Does "cash to cap" really demonstrate a commitment to winning?

[OpIv37]

Ok, we've already established that spending money on FA's does not necessarily equal wins. But imagine this very plausible (but hypothetical) scenario:

Buffalo spends up to the cap, using roster bonuses and other techniques to avoid amortizing. The end result is that we're at or near the cap, but we could easily be $12 million under if those bonuses were structured differently. We go into the season with Spikes, Ellison and Crowell as our starting LB's. Well, what if Spikes doesn't return to form, or one of them gets injured and we have to start someone like Haggan or (gulp) Wire? Our LB's will get owned like they did last year.

Meanwhile, Cato June signs with someone and his cap hit for this year is in the $10 million range. Will you feel like the FO did everything they could to win?
Again, this is a hypothetical scenario- I'm not saying it's going to happen. The same could be said about the OL with Dockery and Steinbach, for example.

To simplify: if this team doesn't pursue a FA in a position of need because of the "cash to cap" strategy and poor play at that position leads to more losses next year, will you feel like this FO is demonstrating a commitment to winning?

I sure as hell won't.

[patmoran2006]

It demonstrates a committment to saving money.. nothing more.. nothing less

[RockStar36]

Cash to cap tells me that they are trying to be smart financially and that they don't want to screw the team/cap up for future years but they aren't doing everything in their power to make the team great (signing Steinbach, June, etc..). At this point I'm just willing to wait and see what actually happens.

[patmoran2006]

I dont necessarily think the Bills should get heavily involved in FA this year anyway, regardless of their policy/slap to the fans in terms of spending money.

Next year's cap goes up by like $9 million, and if the Bills dont spend a lot this year they are going to have a TON of cap room next year, likely the most in the entire NFL. But then again, it really doesn't matter because as long as Wilson is alive, they are done going after FA's like Spikes, Fletcher, MIlloy, Adams, Vincent, etc.

So I guess the bright spot is we'll have a ton of cap money next year too.. The downfall is that if your replacing FLetcher and Clements with Youboty and Ellison, and using more bargain FA's and rookies to fill more holes, its only February and you can already forget about the playoffs (yet, again) for 2007.

[OpIv37]

Cash to cap tells me that they are trying to be smart financially and that they don't want to screw the team/cap up for future years but they aren't doing everything in their power to make the team great (signing Steinbach, June, etc..). At this point I'm just willing to wait and see what actually happens.

I understand wanting to be careful with the cap in the future, and that's one of the reasons why I think re-signing Clements would be a bad move. But there are ways of giving signing bonuses without completely hosing your future cap- other teams do it all the time.

I'm not saying that we should just recklessly pursue big name FA's, but if there is someone out there who's worth it, it would be just as stupid to NOT pursue that player because of "cash to cap".

[patmoran2006]

One thing I will say in marv's defense is I dont think there are too many FA's that are "worth it".. but it really doesnt matter.

Next year we'll have more cap room than this year, probably more than any team in the NFL, the FA pool will be much deeper, and we'll still be doing the same **** we did last year and this .. "not much"

[OpIv37]

Next year's cap goes up by like $9 million, and if the Bills dont spend a lot this year they are going to have a TON of cap room next year, likely the most in the entire NFL. But then again, it really doesn't matter because as long as Wilson is alive, they are done going after FA's like Spikes, Fletcher, MIlloy, Adams, Vincent, etc.


see, I don't really see how the extra cap room helps us. In fact, I think it HURTS us. All it does is inflate player salaries.

Does anyone REALLY think Clements is as good as Champ Bailey? Well, he's not, but he's the best corner in FA this year so it doesn't matter. He's going to get a Champ Bailey contract anyway.

So, player's salaries will go higher and higher and the Bills won't be able to compete financially with such a huge percentage of revenues going towards salaries. At best they'll be forced to spend the cap minimum and suck every year, and at worst they'll be forced to leave Buffalo.

[patmoran2006]

They are the Bengals of the 1990's right now.

[Don't Panic]

I feel like this philosophy can work some years, but if this is going to be status quo at OBD, we are in trouble long-term. Marv clearly said they'd look at going after 4 or 5 guys. That means about $7 million in SB + 1st year money per. Decent players, not great.

