LT2_3

Yeah - I thought we had a rule that Grouchy isn't allowed to post without pics. j/k

I see. I never take the word of disgruntled ex-employees seriously. Hub doubly so.

It drives me nuts when people act like all draft picks within a round have the same value. There is NO way we could have gotten Cassell for our second rounder. The pick that KC traded for Cassell was the 34th overall pick - nearly a first rounder. Our 2nd round pick is #49. Nowhere in the same neighborhood. Neither is Denver's 2nd at #48 either. Some personnel folks value picks 20-40 as the most valuable in the draft because of the talent/cost ratio. Obviously the Patriots feel that way. As for what Angelo's intentions were originally on what to offer, where in the world did you hear that? He said in an interview that he knew he had to go in strong or else he'd get blown off. I don't know if you take Angelo at his word. I do. He generally says things that are truthful even if a bit cryptic. One of the reasons Cassell required so much less to get the deal done is that he was going to require a big new contract. Another reason that Cassell was traded for only the 34th pick is because the Patriots need to move him quickly to clear his $15ish million off their cap so they could be free to sign other free agents. They set a time limit, the Denver option was going to be a 3 team trade and required more time to finagle than the Pat's were willing to wait. Does that help you?

We should still have well over $20 mil in cap space.

Bonus points for quoting Ghostbusters

Just a quick add on anecdote, yesterday I was at the tobacco shop buying a carton of smokes and noticed that they had Bears bic lighters. Now I'm not normally a superstitious guy and usually buy my bic lighters in bulk at Wal-mart, but I figured that some karmic support of the Bears was in order in hopes we could get Cutler. I'm not saying it's related, but it feels really good nonetheless.

I can't say it's the happiest day in my life, it's 3rd. (After my daughter being born healthy and the '85 Bears winning it all) That being said, I'm completely out of sorts. My view of the world has made a dramatic shift that is taking some time to reconcile. I'm all a-twitter - and I tweeted that immediately btw. Wow. Just Wow. Really?!? Wow. Holy crap. Wow. Really?!? Wow. I'm feeling pretty satisfied with all of the support I've shown Angelo over the years.

I had a feeling that Angelo wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by if he could help it. WOW! This is an amazing feeling. When I first read about it, I got all dizzy - kinda like the exact opposite of a panic attack. And we signed Pace! Anyone still have any problem with Angelo's offseason?

I think that on the DL there is a wee bit more of a difference. Both DEs and the NT have to be beefier. Sure, there is crossover with tweener DE/LBs, but the fast attacking DTs don't fit anywhere in a 3-4 scheme. The guys that would be able to play NT well in a 3-4 would more resemble the "big fatties" of Blache's defense as opposed to the Tampa-2. Both Traylor and Washington played some NT before the end of their career btw. I think you're dead on about S, LB, and CBs.

Having read the article, I have no problem with what he said because it sounds pretty accurate to me. * - His teammates didn't like him. (Can anyone dispute that?) *- He ended up being exonerated from all the charges that got him released. (Can anyone dispute that either?)

Sorry Dude. you were speaking in the present tense about "salary allottments" in your previous post. See I thought you were suddenly talking about the current CBA where the salary cap is designated on a percentage of ALL revenues and currently bears no relation to the money given to teams. Actually, now teams actually receive different amounts due to the revenue sharing between the top earning and least earning teams. So while your point was somewhat arguable for the last CBA, it's completely irrelevant in regards to the new CBA. It's like you're arguing a point from 3 years ago. Dude! Get in the now!

And I'll be happy to explain further to you that there is no "player salary allottment" one more time. Teams do get a large portion of their annual income from the league. Teams do have a salary cap and a salary floor. Those two items are not related.

The qualifier that I think needs to be noted is that the Packers earned 9% in what was described a phenominal year. I'm looking forward to seeing the financial report for 2008. It'll be interesting to see what their profit was without 2 playoff games and the associated parking, concessions, and jersey sales. Just as a point of reference, with a capacity of 72,928 and an estimated price of $100 per ticket, that's an extra $7,292,800 in additional revenues per game.

Just a few quick points: 1. I think that one of the key issues here is that Lucky (aka choad) doesn't understand the term 'profit' in this context. When a person buys something and sells it for a 'profit', it means extra income that you can put in your pocket and spend on whatever you want like a new ipod. In terms of a corporation, 'profit' means the amount of money brought in over what was spent during a fiscal year. Sometimes it goes back to investors as a return on their investment - which needs to be done in many cases or else there would be no point in someone investing in the first place. The other thing that companies do, is put it in a cash reserve for future business expenditures so that they don't have to borrow money to do what they need to do. When that happens, it has nothing to do with being cheap or miserly, but everything to do with having a healthy company that is further away from having to close their doors. 2. One question I have for any stock analyst out there, is how much profit is reasonable for an average corporation to earn on $241 million per year? In the only data we have available, the Packers brought in $241 million in revenue and showed a $21 million profit. That's only a 9% profit margin - in what is described as a great year. Is that good for a corporation? I would think not. 3. I don't hink anyone is arguing that the players should go back to the old system, but I think they should modify what's in place so that teams can have a bit more money in their coffers in case of emergency. This economy has me worried. Think about that $21 million in profit for a minute. Subtract $8 million if they hadn't reached the playoffs, $4 million for poor jersey sales in a bad economy, $4 million in fewer concession sales because people are spending less at the game, and say they lose another $8 million from sponsorships from companies that can't afford it in the weakened economy and that banner year just turned into a year with a net loss instead of profit.

