contract during the regular season, the bonus accelerates against your current year's cap as a cap penalty. If I recall correctly, if you cut a player with a bonus in his contract during the offseason, the total remaining bonus beyond the current year of the contract accelerates onto the cap for the following season.

A big signing bonus will increase a player's chances of signing with your team, as you alluded to. Backloading contracts is ideal for the team as well in most cases because it allows a team to spend more money on more players now (to gear up for a Super Bowl run in the immediately subsequent season) and push off the monetary consequences until later. If the player ends up being worth the money all years of the contract, that's great. If he declines, you cut him, take the cap penalty, and draft his replacement. Cap problems will arise if you take the latter approach too many times, obviously.

The one big missing contract mechanic in Madden (emphasis mine because it's become increasingly important in NFL cap management over the past few years) is the ability to restructure player contracts, where the player will convert his entire salary for the current year into a guaranteed signing bonus and reduce his current year's base salary, typically all the way down to the veteran minimum. This decreases the cap hit for the current year and gives the player money in his pocket immediately, but also increases the cap penalty in later stags of the contract should the player be cut before the contract expires.

A recent example to illustrate the salary cap dynamics of a contract restructure - Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald recently agreed to a contract restructure with his team. Originally, Fitzgerald was scheduled to have a salary cap value north of $18 million. By restructuring his contract, Fitzgerald was handed an immediate payment of nearly $12 million and his salary cap value for the 2014 season was reduced to $8.6 million. However, his salary cap impact for each remaining year on his contract beyond 2014 (his contract runs through 2018, if I recall correctly) increased by nearly $2.5 million.

[PMO]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Foremost, someone please correct me if I'm wrong about any of the below, going off memory here. In Madden you cut a player with a signing bonus in his contract during the regular season, the bonus accelerates against your current year's cap as a cap penalty. If I recall correctly, if you cut a player with a bonus in his contract during the offseason, the total remaining bonus beyond the current year of the contract accelerates onto the cap for the following season. A big signing bonus will increase a player's chances of signing with your team, as you alluded to. Backloading contracts is ideal for the team as well in most cases because it allows a team to spend more money on more players now (to gear up for a Super Bowl run in the immediately subsequent season) and push off the monetary consequences until later. If the player ends up being worth the money all years of the contract, that's great. If he declines, you cut him, take the cap penalty, and draft his replacement. Cap problems will arise if you take the latter approach too many times, obviously. The one big missing contract mechanic in Madden (emphasis mine because it's become increasingly important in NFL cap management over the past few years) is the ability to restructure player contracts, where the player will convert his entire salary for the current year into a guaranteed signing bonus and reduce his current year's base salary, typically all the way down to the veteran minimum. This decreases the cap hit for the current year and gives the player money in his pocket immediately, but also increases the cap penalty in later stags of the contract should the player be cut before the contract expires. A recent example to illustrate the salary cap dynamics of a contract restructure - Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald recently agreed to a contract restructure with his team. Originally, Fitzgerald was scheduled to have a salary cap value north of $18 million. By restructuring his contract, Fitzgerald was handed an immediate payment of nearly $12 million and his salary cap value for the 2014 season was reduced to $8.6 million. However, his salary cap impact for each remaining year on his contract beyond 2014 (his contract runs through 2018, if I recall correctly) increased by nearly $2.5 million.

I completely agree you with 100%. My big question is if you give someone a big Bonus aka Garunteed money is their cap hits per year significantly lower like they are in real life.

When talking about cap hits is there any difference between a 5yr 100M contract where 40M is Guaranteed, a 5yr 100M contract where 0M is guaranteed and a 5yr 100M contracts where all 100M is guaranteed?

That is my big question right there, this can easily be tested I am just not home right now.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by PMO

I completely agree you with 100%. My big question is if you give someone a big Bonus aka Garunteed money is their cap hits per year significantly lower like they are in real life. When talking about cap hits is there any difference between a 5yr 100M contract where 40M is Guaranteed, a 5yr 100M contract where 0M is guaranteed and a 5yr 100M contracts where all 100M is guaranteed? That is my big question right there, this can easily be tested I am just not home right now.

In short, yes. The signing bonus is evenly distributed over the entire contract while the base salary back-loads. So, in Madden, a 5-year $100M contract with all $100M in signing bonus will have a hit of $20M each year, while a 5-year $100M contract with no guaranteed money will increase significantly in value every year.

As far as I know, it is impossible in Madden to offer a player a contract with a structure similar to what CB Darrelle Revis has with Tampa Bay in real life, where Revis simply has a $16M effective base salary flat over all years of the contract and no guaranteed money.

[PMO]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

In short, yes. The signing bonus is evenly distributed over the entire contract while the base salary back-loads. So, in Madden, a 5-year $100M contract with all $100M in signing bonus will have a hit of $20M each year, while a 5-year $100M contract with no guaranteed money will increase significantly in value every year. As far as I know, it is impossible in Madden to offer a player a contract with a structure similar to what CB Darrelle Revis has with Tampa Bay in real life, where Revis simply has a $16M effective base salary flat over all years of the contract and no guaranteed money.

Correct you can not do that, now past football video games allowed us to choose if we wanted a front loaded, balanced or back loaded contract to offer. I am still not sure at all why we can not do that in today's game.

1. Back load a young kid so if he turns out bad you cut him before his big numbers kick in
2. Balance a star, I.E. Revis
3. Front load a veteran, pay him to help you in the 1st few years then let him go as he ages or pay him that lower pay

Makes no sense why in my Lions career Stafford wants a 6yr 145M contract at age 30............from loaded yes it would make sense, or possibly balanced but thats scary. To have this contract back loaded is absurd, his cap hit at age 36 is like $39M!!!

[CM Hooe]

Open question on my part - does the NFL even allow front-loaded contracts? Do they happen often?

The only one I can remember is the contract extension Miles Austin received from the Cowboys, in which he received $17 million base salary in the first year of the deal (the uncapped year). The league later slapped a cap penalty unto the Cowboys (and Redskins) for treating the uncapped year as a year without a salary cap and specifically called out Austin's contract as a reason for the penalty. I may still be bitter about that, lol. Not saying that a front-loaded contract hasn't happened since then, I'm just unaware of one.

If the game were to support different contract structures in the future, I would hope for a redesign of the user interface to go along with that so that the user can have a better understanding of the cap implications of each contract type.

I'd also personally would want to see a contract restructuring gameplay mechanic get into the game first, given that contract restructures are, from my perspective, far more frequent in today' NFL.

[PMO]

I completely agree....... Most NFL contracts are guaranteed money front loaded. Any 5-7 year deal you can be sure all there money is within the first 3 years then the team can cut them after that with no problems.

[jwagner82]

Quote: Originally Posted by PMO

I completely agree....... Most NFL contracts are guaranteed money front loaded. Any 5-7 year deal you can be sure all there money is within the first 3 years then the team can cut them after that with no problems.

Well, giving him a HUGE signing bonus is the best way to "front-load" it. Either way, madden's cap/FA has serious issues. I noticed no one offered Demarius Thomas an offer, so i threw up something a good 10 mil under his asking price. He accepted within 2 weeks. Now, A friggin' backup center I went after, gave him a 1m signing bonus on top of his asking price and he said no. Along with Justin Houston asking for $12M a year, and no one picked him up, he's SITTING in FA still asking for 8.5 on a 1 year deal. Week 1 of the regular season and he's still not on a team. I think it's a little obscene because I think he would have taken a bit less. I even offered him 8M a year for 2 years before FA Bidding ended, and he still said no, even though he's asking for less now. The whole money situation needs work