Remember, whatever we don't use in cap room this year (officially) will carry over to next year. That means we will have cap room every year, but not really use it. That means we have to hit with mid-level FAs every year, something I doubt can be done consistently.

[TigerJ]

If it appears the Bills are several years away from a serious playoff run, I think Cash to Cap is a viable strategy to try and make incremental improvements without breaking the bank. If the Bills are close, Cash to Cap could deprive the Bills of the flexibility to go the extra mile to get past the hump. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I think the Bills fit the latter position better than the former, so I'm not thrilled with it.

[OpIv37]

If it appears the Bills are several years away from a serious playoff run, I think Cash to Cap is a viable strategy to try and make incremental improvements without breaking the bank. If the Bills are close, Cash to Cap could deprive the Bills of the flexibility to go the extra mile to get past the hump.

agreed- and last year, we were 7-9 and technically in the playoff hunt until Week 15. Is this the time to make the push? I don't know, but I have a feeling we could see some regression if a move isn't made.

[Mitchy moo]

What happens if everything clicks this year and we are 6-2 midpoint?? Then do we realize that 1 or 2 big pickups might put us at or near a SB run??

The good part about this is if we get good results with what we have, we have cap room to make the changes to really get great results.

[madness]

I understand wanting to be careful with the cap in the future, and that's one of the reasons why I think re-signing Clements would be a bad move. But there are ways of giving signing bonuses without completely hosing your future cap- other teams do it all the time.

I'm not saying that we should just recklessly pursue big name FA's, but if there is someone out there who's worth it, it would be just as stupid to NOT pursue that player because of "cash to cap".

Marv said it himself, the goal is to win the SB. I can't honestly believe for a minute that the philosophy would prohibit an opportunity to pursue a big name FA if the situation arises. Otherwise, it just becomes contradictive to the goal.

I view this whole thing as... not only are they trying to put a winning product on the field, they are going to do it with mortgaging the future sot that winning product can continue. Will it work? I don't know and since nobody here can tell the future, all we can do is wait and see.

[OpIv37]

Marv said it himself, the goal is to win the SB. I can't honestly believe for a minute that the philosophy would prohibit an opportunity to pursue a big name FA if the situation arises. Otherwise, it just becomes contradictive to the goal.

I view this whole thing as... not only are they trying to put a winning product on the field, they are going to do it with mortgaging the future sot that winning product can continue. Will it work? I don't know and since nobody here can tell the future, all we can do is wait and see.

I'm sure Marv and Jauron and the players WANT to win the SB. Whether or not Ralph gives Marv the financial leeway to do that is another issue.

[patmoran2006]

If it appears the Bills are several years away from a serious playoff run, I think Cash to Cap is a viable strategy to try and make incremental improvements without breaking the bank. If the Bills are close, Cash to Cap could deprive the Bills of the flexibility to go the extra mile to get past the hump. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I think the Bills fit the latter position better than the former, so I'm not thrilled with it.
The Bills SHOULDN'T be several years away from a playoff run. They should be able to make a playoff run this year.

case in point
* They won 7 games last year and we're actually legitimately in the playoff week until they lost in week 16.
* Their QB really grew up as the season went on.
* They have all of their coaches of importance returning, so they've had full year to implement their system.
* They have a good nucleus of young players, including Lee Evans, who's quickly becoming one of if not the most dangerous WR in the NFL.
* Their division isn't that strong. Miami flat-out sucks, the Jets benefited by beating up on weak teams and have a lot of holes, NE is still good but are weak in spots not too mention they have a lot of aging players, especially on defense.

There is NO reason why the Bills shouldn't be a contender going into the season.

But there is one reason why they won't be.. And it's because Wilson is officially more concerned about saving money than putting a winner on the field and exciting their fans.

* We're going to let our top two FA's walk and replace them with rookie or second year unproven starters. Meanwhile almost every other team in the league is using their cap space to either tag or lock up their top Free Agents. When Marv said our top priority with our "monies" will be to resign our own, he really means resigning all of the mediocre players (Gandy, Kelsay, etc) that symbolize while we are a below average team almost every season.

