So, I’ve been getting a lot of people asking me to do an article showing how the salary cap isn’t a myth, so today I’m going to try my best to show why the NFL salary cap isn’t a myth.
First off people talk about how the Kansas City Chiefs being able to extend Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, & Chris Jones in 2020 when they were like $700 under the cap, yes $700 DOLLARS, so I can see why people will say “The cap is a myth”, well no it’s not, it’s just easy to manipulate.
So when the Chiefs did these extensions, Mahomes & Kelce already had at least 1 year left on their deals, which allowed them to lower their cap numbers for 2020, the same with Jones, only due to him being on the franchise tag.
Also people ask, “How can the Chiefs bring back everyone, and sign Joe Thuney, and were in on Trent Williams this offseason”?
Again, the cap is easy to manipulate, Mahomes, and Jones restructured their deals, which helped them to be able to sign Joe Thuney, plus be able to offer Trent Williams a big contract, luckily for the 49ers, Trent’s bond with Kyle Shanahan, & the $138.06 million were enough to keep him in the bay area.
Now the issue with doing these types of things, extending someone who may have 1 or more, or even no years left on their deals, or restructuring deals basically just pushes money down the road.
Basically, look at this way, you can go out, and take out a loan, which must be paid back in the future, so by redoing deals, lowering salaries, gaining cap room, they’re basically borrowing money from the future, I know this may not the best analogy, but it’s how I perceive it.
If you take a look at the Chiefs salary cap for 2022, they have over $189 million in committed salaries, with the cap ceiling being $208.2 million, they’d be left with around $19.178 million, but that number is of course deceiving, as they only have 36 players, well 35, as Laurent Duvernay-Tardif’s contract voids after 2021.
So, when you factor in the top 51 rule, they really have around $10.013 million in cap room, but again they’ll likely borrow from the future, by redoing deals, to sign or re-sign key players.
Let’s also take the 49ers for an example, they violated the cap back in 1999-2000, when Brent Jones & his agents agreed to basically forgiver a $500,000 bonus, a violation under the salary cap, which led to them being fined $300,000, which was a lot back in 99-00, also they had to forfeit a 2001 5th-round pick, and a 2002 3rd-round pick, which isn’t bad nowadays, but we’ve seen teams lose their 1st-rounder, or 3rd-rounder for doing less worse things than the 49ers did.
Let’s also take a look at some other teams who put themselves into a bad situation with the salary cap, like the Saints, Packers, Rams, Eagles, & Steelers.
The Saints we around $100 million over the salary cap, but yet they were able to franchise safety Marcus Williams, but they did a lot of work to get under the cap, they cut a lot of players, restructured others, gave “extensions” to players like Taysom Hill, and the reason for the quotations is because it’s not a real extension, they just tacked on the needed voidable years to gain cap room.
But what led to them being in this position, well, one if of course the pandemic played a huge role, as the cap dropped from $198.2 million to $182.5 million, which was a $15.7 million decrease, and the other factor was the team restructuring contracts over and over and over, especially the now retired Drew Brees.
The same can be said for the Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger, and the Packers with Aaron Rodgers, as those teams redid those players deals more than a few times.
I want to pause and say, this is why I hate the idea of restructuring contracts, but with the pandemic, plus the decrease in the cap, if there’s ever a year to do this, it’s 2021, and likely through 2022 or even 2023, as the cap will explode either in 2023 or 2024, thanks in large part to the NFLs new TV deals kicking in for the 2023 season.
Now another team who were over the cap, around $50 million or so, were the Eagles, again they lost $15.7 million in cap room that they wouldn’t have needed to shed off of their salary cap.
I’ve seen people tell me that the 49ers are in cap hell because of John Lynch, and time and time again I told them NO, they’re not, the reason why the 49ers were so tight for 2021 was due to the pandemic, every NFL team lost $15.7 million.
Imagine if the cap didn’t drop, the 49ers, and every team would have an extra $15.7 million in cap room, or wouldn’t had needed to shed the salary.
The 49ers could have went out, and signed some more veterans, but as it stands, when the season begins, before a Fred Warner extension, they’ll have just $4.5 million to $5 million in cap room, this could vary depending on how the roster shapes out.
Also, the 49ers essentially lost both Jeff Wilson Jr., & Tarvarius Moore’s salaries, because now the team needs to pay 2 extra players, at least the minimum, which is $660,000, so that’s a $1.32 million loss in cap room.
As a 49ers fan I know how frustrating this can be, most 49ers fans wanted Julio Jones, but with the cap room being low, & them already being without a 1st-rounder until 2024, they just couldn’t either do it, or justify making a trade.
The same goes for Aaron Rodgers, it’s not like the Packers are going to trade Rodgers for Jimmy Garoppolo, and some day 2 picks, and the 49ers would be damn stupid to include Trey Lance in a deal for Rodgers.
Yes, I know the 49ers called about Rodgers on draft night, but nothing was even negotiated, the Packers immediately said he’s not available, and if he had been, and the 49ers traded the 3rd pick for him, the reason why this would have worked is because he’d be more willing to take a cut in salary, because he’s a bay area native, where, while Jones & Shanahan worked well together, there was no guarantee that Jones would lower his salary, which he didn’t after being dealt to the Titans.
Look, people will say the salary cap is a myth because the Chiefs extended Mahomes, Kelce, & Jones in 2020, or the Saints & Eagles were able to get under the 2021 salary cap, but again, the reasoning for this is, again, borrowing money from the future to use now.
And I know there will be people who will still say it’s a myth, it’s not real, but that’s not true, you can just manipulate it easily, this isn’t the NBA where they have a soft cap, & then hard cap, the NFLs cap is 100% a hard cap, you can’t go over it, the only time a team is over the cap is from the end of the Super Bowl to the beginning of the new league year, so basically 1 out of 12 months.
So, I hope this puts some of this talk about the salary cap being a myth to rest, even though I know it won’t, but I can dream right? Lol.
So with all of this said, I thank everyone for reading article, as always you can follow me on Twitter @49erscap, or leave a comment below, and I’ll get back to you.
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