Cincinnati Bengals Message Board / Forums - Home of Jungle Noise

(02-17-2025, 12:31 AM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: [ -> ]No doubt. The spin has been egregious around this joint. 

Spin? What, you don't think we need to keep $20MM on the side for emergency in-season signings?? /s

(02-23-2025, 06:03 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, i was looking at it wrong. I was thinking the guarantee is part of the salary that is figured year by year. 

So it's the full amount, beyond the first year (signing bonus + salary) that has to be put aside. 

Burrow:
Total guaranteed $219M
2023 salary $1M + $40M signing bonus = $41M
Escrow $178M
**it's at this point i'm starting to get a real headache**

Orlando Brown:
Total guaranteed $31.1M
2023 salary $1.5M + $31.1M signing bonus
Escrow 0

Trey is similar to OBj. $8M guarantee, $8M signing bonus.
Escrow 0

If Chase gets something similar to Jefferson it should look something like this: (these are jefferson's numbers. Chase will be higher but structure about the same)
Total guaranteed $110M
2025 salary $1.5M + $37M signing bonus = $47.5M
Escrow $62.5M

Total for those 4 players, approx $241M

Even if the signing bonuses don't go into escrow, that's still liquid cash that you needed to instantly no longer have. It doesn't make sense to exclude that.

Also the Trey extension this offseason is going to be more than $8m signing bonus. It's probably going to be a 3yr/75-90m extension with $45m-ish guaranteed.

(02-23-2025, 01:50 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]**** me running with this damn laptop! I had a gigantic post all typed out and i was down to my last line or two and i fat palmed something and it all disappeared...mfsob. Here's the end of the post.

Look at it this way. The Bengals are valued at roughly $4B. Liquid assets should be about 2-10% of value, depending on individual wants and needs. The Bengals are in a business that requires them to put large sums of money in escrow for guarantees, just like every other NFL franchise. If their liquid is only 5% of that 4B, that means they have 200,000,000 cash available to put in escrow, which would be about 37M more than the Eagles who have the largest amount of money in guarantees right now. 

The average NFL operating expense for an NFL franchise in 2023 was 541M. In 2023 the Bengals received 549M in revenue sharing. That means the NFL paid for 100% of the Bengals operating expenses for the 2023 season. The NFL has paid for at least a portion of the Bengals expenditures for a loooong while now. 

Anyone trying to say the Bengals simply can't pay whatever other teams pay, are "cash poor" or whatever hobspin someone wants to put on it, is either trolling or not willing to look at or believe the large sums of money the team has made for many years and how they've had heaps of money dropped on them for the last 10+ years. 

INb4 someone yells, "they barely broke even!!!!". Don't forget they get to keep 100% of ticket sales, concessions and corporate sponsorships.

*Sigh*

You do understand the NFL gave up it's tax exempt status in 2015, right?

So the big $549 million dollar revenue sharing check you think covered everything, they actually only got about half of after taxes. 

You do realize you pay taxes on income.... right?  

Someone trying to tell you that the Revenue Sharing check covers all the expenses is either trolling or refuses to admit that they simply don't know enough about the topic at hand to anything resembling an educated opinion on it 

Its debatable that escrow is even a thing according to Mike Florio from Pro Football talk!

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfls-funding-rule-isnt-mandatory-did-the-browns-make-escrow-payment-for-deshaun-watson-deal

(02-23-2025, 07:26 PM)J24 Wrote: [ -> ]Its debatable that escrow is even a thing according to Mike Florio from Pro Football talk!

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfls-funding-rule-isnt-mandatory-did-the-browns-make-escrow-payment-for-deshaun-watson-deal

I've seen this article brought up several times.  But Florio never followed up on it as far as I know.  See near the end of the article:

Quote:For now, the question is whether the NFL required the Browns to do it for Watson. If the league didn’t, some may wonder whether the funding rule is, at this point, nothing more than a phony device used by teams as an excuse to not give full guarantees.

And it would seem to strengthen any argument that teams and the league are colluding to refuse to fully guarantee contracts.

Then nothing more on the topic from him that I saw which seems odd as that is the kind of thing he tends to get obsessed over IMO.

Edit:  After more digging I did see this posted by him the next day.  But can't find any more on the topic. 

It just seems odd to me if there is not an escrow requirement that it hasn't been discussed more by the sports media outside of a few posts on PFT. 

So when does Hobson write his annual article of tge bengals only having enough money to give 1 guy a ham sandwich in FA this year?

(02-23-2025, 06:33 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: [ -> ]Even if the signing bonuses don't go into escrow, that's still liquid cash that you needed to instantly no longer have. It doesn't make sense to exclude that.

Also the Trey extension this offseason is going to be more than $8m signing bonus. It's probably going to be a 3yr/75-90m extension with $45m-ish guaranteed.

Right. It's not being excluded. They've already been paying the signing bonus' at the time of signing. That won't change. They're allowed to spread out the cost for "cap purposes" but they don't actually pay that money each year. It's paid in a lump sum at signing. I don't see them ever having a problem paying SBs. 

Trey will be 30 when he signs his next contract. If they give him a 20%ish bump and sign him at 25M per year; 3yr/75M with 45M guaranteed, i would imagine they give him about 30M signing bonus. 

45M guaranteed
15M salary + 30M signing bonus
Escrow  0

They could lower the SB or lower the salary and put say 10M in escrow. 

45M guaranteed
10M salary + 25M signing bonus
Escrow 10M

In a shorter contract though, it doesn't make as much sense to drop the initial salary that far down since it would escalate quickly and effect the cap. 

