The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The real cost of restructuring contracts in the NFL, and other big salary cap questions with Brad Spielberger of PFF

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Everyone knows that the Eagles and Saints are masters of the salary cap. But what does that really mean? What's the practical cost of all that alchemy? Brad Spielberger, salary cap analyst for Pro Football Focus, joins Robert Mays to dive deep into the details on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Brad on Twitter: @PFF_BradSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. A lot of you have asked over the last couple months if we could dig into some more stuff around the salary cap and some questions that you have around the salary cap. And I definitely wanted to.

You know, there's so many things associated with the league that have real big-time implications on team building and why teams win or lose. And so many of those have to do with the realities of the salary cap. looking at huge quarterback contracts, what they actually prevent teams from doing, how they're structured, how the differences in them, in their structures, impact the way that teams can build. How teams restructure contracts in general. We've spent so much time talking about the Saints and their team building model and how much of an outwire they are.

But are they really anymore? There are so many of these other teams that are restructuring contracts in ways they truly never have before. It's more prevalent and more important than it's ever been in the NFL and impacts why teams win and lose and impacts their title windows and impacts how the mindset affects the best teams in the NFL. So I wanted to dig into all of this stuff with Brad Spielberger from PFF. He's a salary cap analyst for PFF. He's done tons of great work on the cap in general, how teams are finding value, how teams are structuring things. He's one of the experts in this space.

So I'm really excited for you guys to hear this conversation as we dug into every big question that I have about how teams. are using and manipulating the salary cap. And hopefully we touched on a lot of the big questions that you guys have. Let's get to it. Thrilled now to welcome the salary cap analyst from PFF and just NFL analyst extraordinaire overall over there. It's Brad Spielberger. Brad, thank you very much for taking the time to do this during a holiday week.

I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And hopefully got a barbecue or something coming up after. But I appreciate having me on. The problem with the way that the schedule has been laid out is that I think a lot of people, including myself, had their Fourth of July weekend this weekend. So I've already done the hot dogs and the mac and cheese and the potato salad, everything else. So I'm sitting there looking at tomorrow being like, I don't know if my body can handle it again.

So I'm trying to do a healthy cookout tomorrow is my plan, which is a very lame answer. But that's the direction that I'm going, I think. I respect that. No, it might be a lame answer, but I fall on the same boat. So it's not lame to me. Here's what we're doing today. A lot of you guys have asked to do this and I've been putting it off because I really wanted to have it in a considered way that allowed us to get all the real estate necessary to actually have this conversation. I wanted to spend today

having sort of a salary cap reset on a lot of the bigger picture questions, the bigger picture salary cap and just financial questions that are dominating the NFL right now. The stuff that actually matters, but we don't often have a chance to talk about because the schedule takes over. Guess what? It's July 5th. So there isn't much else that we have to worry about right now. So this is the perfect time, in my opinion, to kind of stop down and really dig into some of these salary cap questions that actually do have an impact on the way that teams can build. And as a result, an impact on what actually happens on the field. And, Brett, I wanted to start with quarterback contracts and kind of where we are with quarterback contracts. Because the discussion and the discourse around quarterback contracts in the NFL, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody, is that it's binary.

You have a guy in a rookie quarterback contract and then eventually you're going to have to pay that guy. And we spend so much time worrying about that contrast, but I think very little time digging into the practicalities of what it is like after you have to pay that quarterback. And I think this is a good time to have this discussion for two reasons. We have a couple very recent examples of contract structures that we can talk about in Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hertz. And you have the Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert contracts that are kind of wading in the wings here. So I think that this is kind of the perfect moment to really discuss what life is like for some of these teams after they hand out these deals and where they run into some team building barriers after they hand out these contracts. Yeah, I do think it's funny that I actually think it can be that binary. I know we never like to be reductive or make things that oversimplify, but I really do think if you're the football administration budget guy, your team, so to speak, you probably are operating in the rookie contract window or the expensive.

veteran and pretty much everything just trickles down from that one starting point. Good. I'm glad that that's how it actually works then, and I'm not the one that's lumping too simplistic of terms. So as we're dealing with the second bucket here, these big money, second contracts for these quarterbacks, in your mind, are they all created more or less equal, or do you think that there's enough difference in the structures with some of these that some teams on this expensive quarterback timeline path, however you want to describe it, actually do have a little bit more an advantage than some others? Yeah, I think the structure is massive, right?