* Despite the fact that only two teams in the entire NFL have more cap space than Buffalo, and last I checked we're not the only smaller market team in the NFL, we will be among if not the single least active team in the market.

* Instead of hiring a creative, up-to-date GM who understands football and caponomics of this era, Wilson hired a guy in Levy (and I do love Marv) who serves as little more than a mouthpiece for Wilson and the front office.

So if we're several years away from contending, it's because of the complete bull**** that's fed to us from OBD. Attendance dropped at the end of last year, despite a playoff push.. What do you think is going to happen this time around when we let two of our most popular players walk away and replace them with farrrrrrrrr cheaper options?

[TacklingDummy]

They are the Bengals of the 1990's right now.

I would like to think of us as the Arizona Cardinals.

The Bengals tried to win durning the 90's. It's not their fault that alot of their draft choices turned out to be busts, Ki-Jana Carter, Klingler, Smith, Wilkenson

The Cardinals were just about saving/not spending money.

[raphael120]

The Bills SHOULDN'T be several years away from a playoff run. They should be able to make a playoff run this year.

There is NO reason why the Bills shouldn't be a contender going into the season.



En contrare....

Guess what teams we lost against consistantly last season? All the teams that made it to the playoffs. Because we didn't beat ANY of the teams that made it to the playoffs, even the two that made it to the Super Bowl, I dont see how you think we SHOULD be a contender. We won against the crappier teams, we lost against the CRAPPIEST team (lions), and we lost the ones we should have lost, against the superior teams. Now we held our own in some of these games, but it can be agrued that we were in those games soley based on luck and the ball bouncing our way. Your reason for why the Jets are not a factor, Jets fans could turn that one around and use it for the Bills! I think we'll be closer at making it, but I HATE relying on other teams losing at the end of the season for the Bills to make it, instead of the Bills paving their own way, and not relying on 5 teams losing 2 weeks in a row at the end of the season to get a shot at the wild card. I'm not the kind of fan who gets their jollies in a bunch to see my team limp like a wounded gazelle into the playoffs only to get beat up on (ala what happened this wild card games, the teams who were better won).

[Michael82]

cash to the cap tells me that Ralph is trying to prove to the NFL why revenue sharing is needed. He wants to show them that he doesn't have the cash to hand out huge bonuses and basically he needs to do the cash to the cap thing just to stay somewhat competitive without losing money.

[Michael82]

I think it is Ralph's way of protesting to the NFL! The sad part is that they don't give a **** and it will hurt the Bills more than the rest of the league. :ill:

[patmoran2006]

En contrare....

Guess what teams we lost against consistantly last season? All the teams that made it to the playoffs. Because we didn't beat ANY of the teams that made it to the playoffs, even the two that made it to the Super Bowl, I dont see how you think we SHOULD be a contender. We won against the crappier teams, we lost against the CRAPPIEST team (lions), and we lost the ones we should have lost, against the superior teams. Now we held our own in some of these games, but it can be agrued that we were in those games soley based on luck and the ball bouncing our way. Your reason for why the Jets are not a factor, Jets fans could turn that one around and use it for the Bills! I think we'll be closer at making it, but I HATE relying on other teams losing at the end of the season for the Bills to make it, instead of the Bills paving their own way, and not relying on 5 teams losing 2 weeks in a row at the end of the season to get a shot at the wild card. I'm not the kind of fan who gets their jollies in a bunch to see my team limp like a wounded gazelle into the playoffs only to get beat up on (ala what happened this wild card games, the teams who were better won).
We lost to Indy by ONE point.. We lost to NE by TWO points. We beat ourselves in week three against the Jets. We played SD very tough lost by a field goal. 4 of our 7 losses, including three against playoff teams, were by a total of 7 points.

A couple of bounces the right way and his team could've been in the playoffs LAST year.

There is no legitimate excuse for this team not to be able to contend THIS year, other than an owner unwilling to do what it takes to make sure that happens.

[raphael120]

they're doing everything but the most obvious thing to do when youre losing money....

