Roster Bonuses & the Cap

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-02-2021, 01:24 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Lot of talk that cap will be 175 million versus 210 million projected one year ago. If so, many teams did not prepare for a major reduced salary cap in 2021 so decisions will have to be made,

https://overthecap.com/contract-triggers-calendar/

It appears player contracts activate the roster bonus portion based on their contract, but all by the start of free agency and the new league year.

Very soon we may start seeing cap casualties. No team wants to pay a roster bonus if they are not certain, they can honor the rest of the contract or negotiate a new one. A cut player does not count when calculating comp. picks so no impact on the future potential draft comp. picks.

Teams like the Bengals who did a great job managing the cap (did not do a lot else well) should benefit in 2021.

I think this may be huge year for Bengals in FA.

Thoughts?

Thoughts are I would rather the Bengals have benefitted from trying harder earlier, if it meant that their cap situation was a mess now.

The 10 teams in worst cap space problems right now?

Saints (4 playoffs, 1 NFCC game in the last 5 years)
Eagles (3 playoffs, 1 NFCC win, 1 SB win in the last 5 years)
Falcons (2 playoffs, 1 NFCC win in the last 5 years)
Steelers (3 playoffs, 1 AFCC game in the last 5 years)
Packers (3 playoffs, 3 NFCC games in the last 5 years)
Rams (3 playoffs, 1 NFCC win in the last 5 years)
Chiefs (5 playoffs, 3 AFCC games/2 wins, 1 SB win and another SB to play in the last 5 years)
Texans (3 playoffs in the last 5 years)
Vikings (2 playoffs in the last 5 years)
Bears (2 playoffs in the last 5 years)

The 7 worst cap situations have all been to a conference championship game in the last 5 years. Bengals need to stop "saving" for extensions 3 years from now and start getting the most possible talent they can squeeze out of cap space, no matter how they must manipulate it. Even if it results in a 2 year "reckoning" down the road, is that worse than losing for 5 years with no real hope anyway?

The Patriots started their cap reckoning this year, and I am sure they'd gladly keep the 3 SB wins over the previous 6 years even if they knew it would mean a couple years in 2020-2021 of pain.