Cap Space for 2020

[DJ's left nut]

Yeah, here's my long-ass review on that from a different thread:

Spoiler!

The Chiefs have, with rollover, an 'adjusted cap' of $222 million. Let's just go to $220 million because there are probably some incentives that will trigger by the end of the year.

They have $198 million in commitments for next season ($190 plus about $8 million in dead money).

If they cut Watkins, that gets them another $14 million. A post June 1 cut of Hitchens frees up another $8 million. Cutting LDT frees up $5 million, Sorensen $3.75 million, Erving $4.6 million, Damien Williams $2.3 million and Colquitt $2 million.

So let's just cut all of 'em. That would free up another $39 million in space. The dead money charge for 2021 wouldn't be a lot of fun but you're 'forward funding' it by clearing rollover for next season. You're probably taking about $7 million off of that due to draft picks; we'll round down to $6 though.

All told the Chiefs could get to about $55 million in cap space for next season without any real long-term damage done. Now they'd do that without a swing tackle, no Jones, no starting LG, no MLB, no starting RB and only a couple of CBs under contract and little/no DL depth, but it's possible. If you presume they add 7 draft picks to the roster, that would also only have them at 40 players.

So with that $55 million let's assume they've added a CB in the 1st round. They'll need to find a couple of starting LBs, a potential starting CB, a couple of solid veteran CBs, a starting RB, a starting G, at least one starting LB (potentially 2 as Ragland and Lee are gone as well; Wilson's the only holdover starter at that point).

Let's say you need to add 6 guys who are either starters or at least guys like Okafor who are 'starter capable'. Would you say it's fair to average those sorts of guys at roughly $6 million/per? Let's be optimistic and say $5 million per. That soaks up about $30 million of that and you probably haven't added a single 'difference maker' in that lot; that's a whole lot of Okafor level talent you'd be adding.

So now you're up to 46 players with those additions AND draft picks. You're down to roughly $25 million in cap space. At that point you're really doing anything you can with Mahomes and his camp to ensure that his extension doesn't start until the 2021 season. He might do it - but he might not. It's just money he's leaving on the table. If he insists on ripping up the 4th year of his deal on an extension, you're adding at least $20 million to the cap and that's if you're fortunate enough to get his year 1 hit down to $25 million (in lieu of his existing $20 million).

Now you're just filling in the roster with minimum level guys. So unless you're going to bring back some of the above options in your '$5 million/season' pool, most if not all of them are gone.

We're essentially seeing the same thing.

There's not a lot of wiggle on this roster for next season at all. At best you're looking a a 40 man roster w/ $50 million in cap space and holes EVERYWHERE. And no Chris Jones.

The 'work' Veach has done the last 2 offseasons has landed this team directly in a shitty cap situation and has yielded next to no positive returns. When Mathieu at about 40% more than you'd have needed to pay him a year prior is the BEST outcome of your recent ventures into big-money deals, you really need to reconsider your approach.

Because Mathieu isn't even going to live up to his deal, let alone the other guys we've brought in.

[RunKC]

Veach’s offseason acquisitions were fine if you take out the 2 big deals. Actually HB isn’t bad considering he’s here 2 years and gets 1 big cap hit year.

Veach dug himself a hole but has pulled somewhat out of it with a contributing draft class with upside+acquisitions. More of that will make us just fine.

Trade Sammy for a 3rd (or 4th, whatever you can get), trade Jones for at least a 2nd and use Jones projected money to extend lower cost players.

Ogbah is absolutely a possibility to keep. He shouldn’t cost much now with his injury. Ward should not cost much. See if you can nab a corner like Chris Harris Jr. (who is still a plus player) for a fair price.

Then start swinging away in the draft. For a LB, RB and lineman. Use as many mid rd picks on linemen as you can. You never know if a Chase Winovich or Charles Omenihu is your pick.

Time to switch to the Seattle/Indy model

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by RunKC

Veach’s offseason acquisitions were fine if you take out the 2 big deals. Actually HB isn’t bad considering he’s here 2 years and gets 1 big cap hit year.

Veach dug himself a hole but has pulled somewhat out of it with a contributing draft class with upside+acquisitions. More of that will make us just fine.

Trade Sammy for a 3rd (or 4th, whatever you can get), trade Jones for at least a 2nd and use Jones projected money to extend lower cost players.