<h2>FIELD A WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!</h2>

[raphael120]

We lost to Indy by ONE point.. We lost to NE by TWO points. We beat ourselves in week three against the Jets. We played SD very tough lost by a field goal. 4 of our 7 losses, including three against playoff teams, were by a total of 7 points.

A couple of bounces the right way and his team could've been in the playoffs LAST year.

There is no legitimate excuse for this team not to be able to contend THIS year, other than an owner unwilling to do what it takes to make sure that happens.

what about the blow out against NE in the later part of the season? "sexy rexy" schooling our defense in the 40-7 shilacking.
you fail to mention the almost losing to the really bad teams too...Texans, Vikings, Jags... we were borderline average....BARELY average...thats what our record says (7-9). What is yet to come is what we will do next. Will we be better? Will we be the same? Will we regress. If you tell me that it's an almost CERTAINTY that we should be better next season, please see the season where we went 9-7 and then we crapped the bed with a 5-11 outing. We had all the optimism in the world...and then SPLAT...and for you to tell me different is being ignorant to the fact that our team is the Bills, and it's just the nature of the beast is to be pessimistic.

[tonyc37]

I don't know about your math,but if you give a guy 30 million 0ver six years the cap hit is only about five million a year.Hers how it works in a simple example.A 10 million dollar signing bonus which counts 1.66 mil per year against your cap and a 3.3 mil salary which brings your total cap hit with bonus to 4.99 mil per year.It could also be structured to take lower cap hit early in the contract if need be.And on Marv's cash to the cap if you listened closely.He said that the Bills are going to deal in real dollars which means if you give a guy a 10 mil bonus and a 2mil per year salary Marv and the Bills are counting it as 12 mil on this years cap.But the NFL doesn't allow you to do this so really that players cap is going to be 3.66mil which is about a third of what Marv is telling you.Its a way for the Bills to get you to beleive their spending all the available when in reality its only costing them between 10 and 15 mil on the cap.Also the league sets the rookie pool not the teams.So under Marv's system we would have to trade out of the first round to make ctc work.If the pool for the Bills is lets say 9 mil that is all they can show on the cap for ALL of their draft choices.So if #12 gets a signing bonus of 10 mil
your cash to the cap wouldn't work ig you beleive that crap their peddling at the Ralph

[OpIv37]

I don't know about your math,but if you give a guy 30 million 0ver six years the cap hit is only about five million a year.Hers how it works in a simple example.A 10 million dollar signing bonus which counts 1.66 mil per year against your cap and a 3.3 mil salary which brings your total cap hit with bonus to 4.99 mil per year.It could also be structured to take lower cap hit early in the contract if need be.And on Marv's cash to the cap if you listened closely.He said that the Bills are going to deal in real dollars which means if you give a guy a 10 mil bonus and a 2mil per year salary Marv and the Bills are counting it as 12 mil on this years cap.But the NFL doesn't allow you to do this so really that players cap is going to be 3.66mil which is about a third of what Marv is telling you.Its a way for the Bills to get you to beleive their spending all the available when in reality its only costing them between 10 and 15 mil on the cap.Also the league sets the rookie pool not the teams.So under Marv's system we would have to trade out of the first round to make ctc work.If the pool for the Bills is lets say 9 mil that is all they can show on the cap for ALL of their draft choices.So if #12 gets a signing bonus of 10 mil
your cash to the cap wouldn't work ig you beleive that crap their peddling at the Ralph

Wow, this post gave me a headache. There's some good info in there (I think), but also a lot of rambling.

The NFL does allow it- they don't force teams to amortize bonuses. If they did, they'd just bump up first year salaries to get around it.

I didn't work through the numbers exactly because this is a hypothetical, but to make the numbers easy, say we have two guys with $2 million salaries and $5 million signing bonuses, and 5 year contracts. Marv is saying that he's not going to amortize, so those players would total $14 million against the cap.

Now, if Marv did amortize those signing bonuses to $1 million a year to each of the 5 years of the contract, it means that each player would only count $3 million against the cap this year, which would save us $8 million against the cap THIS year. $8 million is easily enough to get a Dockery, a Steinbach or a June.

