2009 Cap

[Keith]

Shadowy capologist AdamJT13 posted at KFFL what teams used the Philly Loophole to increase their 2009 cap space and by how much. Take the link to read it in full detail (27 of the 32 teams took advantage of the loophole this year).

Pertinent to the Texans is this:

Houston -- $2,032,327
...
Houston -- Mike Brisiel $2,032,327

So, this is interesting for a couple reasons.
(1) The Texans finished the 2008 season somwhere shy of $3 million in available space (last credible figure I seem to remember having was around $2.41 million, yes the ItB.com page is a little out of date in that regard). The # above forwarded to 2009 shows a minimum of available space left in 2008.
(2) It obviously reflects some additional purchasing power in 2009, but it ranks around 21st if I counted down correctly, so please hold your cartwheels.
(3) In order to forward this sum, the Texans had to of renegotiated a contract with Brisiel... something which not surprisingly eluded our local media. Basically the team inserted a junk incentive very late in the season into Brisiel's contract; the extent to which the rest of his contract was altered is at this time unknown.

Brisiel had been scheduled to become a ERFA this offseason. The NFLPA currently shows him under contract for 2009 at a minimum base salary ($460k) for someone with his # of years. Other similarly situated players, like Earl Cochran, don't appear to have been tendered yet.

[Keith]

A few sites are trying to pull together cap data for all teams as they look ahead to the opening of the UFA signing window on 2/27. AsktheCommish is one such site, and like our cap page here, they acknowledge that the data is unofficial and compiled largely from NFLPA and "various media sources" (as I'm guessing USAToday and even ItB.com might qualify).

Anyhoo, the Texans rank 10th on this list with the most available cap room. I've seen another adjusted for the forwarded cap space from 2008 that ranks the team around 11th.

http://www.askthecommish.com/salarycap/numbers.asp

Most striking to me is that the Cardinals, defending NFC champs, are 2nd with roughly $41 million available. The Titans are 5th.

So while 11th puts the Texans closer to the middle of the pack than way out in front, it does represent the team's ability to re-sign all they players they choose. It also affords them an opportunity to take a hard look at other UFAs as well.

We are nearing the end of the calm here (if you discount the Outside the Lines thriller)... in another two weeks or so, we're going to be busting with some news.

[jppaul]

As long as we can afford to resign Dunta, Demeco, and Daniels, I am good.

[Keith]

I've updated the 2009 salary cap page to reflect some recent changes. I'm in a rush at the moment, but I'll probably write up something here later about key points, plus I plan to do one final clean-up of the 2008 cap page later tonight as well.

http://www.inthebullseye.com/cap2009.html

[Keith]

Some good news on the ItB.com '09 cap estimate....

PFT.com seems to think they have solid info on all 32 teams' 2009 cap expenditures. For the Texans, they estimate $101 million (or about $22-23 million available) as of yesterday. I wish they would have reported this number out another couple of digits.

Regardless, since I would guess that this figure does not include the recently announced cuts of Green and Greenwood, that would lower the cap committments by $4.868 million for Greenwood and (roughly) $5 million for Green, for a total of about $10 million...

Meaning, with the PFT figure adjusted down to roughly $91 million, this falls very closely in line with the $91.4 million I have now on the ItB.com cap page.

[Nconroe]

Thanks again Keith for all this detail work and update to the 2009 cap nos.

I was wondering, the guys down on bottom of payscale , that were perhaps on practice squad, if they are cut, does that stay on cap or go away?

And just for discussion, if Demps were cut how much cap would that save?

[Keith]

For any players cut, the dead money remains. Cap-wise, a few of them don't really get a true signing bonus, sometimes just the standard workout bonuses. I don't detail each of these when they get cut, but I do keep track of them to sum their measly bonuses... they often add up to a couple hundred thousand or so.

As for Demps, if he were cut, the team would save the base salary of $2.35 million. The remaining bonus amortization for the final year of his contract would become $500k in dead money.

I think Demps (and possibly Weaver) haven't been cut yet because the team still feels like there's potential for him. With $30 million or so in cap room, there is no rush to move Demps since that base salary isn't guaranteed until Week 1. Might as well keep him through camp, especially since he (a) performed so well down the stretch in '07 and (b) might be worth keeping if the team needs bodies. Remember that C.C. Brown and Eugene Wilson are UFAs, at least at the moment.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Keith

I'll probably write up something here later about key points,

A couple things, mostly about Mario...
- It's official. Mario Williams is a badass. His performance to date has apparently allowed his contract to trigger a couple key functions, namely his ability to void the final two years (2010 and 2011). Fear not, per the original agreement, the Texans exercised the buyback option, but only at supercharged base salaries of $9.4 million and $13.6 million, respectively.