And that may trickle down more so from the ownership's willingness to spend a certain amount of money or how they can spend money, basically the timing of that spending. And can they give these massive lump sums or would they rather spread it out more? So I'm not even sure I would say maybe it's front office genius. I think some of it just is out of necessity. and it's born out of having to get creative to just figure things out. But with that being said, like Patrick Mahomes taking a 10-year extension, but not only that, the amount of money he made in the first two new years of his deal is less than Lamar Jackson

made this year in new money with $80 million in year one earnings. My home's made less than that in two years. And so, you know, that's partly because you say, okay, with our structure, you're going to have assurances and protection via these rolling guarantees that extends basically longer out than any contract ever. It's not fully guaranteed it's signing, but you will make this money barring, you know, crazy circumstances. So that's just one example.

But yes, you still can find edges and how you go about this. I wanted to ask you, the Mahomes contract and how it's structured, is it almost so unique and so team friendly that it isn't even worth considering when we're looking at the parameters that a lot of these other teams have to operate in? Yes. And I think

part of that was because they kind of had the negotiation during the beginning of the COVID situation. So it was some timing there with 2020 and and just how they're able to go about it. But yes, they're not going to be a player, I think signed for a 10 year deal again for a very, very long time, but also too, just his willingness to take that low cash flow with the rationale of if you want us to pay Chris Jones, who was franchised at that time, obviously they're glad they did that. You want us to keep Travis Kelsey, so on and so forth, but they still trade away Tyree Kill and make some tough moves.

So we'll talk about the Chiefs more. But yes, it is a one of one. And arguably, It sounds crazy. Maybe the most team-friendly contract of all time for a half a billion dollar deal. So when you're looking at some of these numbers associated with these deals, you mentioned the first couple of year of cash flows. Obviously, the guarantees when those kick in. As somebody with an eye for this stuff, what are the first two or three details that you're interested in when you're looking at these quarterback contracts after they get handed out?

Yeah. So three-year new money cash flow is the number one thing I look at for any contract. What I mean by new money is, you know, if you had two years left, on your deal and we're set to earn X dollars. You would say, what's the money on top of that? That is the new money and the new contract. And that's how these deals are broken down. And then, well, I do three years.

I just think because of how team structure deals, if they're a team that gives massive signing bonuses, you know, or their team that doesn't do that. And they kind of spread it out. By the end of year three, I think things tend to equalize. And you can kind of compare on a more level playing field. So that would be the first one for me. And then I guess it kind of could vary position to position.

But, yeah, I mean, fully guaranteed money. I mean, you know, why get complicated when it's a simple answer? Just, you know, what is the total fully guaranteed at signing dollars? What is going to be earned almost no matter what, again, various teams to team. But I think is an important benchmark, no question about it. So even if those numbers are all fairly similar, right? So I'm looking at Lamar Jackson and J-1 Hertz contracts, just the top, the above the line details of them, right? So Lamar has $185 million in practical guarantees.

J.1 Hertz has about $180 million in practical guarantees. But the structure of those deals is incredibly different. You look at the J.1 Hertz contract and the way that it's laid out, his salary cap hits over the next three years are 13.6 million, 21.8 million, and 31.8 million. And the way that they've been able to do some of that is that his cap hits deeper into the contract are up in like the $60 million range. And his base salaries, I think every single year of the deal are at least, or no more than 1.4. million dollars. So what the Eagles have essentially done in the way that they've structured this deal is that they've already done the conversions that other teams are going to do later on. If you look at Deshawn Watson's deal, for example, this season, he has like a $1 million base salary because

they've converted that base salary into signing bonus and prorated it over the rent life of the deal. The Eagles have done that in advance. So this is a very naughty topic here in the way that these restructures and the way that these conversions actually work with quarterback contracts. But what is the downside of doing this? What are teams doing when they're converting them in the moment, the way that the Browns are with Sean Watson's deal, the way the bills are with Josh Allen's deal? And what is happening with the Eagles and the way that they've done it?