Again, these are made-up numbers, but they prove how the "cash to cap" strategy can keep us from signing a player THIS year. If we miss the playoffs by one game because Marv decided not to amortize bonuses to free up cap space for an impact player, how are you going to feel about the front office.

[TigerJ]

The Bills SHOULDN'T be several years away from a playoff run. They should be able to make a playoff run this year.

case in point
* They won 7 games last year and we're actually legitimately in the playoff week until they lost in week 16.
* Their QB really grew up as the season went on.
* They have all of their coaches of importance returning, so they've had full year to implement their system.
* They have a good nucleus of young players, including Lee Evans, who's quickly becoming one of if not the most dangerous WR in the NFL.
* Their division isn't that strong. Miami flat-out sucks, the Jets benefited by beating up on weak teams and have a lot of holes, NE is still good but are weak in spots not too mention they have a lot of aging players, especially on defense.

There is NO reason why the Bills shouldn't be a contender going into the season.

But there is one reason why they won't be.. And it's because Wilson is officially more concerned about saving money than putting a winner on the field and exciting their fans.

* We're going to let our top two FA's walk and replace them with rookie or second year unproven starters. Meanwhile almost every other team in the league is using their cap space to either tag or lock up their top Free Agents. When Marv said our top priority with our "monies" will be to resign our own, he really means resigning all of the mediocre players (Gandy, Kelsay, etc) that symbolize while we are a below average team almost every season.

* Despite the fact that only two teams in the entire NFL have more cap space than Buffalo, and last I checked we're not the only smaller market team in the NFL, we will be among if not the single least active team in the market.

* Instead of hiring a creative, up-to-date GM who understands football and caponomics of this era, Wilson hired a guy in Levy (and I do love Marv) who serves as little more than a mouthpiece for Wilson and the front office.

So if we're several years away from contending, it's because of the complete bull**** that's fed to us from OBD. Attendance dropped at the end of last year, despite a playoff push.. What do you think is going to happen this time around when we let two of our most popular players walk away and replace them with farrrrrrrrr cheaper options?

I don't know if you missread my post or are simply citing the evidence to support my viewpoint, but we are in agreement on this. I think the Bills are pretty close to being a solid playoff contender, not just a fringe team hoping to eek out a wild card berth.

[Elminster]

I don't know if you missread my post or are simply citing the evidence to support my viewpoint, but we are in agreement on this. I think the Bills are pretty close to being a solid playoff contender, not just a fringe team hoping to eek out a wild card berth.
Indeed, I agree, especially given how strong our schedule was. It's not like '05 when we beat up on a bunch of creampuffs.

That said....there's one very clear reason to "cash to cap" and that is revealed when reviewing the contracts of our current roster. A large number of key players, including JP and Lee, have their contracts up in one or two years. It would be foolish to spend big, given that they truly are better than anything we could possibly sign in FA and will likely command no small amount of money. We're being cautious because our primary goal is to keep the good players we already have and a lot of those players are UFAs very soon unless we get deals done, and to pay them what they deserve, we need cap room, or we're going to watch key players walk. You can't build anything if you have to keep replacing the bricks already in place...

[TacklingDummy]

The NFL should have a hard cap. Then the playing field would be even for every team.

[RedEyE]

Putting youself in an owner's shoes: If you ***** about being a small market team overcome, outbid, and outplayed by gargantuan large market goliaths, does spending to the cap then label you a hypocrite?

[patmoran2006]

what about the blow out against NE in the later part of the season? "sexy rexy" schooling our defense in the 40-7 shilacking.
you fail to mention the almost losing to the really bad teams too...Texans, Vikings, Jags... we were borderline average....BARELY average...thats what our record says (7-9). What is yet to come is what we will do next. Will we be better? Will we be the same? Will we regress. If you tell me that it's an almost CERTAINTY that we should be better next season, please see the season where we went 9-7 and then we crapped the bed with a 5-11 outing. We had all the optimism in the world...and then SPLAT...and for you to tell me different is being ignorant to the fact that our team is the Bills, and it's just the nature of the beast is to be pessimistic.