It used to be easy to determine how much money was given to each team because the salary cap was 60% (some years less) of the money given to teams. Now the cap is set at 60% of ALL revenues. They don't publish the leaguewide numbers specifically anywhere. The floor is 90% of the cap. The salary cap floor serves that purpose. For a more in depth read, here's an article about the financial status of the Packers after the 2007 season. The Packers are the only team that you can get detailed numbers about because they are a publically held corporation. http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d8...mp;confirm=true

Actually, what you are saying there is wrong. As you've pointed out, there is a mechanism for prorating signing bomuses over the length of the contract. It's a way to fudge with the bookkeeping. There is also a mechanism called an LTBE bonus where teams can apply false money against the cap that never gets paid - and the cap space that was used by the LTBE bonus gets rolled over to the following year's cap. You are probably pooh poohing this because it gets added to both the team's cap ceiling and floor the following year, but THIS year you will see some teams using this mechanism in the final capped year to reach the league floor without actually spending the money. Tampa and KC come to mind. I think so anyway. I would say that you are oversimplifying the concepts. It depends on their profit margin and their expenses. So say the cap ceiling is $100 million and the cap floor is $90 million. If a team uses an LTBE bonus to roll $10 million of that into the following year, it means that they only have to pay out $80 in that year. Say the next year the cap goes up to $105 million. That makes their adjusted cap the following year $115 - and their new cap floor is $103.5 million. Then they can roll more into the future and continue to spend less than the cap, rinse and repeat. It's just the opposite of teams renegotiating a player's contract by turning their large salary into an amortizable bonus. So if a player gets $4 mil bonus spread out over 4 years instead of $4 mil in salary in year 2 of their deal, their cap number drops from $4 mil to $1 mil, that adds $3 more mil in cap space that year. Teams like the Redskins do that again and again and again. The salary cap isn't nearly as hard and fast as you make it out to be. I'm just sugggesting that it's not as simple or nearly as attractive as you make it out to be. One thing I can guarantee you is that the Bears were NOT a very profitable organization until they they got their new stadium to give them a much greater cash flow over merely the money given by the league. BTW - do you have any idea what the property taxes are like in Lake Forest? Let me rephase your points for you so they more closely resemble reality: The league gives teams money The league requires for them to account for a percentage of that money on their salary cap - even though they can spend beneath the minimum or above the maximum in any or all given years. The reason why this is an important stipulation is because if teams can't make their expenses, they have to move to a new city with a better stadium or sell the team. I'm guessing that all of your postulations about what a team can or can't do regarding signing bonuses is under the presumption that they intend to stay in business. The old CBA is really irrelevant and there is no point it going on about it. I only held to that originally because the new CBA is MUCH more complicated. There are no separate monies. The cap is only a balance sheet that can be fudged up or down depending on what a team needs. I didn't really mean to talk down to you, but you just aren't getting it. I could go on, but I'm seriously losing interest.

I get what he's saying though. It's like he's saying he's hiring someone to cook him dinner, he gives them $10 for the food, and figures they should never be short of money because he only requires them to spend $8 on the groceries. The problem lies in that he's completely ignoring that to put on the dinner, the additional costs might often exceed the $2 additional money for stuff like the cost of gas to get to the market, the cost of depreciation on the car used to get to the market, and the cost of insurance for doing business along with any other business expenses there may be. I hope he understands a bit better now although we probably won't hear from him again until he wants to push the same argument and will have failed to read these final posts once he got frustrated on March 7th 2009 at 6:03pm.

Why not? Actually, with the most recent CBA, teams indirectly DO share revenues between the top earning and least earning teams. Then why did you say they did, and what was your point in misrepresenting how the system worked? Say there's a team like the Bills that had difficulty paying their operating expenses AND player salaries out of the league money sent to them. If there is ONE exception to the rule, then your hypothesis is blown to crap. So if the money the league sends to teams is 100 mil, the cap is at 60 mil, a team has additional income of only $10 mil, but additional operating expenses of $60 mil. That leaves them with a $10 mil deficit. While a team in that situation might be able to squeak by, wouldn't it put them in a situation where they wouldn't want to borrow money for signing bonuses? Dude - you haven't presented a model, you've presented a 1 dimentional sketch that doesn't address the details that would either prove of disprove your theory. What your explanation is lacking are either a concrete example of what kind of non-player expenses teams have, or some suggestion that you understand how those expenses relate proportionally to the player salaries. You argument would have held a bit of water in theory with the last CBA, but with the new one and the salary cap being based on revenues that not even all the teams get, makes your suggestions way off base.