And how do those two things differ? Yeah. And the Eagles one will carry into other topics of our conversation. So there's a super unique, like you said. They basically have already pre-restructured out in each year. And that's simply because when you put option bonuses into contracts, later years of a contract, which is basically what there is, there's an option bonus in every single season.

And by the letter of the CBA and the way the salary cap is structured, we do go out and we prorate those, meaning spread out over up to five years. We prorate those before it even gets there, right? So as of right now, they actually have to pick up these options down the road. But we just go ahead and say, all right, this is going to get spread out over the cap. It gives you cap relief now. And this ties into Aaron Rogers getting traded and kind of why they had to rework the deal there why the Eagles, I think, were willing to do this after kind of doing the same with Carson

once. Double option bonus. It gets them in a ton of trouble. They set the NFL record for dead cap, you know, for a player. It's been surpassed since. But nevertheless, there is a mechanism where you can get some of that cap relief back. I won't go super into the weeds of it. But, but yeah, so they are actually just pushing out this credit card bill in perpetuity, basically. And they have no mechanism to recoup some of it. But if things are going well, if he stays health, They like how he's playing. Then, yeah, they just don't have to deal with this contract really ever. They just keep pushing it out, pushing it out, pushing it out,

and then maybe get a new deal, an extension, whatever. That contract is one of one. There is no comparable contract to what Jalen Hertz just signed. So here's my question. Why wouldn't more teams try to do this? Like, what is the barrier to teams chasing this sort of structure? And if you're looking at the Jalen Hertz contract, I mean, it's insane when you actually look at the details of it laid out.

But when you go all the way down to 2029, when some of these void years are tacked on to it, because eventually those are going to come into play with the proration of the option bonuses, he has a $34, $35 million cap hit in 2021 when he's not even on the roster. So is the thought process there that when we get there, we'll have redone this so many times and it won't matter? They essentially just trying to outrun when the consequences might arrive for structuring a contract like this? I think that's effectively what it is. It's like we are going to be comfortable if we get to a point where, and the Eagles, just for example, they have over $500 million that is pro rated right now. It's over $100 million more than the next highest team. Like they take this to an extreme.

They put everything in these bonuses you can spread out. They don't want any money kind of hitting the current year. And I think, yeah, they're thinking is, yeah, you know, we get there. If we need a new quarterback or if we need ABC XYZ, we're going to be bad regardless. If we need to take this massive dead cat hits that kind of hamstring our ability to spend, you know, So be it. And look at teams this year. I mean, the Buccaneers, no, I have, what, $80 plus million in dead cap.

So, you know, over a third of the cap this year for the Buccaneers and some others is going to players not on the roster. But you just say, well, yeah, but why not when Tom Brady leaves? Why not just staff? Like, what's the downside, right? So I want to talk about the bonus probation and stuff a little bit later when we talk about just teams in general. But talking about the quarterback specifically, I wanted to dig into a couple specific examples.

And the opportunity cost that comes with this, I think that's the thing. we don't talk about enough. When you're doing these things and you're pulling these financial levers, what is it preventing you from doing? Why wouldn't more teams do this? So let's talk about the Deshawn Watson deal, for example, right? So he restructured his deal this year. He gets his cap number down to $19 million.

I want to say the base is probably somewhere in the $25 to $30 million range. They save probably $20 to $25 million against the cap and they push it out into future years. So starting next season, his cap hit each of the next three years after this is $6,000. $64 million, and they got it down this year to $19 million. So what are the Browns trying to do here? They're not going to pay him $64 million against the cap next year. So are they another one of these teams that's just going to keep pushing this further and further down the road until eventually they get to this disaster year they're willing to eat? Is that the situation that most teams are in as they take on this sort of mindset?