Are you kidding me?? that is EXACTLy what I am saying.. WE SHOULD now be able to contend for a championship, but we WONT cause we have a cheap as **** owner. We're going to lose a key guys to FA, so we should be acquiring a few key guys via FA- combined with another draft and we'd be able to make a run. But that's not going to happen, cause we're going to replace what we lose and plug what we still need with rookies, basement prices free agents and young roster players with talent but still wet behind the ears.

A couple of years ago when we went 9-7, what did we do in the off-season to follow it up? We handed the starter spot to a rookie at Qb, and we did next to nothing in FA... This team doesnt have the horses, especially in the trenches to just build through the draft.

And even if we did, how much is Marv really better at identifying our problem (OL) than Donahoe was? Answer = not much at all.

Marv said time and time again that our OL was the weak point, but on draft day we didn't take a OL until the fifth round. We traded up with Chicago and then passed on Nick Mangold for a DT, who plays the very same techinque as the one guy we gave good money too in FA (Tripplett)

So its yet another offseason and you guys know as well as I do that Preston, Villariall, Gandy, and Merz will "battle" for the two guard spots. Just what we need, four average linemen battling it out yet again. And of course, Pennington will have a battle with Butler for RT. Again, decent players, but certainly not the calibre a playoff team has at the spot.

I dont even care that much about fletch, clements or the defense for that matter.. I care about the OL and Im sick of Donahoe and now Marv pluggin in ****ing trash at the position time and time again... You may as well put Losman in a body bag now, because if we dont get a pair of real guards in here before next season, its going to be another 16-and-out campaign, just like it's been for the past 7 years.

[Michael82]

The NFL should have a hard cap. Then the playing field would be even for every team.
Excellent post, but there is no way in hell Synder, Jones, Kraft and all the other rich pieces of **** would allow that! :shakeno: :ill:

[Mr. Pink]

cash to the cap tells me that Ralph is trying to prove to the NFL why revenue sharing is needed. He wants to show them that he doesn't have the cash to hand out huge bonuses and basically he needs to do the cash to the cap thing just to stay somewhat competitive without losing money.


If statement number 2 is indeed correct, then he needs to step out of the way, move on. Sell the team to a local interest and sip on some margaritas on the beach.

Of course the rest of the league isn't going to care, because NO other team in the league is as cheap and tight-wadded on paying for talent.

I would say they're not as stupid, but hey, I might get negged for that. When we suck, which inevitably we will, because we won't be able to compete with teams that do bring top talent in and then keep most of that top talent, for the next 7 years to match the previous. You can look to the press conference for the reason why. Hopefully after 1 to 2 years of this crap the front office will realize they can't compete in the NFL like this.

Think about it.....

If we did cash to the cap style last year....
Tripplett woulda cost like 7 million against the cap for one year.
Josh Reed would have another like 7 million against the cap.
Peerless Price would have also been in the same neighborhood.

Boys and girls, I dunno about you, but what kind of football smart is this? Our whole cap space last year woulda been gone to 3 schmucks who do nothing to help this team win. And you expect to win and compete with this style of bullcrap? When other teams can go out and get a T.O. who is a proven commodity in this league, give him a big signing bonus and spread it out over the life of the contract which frees them up to <gasp> sign other good players to help them win.

The only thing this CTC which should stand for Crap to Crappier shows or does is keeps more money in your pocket in the future and shows you're all about the bottom line dollar amount, and could care less what the product on the field looks like.

Again, think about it, if we were to re-sign Clements under this idea/theory...he would take ALL of our cap space alone to retain him basically.

[Philagape]

Again, think about it, if we were to re-sign Clements under this idea/theory...he would take ALL of our cap space alone to retain him basically.

If we only we had the tag available, then it would be the salary alone :sigh:

[Philagape]

The tag is the only advantage for a cash-to-cap team because there's no signing bonus necessary. And we p'd ours away.

[Michael82]

The tag is the only advantage for a cash-to-cap team because there's no signing bonus necessary. And we p'd ours away.
that's why it is tempting to tag Fletcher.