2011 RULES: Salary Floors

[Goodell]

Before the NFL went uncapped, I believe there were some salary cap floor rules but they weren't part of our league initially and didn't really come up much in following the league's team-building activities on a yearly basis.

Now it seems there may be more emphasis on a higher salary cap floor in the new CBA.

Salary floors: Players accepted a relatively low salary cap in exchange for the raising the minimum teams have to spend. This can’t be underestimated. 99% of the salary cap must be spent in cash in aggregate between 2011-2012. The league-wide number falls to 95% after that. Teams must spend at least 89% of the cap from 2013-2016 and 2017-2020.

This helps ensure teams that were way under the cap in recent years like the Bengals and Bucs spend more.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... a-nutshell

99% of the reported cap would be around $119M, with perhaps our all-encompassing cap (if supported) being the high range of what teams would have to spend with all teams needing to be in that low to high range if the cap floor also brough into our league.

How would enforcement of a cap floor be managed? We could have a "cap hit" automatically be added which brings all clubs up to the floor -- not unlike we have default minimum salaries automatically added now for teams with under 53 men on roster. We could also have forced signings (if they don't sign someone, league signs someone for them to bring up to floor). That might really be nothing more than for "show", though, as that figure would change depending upon the balance unless we made it almost like a real player signing and if other moves made later it would be like cutting that imagined player with prorating the added salary, etc. Or rely upon uncompliance with cap floor being part of the overall team management status if needing to replace a GM.

[Strategist]

Changed my mind. I don't think a floor is realistic for us.

[sportznut]

If we evoke a cap floor here with imaginary money, all we're going to do is artificially raise and overspend what players are worth.

[Ulrich82]

I don't see the point in the floor with current rules. The point of the floor in the NFL is not to maintain competitive balance like the salary cap does. It is to keep players happy and keep teams from cutting corners to turn higher profits. We don't care about profits, we just want a level playing field, so why does it matter? Even if we had a floor, if a team is under and has a roster spot, they could sign any player to an inflated one year contract to meet it. Seems silly to me.

The bigger question is how is dead money handled on the cap with the new minimum cash spend teams must deal with. That could actually influence what we want to do with the salary floor.

[Nathan S.]

Shagg makes a good point. Maybe not make the salary floor $107 million and something more like $80 million. Would avoid inflated contracts in general but also leaves room for future years to make moves.

It just takes away the ability to cut everyone to completely rebuild.

[vikingfan]

119M is just too tight. I dont have all day to sit and manage every penny. 100- 107 is good. More importantly we have to enforce the 53 man rosters. Teams keep 40-45 and get charged for the empty spots. But do those empty spots get a cap hit when you replace it with a player? No cap hit means we have a loophole. Make it a necessity to have 53. No team in their right mind (well maybe Dallas cuz their morons) would go with 45 man roster.,

just my opinion
Al

[charlie813brown]

119M is just too tight. I dont have all day to sit and manage every penny. 100- 107 is good. More importantly we have to enforce the 53 man rosters. Teams keep 40-45 and get charged for the empty spots. But do those empty spots get a cap hit when you replace it with a player? No cap hit means we have a loophole. Make it a necessity to have 53. No team in their right mind (well maybe Dallas cuz their morons) would go with 45 man roster.,

just my opinion
Al

I like the 53 man roster rule over the cap floor. The cap floor is in place so players get their money and the owners aren't greedy. We don't have that problem here because its fake money, but the 53 man roster rule makes much more sense. We should be required to carry a full roster for the season.

[Ulrich82]

I just read this on PFT. It matches with what I saw before on ESPN, but I didn't really realize what they meant. Apparently, the minimum spend for each team is over a 4 year average period (2013 to 2016 and 2017 to 2020). In addition to the above points, I think this makes it even harder to impose a real salary floor here. Why go through the headache of keeping track of this average for something that really won't have any effect on competitive balance?

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... inal-deal/

[Ben C.]

I just read this on PFT. It matches with what I saw before on ESPN, but I didn't really realize what they meant. Apparently, the minimum spend for each team is over a 4 year average period (2013 to 2016 and 2017 to 2020). In addition to the above points, I think this makes it even harder to impose a real salary floor here. Why go through the headache of keeping track of this average for something that really won't have any effect on competitive balance?

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... inal-deal/

It does have an effect on competitive balance, though. If a team tanks a season to load up on the draft the next year, the balance is compromised. The other teams in the division get 2 easy wins, allowing them a better chance at the playlets than teams in divisions with 4 competitive teams.

Having a salary floor would help address the issue.

[charlie813brown]

Having a salary floor wouldn't affect the competitive balance. If i wanted to tank for draft purposes, and keep a low cap this year, I would just sign a few players who wouldn't help me to high 1 year deals. I would meet the floor, but i would still not be competitive. That logic is too flawed.