Please help me understand cap penalties!
 

I just got the game. I made a bunch of trades and signed some free agents during my first season with the Cowboys. THe next year, I had about 10.9 million in penalties. How did this happen. Also, I had some money under the cap the first year after the trades. Now I am way past the cap. Could someone please explain how I you get penalties? What is the benefit of giving a guy a bigger/smaller signing bonues?

Thanks

Re: Please help me understand cap penalties!
 

If you trade a player, all of his signing bonus gets "accelerated" to the next year's salary cap. If you release a player it does the same thing.

Here's an example...

You sign John Doe to a 5 year contract and give him a 5 million dollar signing bonus. His signing bonus counts 1 million toward your cap space every year. Now, after the first year you decide to trade him. The remaining 4 million of the signing bonus will get counted against your salary cap the next season.

General rule of thumb, don't give a player a big signing bonus unless you are absolutely sure that you want to keep them until the end of their contract.

Re: Please help me understand cap penalties!
 

Thanks,

When I started signing people I had lots of cap space. I was hoping that all the bonus would come out of that years money. Thanks for clarifying that.

Manny