Regardless, i'm obviously no cap expert but what's being asked of them, that their hesitant to do right now, is put money aside, on top of what they're already paying, for future use and no matter how you slice it, they have the money. It might hurt and they certainly would prefer not to do it...but they can do it.

I'll point back to my post about what they've accumulated over the last couple decades where the NFL has paid most if not all their operating expenses with revenue sharing and they keep 100% of tickets, concessions and (lately) corp sponsorship. 

They.Have.The.Money.

(02-23-2025, 07:50 PM)George Cantstandya Wrote: [ -> ]I've seen this article brought up several times.  But Florio never followed up on it as far as I know.  See near the end of the article:


Then nothing more on the topic from him that I saw which seems odd as that is the kind of thing he tends to get obsessed over IMO.

Edit:  After more digging I did see this posted by him the next day.  But can't find any more on the topic. 

It just seems odd to me if there is not an escrow requirement that it hasn't been discussed more by the sports media outside of a few posts on PFT. 

No one has ever been penalized nor has anything ever been brought up about a team not putting money in escrow. It's also not an 'nfl law' that it has to be done. 

The wording in the CBA says "The NFL may require..."

Section 9. Funding of Deferred and Guaranteed Contracts: The NFL may require
that by a prescribed date certain, each Club must deposit into a segregated account the
present value, calculated using the Discount Rate, less $15,000,000 (the “Deductible”), of
deferred and guaranteed compensation owed by that Club with respect to Club funding
of Player Contracts involving deferred or guaranteed compensation; provided, however,
that with respect to guaranteed contracts, the amount of unpaid compensation for past or
future services to be included in the funding calculation shall not exceed seventy-five
(75%) percent of the total amount of the contract compensation. 

https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/website/PDFs/CBA/March-15-2020-NFL-NFLPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-Final-Executed-Copy.pdf      Page 177

(02-23-2025, 09:36 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]No one has ever been penalized nor has anything ever been brought up about a team not putting money in escrow. It's also not an 'nfl law' that it has to be done. 

The wording in the CBA says "The NFL may require..."

Section 9. Funding of Deferred and Guaranteed Contracts: The NFL may require
that by a prescribed date certain, each Club must deposit into a segregated account the
present value, calculated using the Discount Rate, less $15,000,000 (the “Deductible”), of
deferred and guaranteed compensation owed by that Club with respect to Club funding
of Player Contracts involving deferred or guaranteed compensation; provided, however,
that with respect to guaranteed contracts, the amount of unpaid compensation for past or
future services to be included in the funding calculation shall not exceed seventy-five
(75%) percent of the total amount of the contract compensation. 

https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/website/PDFs/CBA/March-15-2020-NFL-NFLPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement-Final-Executed-Copy.pdf      Page 177

Yep that "may" language is what got Florio going on about but then he just seems to have abandoned the topic.

So if escrow isn't a requirement why are you on about it since it doesn't matter?  :)

(02-23-2025, 12:58 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]I posted the amount of guarantees for each team in the upcoming year. If an NFL owner can't escrow between 100 and 200M dollars, they shouldn't be in the NFL business.

(02-23-2025, 05:10 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ]They only have to escrow the portion that is due that year. 

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/cincinnati-bengals
https://overthecap.com/player/joe-burrow/8741

(02-23-2025, 01:50 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: [ -> ] The Bengals are in a business that requires them to put large sums of money in escrow for guarantees, just like every other NFL franchise

I'm not trying to be argumentative here.  I'm just saying from what I read the topic was brought up by a somewhat controversial writer and then I've never seen it go beyond that.  I think that would be a fairly big deal for the NFL if there was a loophole there and would be widely reported.  Or maybe it is some information us fans are not privy to.  :)

I don't know.  Perhaps as a start someone interested in the topic could look at the Packers books and see if they are putting money in to escrow for their guaranteed contracts since they are a publicly owned team.
  

(02-23-2025, 05:28 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: [ -> ]You have that backwards. They need to escrow the guarantee the parts that AREN'T due that year, because the whole point of it all was to protect the guaranteed money to make sure it's there for the player in the future.

The parts due this year are getting paid out, so they're the only part that isn't escrowed since you're not going to escrow something like a $40m signing bonus just to then un-escrow it 6 days later to pay it out or immediately un-escrow a roster bonus that is normally paid out March or June 1st.

(02-23-2025, 07:04 PM)Whatever Wrote: [ -> ]*Sigh*

You do understand the NFL gave up it's tax exempt status in 2015, right?

So the big $549 million dollar revenue sharing check you think covered everything, they actually only got about half of after taxes. 

You do realize you pay taxes on income.... right?  

Someone trying to tell you that the Revenue Sharing check covers all the expenses is either trolling or refuses to admit that they simply don't know enough about the topic at hand to anything resembling an educated opinion on it 

FTR, after getting a better understanding of the numbers, i have started to hedge a bit. Not because i don't think they can do it but because it's such a large leap to go from doing what they've been doing, to having to spend out so much more than they're used to. It seems like a large gap to get to where they need to be, so basically, this looks like it could be another frustrating off season. 

(02-23-2025, 07:26 PM)J24 Wrote: [ -> ]Its debatable that escrow is even a thing according to Mike Florio from Pro Football talk!

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfls-funding-rule-isnt-mandatory-did-the-browns-make-escrow-payment-for-deshaun-watson-deal

Don't give him clicks

(02-21-2025, 07:43 PM)Hammerstripes Wrote: [ -> ]Lol, no it's not.  Not when it's your only business.

It's no different that having a house that you bought in the 80s for 40k and now it's worth $1 million.  That doesn't mean you'll have a ton of cash just laying around.

I’m not saying they have the cash laying around. I’m saying they could get their hands on it if they wanted to. It is a business decision for them not to do so.