High Comedy from Hobson

[*ochocincos*]

(02-22-2021, 01:17 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here are the rollover figures I could find dating back to 2013.

2013 - 10 million
2014 - 8.7 million
2015 - 8.7 million
2016 - 7.5 million
2017 - 6.5 mllion
2018 - 11.5 million
2019 - 7.4 million
2020 - 10.7 million

Now keep in mind, this isn't necessarily an exact amount of unused cap space.  Teams can choose how much to rollover. (Ex: Team A has 15 million in unspent cap space, but has elected to rollover 10 million, leaving 5 million permenantly unusued)  So from these numbers all we can tell is that these are unused, but they could be higher.

Now what I took exception with Hobson saying is that we've only left 1 million on the table in 10 years.  He claimed we had spent 1.49 billion againt a total of 1.50 billion in cap space.  That means we had used 99.333% of what we could have spent.

I'm sorry, there is no way this is true.  I can't even find the figures prior to 2013 but I definitely remember stockpiling money in 2011 and 2012 when Andy and AJ were on rookie deals.  (Remember the "Andy and AJ Fund"?)

Fwiw, I don't even have a problem with the Bengals overall spending as it relates to the cap.  I may fault how they choose to spend it, but I don't fault the total dollars invested.  Ever since the floor requirements came to be I think pretty much all teams are responsable in terms of spending.  They're all withing a percentage point or two from each other.

What I do have a problem with is Hobson's blatant lies.  This is just another example.  You can clearly see we're leaving money on the table and kicking the can down the road with rollover (that's fine), yet he acts like we always spend everything we possible can in a given season (we don't).

It's no different than how he tricks people into believing you have to account for an exact rookie pool number to be subtratcting from spending.  Thus ignoring cuts to make room for the rookies, some rookies not counting against the top 51, etc.  It's no different than his "injury settlements" spiel, or any other number of garbage he spews.

This guy provides more disinofrmation than any sports writer I've ever seen .  And it's a shame you need a PHD in cap space and to be a math majory to actually follow along with what we can actually spend.  It shouldn't be this complicated.  And it's not anywhere else.  Fans just know their teams will spend what they can, do the best they can, and the numbers will somehow work out.  But here, this guy does so much to create doubt and confusion that no one knows what to believe.

/rantover

That's been the Bengals MO for the past decade.

They stockpiled some cap quite a few years ago and basically now roll over about that much year-after-year. It's allowed them to spend just around the regular cap every year since.
However, because they've been sitting on this $7-11 mill every year, it's basically irrelevant. One would hope someday they hope to spend enough to only have $3 mill remaining or less, but perhaps they don't want to do that until they can at least win a playoff game and therefore have better confidence that money can push the team into SB contender.
It's worth noting they also don't ever seem to do things like converting roster bonus and/or base salary into signing bonus that will then be spread out across the remaining years. It technically kicks the can down the road, but it helps "win now" because you have more cap to improve your team in the short term.

So if you're at a birds-eye view of Bengals cap spending, you can easily say they spend their fair share. However, the devil is in the details. They don't restructure, they don't give a lot of guaranteed money, and they overpay for mediocre talent occasionally (especially with internal FAs).

They'll likely reserve $7-11 mill yet again this offseason that will ultimately be rolled over into 2022, but hopefully they at least acquire some good talent and trim the fat with some current guys who are not offering enough bang for their buck.