03-21-2022, 02:59 PM
(03-21-2022, 02:39 PM)fredtoast Wrote: You can't "buy" cap space. You can just pay to move it to later years.
And "dead cap" does matter. This year the Saints have $29 million in dead cap space while the Bengals have only $4.6 million. So no matter what moves the Saints do to create more "cap space" the fact is that they are starting out almost $25 million behind the Bengals. So even if they somehow come up with the same "cap space" it means they are spending $25 million less than the Bengals in payments to players on their roster.
Yes you can because you never have to face repercussions for it through moving different people's money around in different years. The Saints have been over the cap by at least 15 million each of the last 6 years heading into the off season, some years as much as 40 million, but it never hinders their ability to sign people. As long as you are committed to the ponzi scheme it can go on in perpetuity. The one caveat is I believe in a potential "uncapped" year like what happened leading into CBA negotiations one season it would come due.
Your second statement here is actually false when you say they are spending "$25 million less than the Bengals on players on their roster", which is actually my point. By cap they may be, but the cap is simply an accounting method but does not measure actual money spent on players in any given year. Void years and restructures are tools used to manipulate this fact. By paying CASH this year I can only have a cap hit that is minimal while paying them way more this year than that number. So teams that don't use these tools may be more hindered by the cap because their initial cap hits for players are more in year 1 than people using void years.
Interestingly we have started to use void years, last year with Reiff and now with Collins.