If you approach this mindset and, you know, Andrew Barry being a former Eagles guy, it's not an accident. They have very similar mechanisms here. The double option bonus I mentioned, Miles Garrett has it. Watson's deal is a bit unique, obviously, for many different reasons. But yes, like they are number one in cash spending in the NFL this year. They're number one currently in cash spending in the NFL next year already. And a lot of that money is guaranteed, like Watson, where the entire deal is guaranteed. Yeah, you're just saying, you know what?

We know we have this good young nucleus of players. Why should we care about, oh, what if we have an unhealthy cap when Miles Garrett's 33 and I'm already, like, who cares? Like, let's just, let's just kind of figure this thing out, go through it. And I think for the Browns, you kind of get that rationale, just trying to be good for the first time in, you know, you and I's lifetimes. Like, might as well try it. You know, each team obviously different contexts, but I get why they're doing it, I suppose. Okay.

So you mentioned the cash spending. And I think that brings me to what is one of the most important questions associated with this. Is the amount of cash that your owner is willing to spend in these sort of situations? Is that the number one thing preventing every team from operating this way that's even close to contention? Yes, probably yes. So I think even the most aggressive of owners are always going to be off in their own stratosphere. The others, I think, enter when here's a good example. One of my favorite examples, the Buccaneers used to not prorate money.

Ever, ever, ever, ever. Like Mike Evans had a zero dollar signing bonus and became the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. And so I wouldn't call the Blazers cheap, but they definitely were not. the more aggressive side of the coin. When you go, the same way the Bengals are now in that kind of sphere of teams. And so they'll dip their toe in the water for one or two years if they think they have, hey, it's a window. We have a special quarterback.

We have some special rookie contract talent. But then as soon as that goes downhill, they're back in the bottom half of the league. Whereas, you know, other teams, I mean, you can mention Philly. We all, I think revisionist history, we kind of look at the 2021 playoff season. We all thought they were going to stink, or at least I'll speak for myself. Like, I thought it would be bad that year. I really did. Lurie didn't care and just kind of kept pushing through it and now here we are.

Okay. So all of these teams now that have given out these contracts recently feel like they're kind of barreling toward this reality where eventually they're just going to have to say, we have to keep converting this stuff in order for us to compete with the other teams in the league. The bills are doing this now when they've been a little safer in some of the decisions that they've made pre-Josh Allen, I think is safe to say. They had that one stretch where they had a ton of dead money at the beginning of the Bean, McDermott era, but for the most part, they haven't been one of these hyper-aggressive teams.

You mentioned the bucks. Obviously, what the Bengals may have to do with Joe Burrow. And then even the Ravens now, Lamar Jackson has a $74 million cap it in three years. So he's never going to get there. They're going to have to do this. So it almost feels like if you have a quarterback at Dallas with that Doc Prescott right now is having to do this in the moment. If you have a quarterback on one of these deals, you almost have to operate this way in order to keep pace with the other teams that have quarterbacks on these sort of deals. Would you say that's fair? I think that's totally fair. Yes. If you have the

rookie contract, then you can sign these big free agents or extend your internal guys, but not go crazy with the paration. If you're also balancing a 40 plus million dollar quarterback contract, if you want to retain a bunch of top talent, yeah, you probably have to, like I said, use that credit card, use the full five-year window you're allowed to spread cap hits over. Otherwise, yeah, the other teams are going to surpass you in talent, most likely. the only team that hasn't done this consistently year and year out over the last four or five years, ironically enough, has been the Chiefs. They have taken on Mahomes' full cap hit. They did it in 2022 and they won the Super Bowl. They have not adjusted his contract at all this season.

