How do extensions work?

[*Synric*]

(02-01-2023, 02:12 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: The misconception is some fans don't understand how a lot of these long term contracts are written. They key is the upfront bonus teams can pay and then defer the bonus money over the life of the contract. This is why we see cap hits a lot less in the early years and higher in the latter years. The player cares about the guarantee as they means the team cares about the cash outlay and the cap hit (both have minimums to be met to stay in compliance). So it is not an easy to calculate a 5 year 100 million contract extension for 5 years by doing simple math of 100 million divided by 5 years = 20 million dollar cap hit each year.

A great resource is Spotrac. I like it as it has many years of date, shows team by team spend and cap hit (2 different things) and even projects the following year by division with an in depth analytics. For example, the Ravens have 28.8 million in cap space, but they do not have Jackson under contract. The problem the Ravens have is they can't simply extend him to lower their cap hit, they franchise him and they literally have to restructure contracts or cut someone as tag for QB's is 32.4 million in 2023 I believe.

Sorry, for the long post, I love discussing the cap.

You are absolutely correct the salary cap is easily manipulated and you didn't even mention a void year you can add onto the back of some not all contracts to spread out the cap hits a slightly bit more. Thry can also do things that fans would hate like roll over 8mil this year and double that with 8 mil in 2024 to make the first big hit year of Burrows contract to be jsut a slight bit smaller part of the cap.


Although you forgot to mention the one detail that makes it difficult to front load all these huge contracts "The Guaranteed Money." What do you say the over under on 350mil of just guaranteed money the next two offseasons without extending Higgins? All that has to be liquid in escrow and that's alot.