The buyback bonus is $8.5 million, and per my notes from a year ago, it was supposed to have been payable within two equal installments, the first on 3/15/2010 and the second one year later. Since it appears as though the option has already been bought back, I'm a little unclear as to whether this affects the 2009 cap right now. I don't think it does, which would be good if 2010 remains an uncapped year. Mario's cap figure will be ginormous in 2010 and 2011 if there is a salary cap.

- Chris Brown is still on the roster. I know, I'm surprised, too. He finished the 2008 season on IR, and apparently there was no injury settlement from what I can tell. Maybe he'll take care of the bug problem in the Reliant Stadium basement until the payroll glitch gets fixed.

Even though 2010 is looking like an uncapped year, I still intend to publish a 2010 cap page on the site when I get some time to put one together, hopefully in the next day or two. In spite of Williams' huge cap figure, the available cap space might have grown another $10 million or so. Given the # of teams with literally dozens of millions of cap room this year, I think it is a little easier to see why some owners think the players' piece of the pie is getting harder to stomach. Specific to the Texans... they have very little reason to "make it happen" when it comes to re-signing the UFAs and RFAs they want around (Dunta, Owen) and other key players (DeMeco, Pitts, Walter, K. Brown).

[papabear]

Keith- Wouldn't it make sense to sign Mario to a long term extension...maybe after this year, to spread out the cap hit?

[nero THE zero]

Originally Posted by papabear

Keith- Wouldn't it make sense to sign Mario to a long term extension...maybe after this year, to spread out the cap hit?

You'd have to think he'd have Jared Allen/(new)Julius Peppers money coming to him. Regardless, I can't imagine an argument against signing him long term.

You gotta pay to have one of the best DE in the league.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by papabear

Keith- Wouldn't it make sense to sign Mario to a long term extension...maybe after this year, to spread out the cap hit?

Well, cap hit may be irrelevant after this year. And an extension would mean more up front bonus money (probably in excess of the base salary). I think to avoid some uncapped year rules in '09/'10, they would probably wait until early 2011 or so to do this.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Keith

Shadowy capologist AdamJT13 posted at KFFL what teams used the Philly Loophole to increase their 2009 cap space and by how much. Take the link to read it in full detail (27 of the 32 teams took advantage of the loophole this year).

Updating... AdamJT13 has posted the final adjusted cap amounts, and the Texans figure is $1,081,327. Since the team forwarded $2,032,327 via the LTBE loophole with Brisiel's extension, that means there were $951,000 in NLTBE incentives earned (the majority of which were for Mario, plus that lowered that forwarded amount.

So, bottom line is that with a $127.05 million cap in 2009, the Texans' actual starting cap space will be adjusted upward to $128,131,327.

[Keith]

PFT believes they have peeked at some cap room #s as of 4/22.

Houston Texans: $10.75 million.

The ItB.com cap page reflects about $14.4 million right now, and it hasn't been this far off in a long time (though 3% or so isn't too bad I guess). Not sure the source of the difference, but hopefully I'll get some cleaner info this summer.

[nero THE zero]

I don't understand how a team with ~$1M in cap room can function when it still has to sign its draft picks and inevitably sign street FA through the course of the season.

[Roy P]

Originally Posted by nero THE zero

I don't understand how a team with ~$1M in cap room can function when it still has to sign its draft picks and inevitably sign street FA through the course of the season.

They make cap casualties before June 1st, right?

[Keith]

There's no significance to June 1st this year with the expiring CBA.

But yeah, the teams are going to have to cut or restructure, but not until they are ready to actually ink the draft picks, which probably won't be until mid- to late-July for most teams.

What I can't understand re: the Texans cap is how they apparently lost another $2 million or so in cap room from the last report with no reported moves I haven't already accounted for. Something is either wrong or unreported.

With this possibly being the last cap year, it makes no sense to try to accelerate cap hits with the extra space for this year (since they are already above the floor), so I'm a bit lost at the moment. Hopefully this will get resolved in the next month or two.

[Keith]

Teams were informed by the league Wednesday that the 2009 cap is jumping by almost $1 million to $128 million, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told FOXSports.com. ...

The latest increase is $947,000. Aiello said the extra money, which resulted from accounting figures that were finalized in May, would normally be applied toward the following year's cap. That isn't possible for 2010 because this will be the final year of the cap unless the league reaches agreement with the NFL Players Association on a new CBA. ...

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/9...llion-to-$128M

I'll update the ItB cap page as soon as I resolve a hardware issue I'm experiencing.