Ogbah is absolutely a possibility to keep. He shouldn’t cost much now with his injury. Ward should not cost much. See if you can nab a corner like Chris Harris Jr. (who is still a plus player) for a fair price.

Then start swinging away in the draft. For a LB, RB and lineman. Use as many mid rd picks on linemen as you can. You never know if a Chase Winovich or Charles Omenihu is your pick.

Time to switch to the Seattle/Indy model

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the rest of the play?

His major misses the last 2 years have been massive parts of the storyline in the 2019 season as well as the single biggest impediments to improvement in 2020.

Clark, Mathieu, Watkins and Hitchens (presuming Watkins is cut) will account for better than 1/4 of our salary cap next season. It's a full 1/3 if you toss Okafor in there.

I'm sorry, but you cannot hand-waive that and say "yeah, but Ogbah!"

He's done a lot more harm than good.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the rest of the play?

His major misses the last 2 years have been massive parts of the storyline in the 2019 season as well as the single biggest impediments to improvement in 2020.

Clark, Mathieu, Watkins and Hitchens (presuming Watkins is cut) will account for better than 1/4 of our salary cap next season. It's a full 1/3 if you toss Okafor in there.

I'm sorry, but you cannot hand-waive that and say "yeah, but Ogbah!"

He's done a lot more harm than good.

It doesn’t matter what money you shell out If you are getting cheap talent on rookie contracts.

Watkins and Clark were major problems but Ogbah and Hardman have made that equal with cheap productivity we were supposed to see from Clark and Watkins.

Veach needs to keep finding these type of guys and stop shelling out huge money to players not named Patrick Mahomes.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by RunKC

It doesn’t matter what money you shell out If you are getting cheap talent on rookie contracts.

Watkins and Clark were major problems but Ogbah and Hardman have made that equal with cheap productivity we were supposed to see from Clark and Watkins.

Veach needs to keep finding these type of guys and stop shelling out huge money to players not named Patrick Mahomes.

You think Ogbah and Hardman have given us DPOY and #1 WR output this year?

Because that's what we're paying for in Clark and Watkins, man.

Hardman's given us a credible gadget player and Ogbah has offset the mediocre/bad Okafor deal. Oh, and Ogbah's not even under CONTRACT for next season and that's what we're talking about right now - the damage he's done to next year's cap. Ogbah doesn't fit in that calculous right now (and will cost a lot more if/when he does) and Okafor's number goes up, making it even more likely that Ogbah simply becomes his replacement - not Clark's.

But Veach's ledger is still firmly in the red on those deals. Besides, to be a SB team you need contributions from cheap players AND representative performance from your expensive guys.

Even if they 'offset' (and they haven't) - that's still just a recipe for a 10 win squad.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, here's my long-ass review on that from a different thread:

Spoiler!

The Chiefs have, with rollover, an 'adjusted cap' of $222 million. Let's just go to $220 million because there are probably some incentives that will trigger by the end of the year.

They have $198 million in commitments for next season ($190 plus about $8 million in dead money).

If they cut Watkins, that gets them another $14 million. A post June 1 cut of Hitchens frees up another $8 million. Cutting LDT frees up $5 million, Sorensen $3.75 million, Erving $4.6 million, Damien Williams $2.3 million and Colquitt $2 million.

So let's just cut all of 'em. That would free up another $39 million in space. The dead money charge for 2021 wouldn't be a lot of fun but you're 'forward funding' it by clearing rollover for next season. You're probably taking about $7 million off of that due to draft picks; we'll round down to $6 though.

All told the Chiefs could get to about $55 million in cap space for next season without any real long-term damage done. Now they'd do that without a swing tackle, no Jones, no starting LG, no MLB, no starting RB and only a couple of CBs under contract and little/no DL depth, but it's possible. If you presume they add 7 draft picks to the roster, that would also only have them at 40 players.

So with that $55 million let's assume they've added a CB in the 1st round. They'll need to find a couple of starting LBs, a potential starting CB, a couple of solid veteran CBs, a starting RB, a starting G, at least one starting LB (potentially 2 as Ragland and Lee are gone as well; Wilson's the only holdover starter at that point).