So they're really the only team that's been able to thread this needle. And they've been able to do it in part because even though the numbers are pretty big, they're kind of paltry compared to what he could be making and what some of the other teams are making. So is that really the only reason that they've been allowed to not touch his deal? where other teams almost half to make sure that they're restructuring the stuff season in and season out. The thing with them too is like they're willing to let good players walk. I mean, they were 16th. Yeah, like they were 16th in cash spending last year.

They're currently 17th right now. You know, and people can poke holes in their roster. And they do have a couple here and there. I'm sure you can point out. But, but yeah, their thing is like not to always tie things back to the Patriots, which I, you know, I just do because they're kind of my foundation. But like letting really good football players walk is very, very hard. Or even like Cheddar Jones, like treading them away outright to Arizona, like making those tough decisions, getting draft capital back forward, even if it's just compics and so on and so forth, it does start to go a long way.

It also helps to have Patrick Mops. I think the cash spending is typically a pretty good indication of what teams think of themselves in their timeline when we were doing the show a couple weeks ago about how many teams are trying to win the Super Bowl. It was the first list that I looked at in terms trying to decipher that answer. So I wanted to ask you, this is a little bit off topic. We were talking about them converting his contract this year. What do you make of the Cowboys spending habits over the last couple years when they've been in the bottom third of the league and cash spending with a roster that I think is a contending roster when you consider the talent that's on it? What do you make of them right now? Yeah, so they're fascinating because I think no owner maybe does a better job of PR and brand management.

Exactly. Oh, we're in, baby. You know how badly I want to win a Super Bowl every time he opens his mouth? No one wants to win more than me. I've heard him say that a thousand times, right? And like you said, I say, well, look at your cash spending and you're like 26 with a good quarterback with a top 10, you know, defensive linemen and Michael Parsons, et cetera, et cetera, you know, C.D. Lamb, so on and so forth say, hey, you have a lot of really good

rookie contract players. You probably could be more aggressive and add some more talent to this team. Yeah, so Jerry is the master. He is the king. Look, I think they draft very, very well. I think it's probably more to do with Will McClay, with all due respect to the Jones family, than it is them just being wizards in the draft. room. But because they're so good there, I think sometimes they only want to pay internal homegrown

guys and they want to win a lot of negotiations and they want to be seen as a power and seen as a strength. And they preach like guys want to play for us. Guys will take discounts to come play for us. And I'm just not really sure that's as true as they think it is. Look, from a profit standpoint, Jerry Jones is happy as a clam. But, but yeah, no, they are not. There was a question later, like who's kind of in the middle. They're in the middle. They don't push the envelope like they could. So if we're looking at all these deals, and we're just assuming that most of these teams that are in contention with these sort of quarterbacks are going to be restructuring them pretty much every single year and understanding that if we ever have to take it on the chin one season, we're willing to do it. Are we overrating how much of a hindrance these sort of deals are to building a championship caliber roster if most of the teams that own these contracts are willing to restructure them every single year? So here's what I'll say, and the Saints always come up in these conversations, as they should.

They are kind of the poster child for just not caring about the salary cap. They start every offseason with, I don't know, $70, $80 million under. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, yeah. But here's the things. Is the cost kind of overblown? Drew Brees from 2012 to 2016, five-year stretch. He was a pro-buller in four of the five years.

He had at least 32 passing touchdowns in each of the five seasons. his lowest passing yardage total in these five years was 4,872, with 3,000 yard seasons in there. The team went 7 and 9, 4 times and made the playoffs once at 11 and 5. It's because you make Jarris Bird the highest paid safety in the NFL. You re-sign Jr. Gillette when there was already kind of off-field stuff going on. Like you pay every single guy, and a couple of things don't break your way. And I think now we have this revisionist history again of the 2017 Saints draft class is literally one of the best draft classes of all time.