That's close to how it works. I realized that you're simplifying things, but if we're talking about the previous CBA, we should really make a few clarifications. Sure the league gets a bunch of money from TV deals and league sponsors, but not all of it gets split up to the teams. I don't know how much they keep, but it's more than just their office operating expenses. Nope the money sent to the teams comes in one check (as it were) and there is no delineation or earmarking to it whatsoever. Teams all get a check from the league and then the salary cap was (before the most recent CBA) determined as 60% of those revenues. You appear to be saying that the other 40% goes straight in the owners pockets as profit. It really goes into their bank account and gets used for office staff, coaches salaries, scout salaries, repayment of any incurred debt, property upkeep, property maintenance, property upgrades, property taxes, paper, ink, pens, pencils, paperclips, and any other cost involved in running a multimillion dollar enterprise. Now there are additional streams of revenue too from ticket sales, beer sales, and whatnot, but those numbers vary from team to team. For instance, the Redskins own their own stadium and have the additional expenses of running, maintaining, and paying taxes on it, but their profit margins are higher because they don't have to pay rent or split profits of concessions like the Bears do with the Chicago Park district. That's not technically true because of what I explained above. However, that's a quibble. Signing bonuses DO work that way. Or they can pay off debts, give players more signing bonuses, buy new computers for their employees, or invest in gold plated paper clips. The thing is that the salary cap has little to do with the actual money spent.

I don't recall seeing that so let's start from scratch. I really don't understand this because I don't think the accounting works the way you think it does. I think you're looking at it like they had cash specifically earmarked from the TV revenue sharing that they didn't spend. It doesn't really work that way because the monies aren't earmarked that way. Also, since the last CBA was signed, they changed the cap formula to 60% of ALL revenues and not just the Designated Gross Revenues (DGR) which were pretty much the TV money and licensed apparrel. So with the change to 60% of ALL revenues, the league also instituted revenue sharing between the teams on their local revenues so the teams that make the most money, have to give money to the lesser earning teams so they can pay their team salaries - because the cap is based on more than just the TV deals now. I hope that clears up the recent (as of the last 3 years) changes. If it doesn't feel free to ask as many clarifying questions if it's not clear. I'm really trying to understand this, but how is the front bonus paid back? Are you suggesting that the money is replenished from the league in the form of money for the next year's salary cap and they can then repay loans for bonuses as they are applied to the salary cap? As I've said, it doesn't work that way as in specific transactional basis. I can't really fault your numbers there, but you're still not recognizing that the last CBA agreement changed the formula so the salaries are NOT all covered from the TV revenue and that the teams that make more money have to share it with the teams that don't make as much. Nowhere in your considerations have you mentioned that the Bears have to pay into the fund as one of the top 10 earning teams.

oops! double post due to browser error

Wow. I haven't done one of my point / counterpoint posts for awhile. Here goes ...... If you want MY numbers, I had us at $27 mil under so the +4 would put us at $31 mil under. With next year currently scheduled as an uncapped year, the only real number you have to keep in mind in the salary cap floor which is about $114 mil. We're currently at about $96 mil so we really only have to spend $8 mil to reach the floor and probably $5 mil will go to rookies. I'm not saying that we will only shoot for the minimum, but that's all that's guaranteed if the prices for players are unreasonable vs. their value. What was done in the past is irrelevant because this is an entirely unique situation due to next year being an uncapped year. It's not a gamble, it's just irrelevant. In fact, teams can use bogus incentives that WOULD have moved cap space forward to actually spend beneath the salary cap floor. So teams have to count $114 against the cap and they are at only at $110 million? Sign someone to a LTBE bonus laden contract with $4 mil in it, and voila! you've achieved the salary cap floor. Yep - there will be a bunch of cap space during the season. I think Angelo is going to do pretty much what he always does: If a situation with good value comes up, he'll pursue it. There is no way of knowing whether Holt will be released so there is no way he's counting on it. For instance, the Ogun thing was unexpected in March so how could he have saved cap space for it? I think you'll see us picking up bargains later in FA and after the draft. I hope this clears up a few misconceptions for you.

I think you guys are reading into it. Pix - All he's saying is that this defense was really special a few years ago and that they have the ability to get close to that again. If the players take that as a negative and decide to prove him wrong, well then so be it! Milwaukeebear - Dude, the article is about the defense exclusively. Geez - talk about reading anything in the paper and using it to bitch about whatever pisses you off whether it pertains to the subject or not.

The Panthers had $5 mil in cap space later in the year last year and probably pushed that forward to give them $15 mil in cap space. Also, the deal for Gross could have a cap hit as low as $5 mil meaning that they would only have to clear $7 mil in cap space to be under. At that point, they would have to clear more space to sign their rookies, but they probably would have traded Peppers long before then.

The short answer is that the Panthers don't have to be under the 2009 cap until the 2009 league year begins on the 27th. I don't have all the numbers, but have read that Ken Lucas and DJ Hackett can be released to free up more space. I would also add that the number of $10 mil under also doesn't include any money they pushed forward from last year. I'll look into it further.