Let's say you need to add 6 guys who are either starters or at least guys like Okafor who are 'starter capable'. Would you say it's fair to average those sorts of guys at roughly $6 million/per? Let's be optimistic and say $5 million per. That soaks up about $30 million of that and you probably haven't added a single 'difference maker' in that lot; that's a whole lot of Okafor level talent you'd be adding.

So now you're up to 46 players with those additions AND draft picks. You're down to roughly $25 million in cap space. At that point you're really doing anything you can with Mahomes and his camp to ensure that his extension doesn't start until the 2021 season. He might do it - but he might not. It's just money he's leaving on the table. If he insists on ripping up the 4th year of his deal on an extension, you're adding at least $20 million to the cap and that's if you're fortunate enough to get his year 1 hit down to $25 million (in lieu of his existing $20 million).

Now you're just filling in the roster with minimum level guys. So unless you're going to bring back some of the above options in your '$5 million/season' pool, most if not all of them are gone.

We're essentially seeing the same thing.

There's not a lot of wiggle on this roster for next season at all. At best you're looking a a 40 man roster w/ $50 million in cap space and holes EVERYWHERE. And no Chris Jones.

The 'work' Veach has done the last 2 offseasons has landed this team directly in a shitty cap situation and has yielded next to no positive returns. When Mathieu at about 40% more than you'd have needed to pay him a year prior is the BEST outcome of your recent ventures into big-money deals, you really need to reconsider your approach.

Because Mathieu isn't even going to live up to his deal, let alone the other guys we've brought in.

This aged well

[Walt White]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

This aged well

They are wrong about not living up to the contract. But I think it is true that it will take some cap wizardry to keep a lot of the roster or add anything decent. I don't know the NFL's cap as well, so I'm not sure on what all we can do. But hopefully we find a way to keep the roster strong.

[RunKC]

I think they can afford Chris Jones with Mahomes elite contract like they want to. I think they should consider some moves though.

1. If Sammy wants to stay here, he needs to drastically lower that cap hit. Dude is a luxury item who said he loves being here. Well Sammy, if you wanna stay, extend that deal by a year or two and lower that cap hit by at least 40%. He’s made $54 million in the league. That’s more than enough Sammy. Let us give you another nice signing bonus of $20 million so you can give us a couple more years of reasonable cap hits, okay?

2. Add 2 years to Kelce’s contract and lower that cap hit. He’s clearly a young 30 in only his 6th year playing. That will lower the cap right now for rollover purposes.

3. Obviously get rid of expendable contracts like Cam Erving.

While we’re at it, I’d add a year to Damien Wilson’s contract. He has more than earned that. He’s still very cheap.

[Walt White]

Originally Posted by RunKC

I think they can afford Chris Jones with Mahomes elite contract like they want to. I think they should consider some moves though.

1. If Sammy wants to stay here, he needs to drastically lower that cap hit. Dude is a luxury item who said he loves being here. Well Sammy, if you wanna stay, extend that deal by a year or two and lower that cap hit by at least 40%. He’s made $54 million in the league. That’s more than enough Sammy. Let us give you another nice signing bonus of $20 million so you can give us a couple more years of reasonable cap hits, okay?

2. Add 2 years to Kelce’s contract and lower that cap hit. He’s clearly a young 30 in only his 6th year playing. That will lower the cap right now for rollover purposes.

3. Obviously get rid of expendable contracts like Cam Erving.

While we’re at it, I’d add a year to Damien Wilson’s contract. He has more than earned that. He’s still very cheap.

I don't understand the NFL's salary cap as well, but I was wondering about what we will need to do to keep people this off-season.

So is restructuring pretty common? I feel like we have a few players that would need to do that for us to make room. We have way too many bloated contracts like Hitchens and Fisher. And I love Frank Clark, but that contract is astronomical.

We need to find a way to keep Chris Jones if the contract is half reasonable. If we can keep Sammy for cheaper that'd be great, otherwise he will be cut and we need a decent replacement. We need to spread the money out better to upgrade our defense.

I know the draft will be one of the main ways we upgrade as well as maybe some vets in free agency if they take discounts. Other than that, I hope we find a way to retain most of our players. But I would not mind investing capital into the O Line if we need to make trades or pay one. Or a cornerback or linebacker that is worth the money. We need to fix or get rid of some of our terrible contracts if that is possible.