And so if that doesn't happen, are we sitting here talking about the Saints had Drew Breeze for the last six, seven years of his career and made the playoffs once or twice? And the entire narrative changes, but it helps when you add like four pro bowlers in the first four rounds of a draft. So you can create more wiggle room than the perception might lead people to believe, right, by doing these restructures. But eventually you are going to have to cut some costs. The Chiefs last year with Tyree Kill are probably a pretty good example. What's happening with the Bengals right now feels like another one, right? Where you're letting guys like Von Bell walk and you're having to replace them with younger, cheap, homegrown talent.

So even if you can get these cap hits down to 20, 25 million compared to 60 million, that 20 million is still a lot more than 4 or 5 million. Is that kind of where it is? Even if the overall impact is a little bit overstated, it still does lead you to make some hard financial decisions that you didn't have to make in the previous reality. That's exactly how I put it. Yeah, even if it's just one or two decisions, but they can be pivotal. You know, and yes, those that you have a different sway because of where you stand at quarterback. As we look about these deal at these quarterback deals and we consider these quarterback deals, is there anything else that you think people should know about these types of contracts that we don't talk about enough?

Yeah, I guess the one big thing that jumps out for me, we talked about cash flows already. We obviously guarantee can mean a million different things. But I think the biggest point is we've got this, this conversation. where people think, oh, he'll sign a six-year, eight-year, 10-year deal, whatever, because Mahomes did it because Josh Allen did it. And if you get this massive amount of money, you know, why not do that, yada, yada, yada, just like any other position. As soon as the guarantees dry up, it's not real. And so these guys want shorter contracts. They want to get back to the market as fast as possible. And you shouldn't view that as like greedy or anything.

They're just trying to make like Desmond Bain money out here. It's, it's, that's the world we live. So do you think that length is the biggest factor playing into a team's favor when considering these deals just because it gives you a larger sandbox to play around in as you're doing all of these restructures and trying to move this money around? 110%. Yep. Okay. So that is the number one factor. If you're looking at what the right deal could be for a Joe Burrow or a Justin Herbert, it's not worrying about total guarantees, it's not worrying about the average annual value compared to other guys at the position. It's looking at, all right, if this is a six-year deal, then we'll be able to do what we need to do to compete for the most part over that span of time. That plus, he can't ask us or he could, but it's going to be hard for him to ask for a new deal when he has three or four years left. So we're buying ourselves more time as well. And we know inflation is going to be crazy. for quarterbacks every off season. So it's also that. Like you just, you buy yourself time before the next kind of market correction or market

adjustment, which is inevitable at the position. You look at all of these deals for the most part, all of the big money deals at quarterback that we've seen signed over the last two, three, four seasons are at least five years long. Deshaun Watson, Mara Jackson, Jalen Hertz, Russell, Wilson, Kyle Murray, all five years. Josh Allen was six years. Mahomes was 10 like we talked about. Aaron Rogers is a little bit different. He was three, but obviously he's getting a little bit over.

older and then you, one year less than that, you get to the Dac Prescott deal. And you've already seen some of the difficulties that Dallas has compared to some of these other teams and the amount of money that they've had to move around because Dax deal was a little bit shorter than some of the other ones that we're talking about. 100%. And that was the standard back then. When he signed that it was Jared Gough and Carson Wendz and actually Deshaun Watson's original deal.

These were all four-year deals. And Dack fell into that bucket on a second franchise tag. So he had all the leverage in the world. And that's what we're talking about. yeah, like he was a legit extension candidate this year after missing six games or whatever and not playing his best football. They probably still had preliminary conversations just because you kind of have to. And talking about the franchise tag thing and having all that leverage, it's almost why Kirk Cousins is the least team friendly example. With the Vikings, it almost figured, like by the end of every single year, they had to be thinking about what the next contract was going to look like for them to feel the team.

So when you've got one of these guys that's working on a three-year deal, you run into so many more problems. then these teams that have these six, seven-year contracts where they don't even have to worry about it. It's so far away that it's never a concern of when the next quarterback contract is coming. 100%. Here's a smart agent thing. This would be a random fact toy, but this is what agents get paid a lot of money to do. In that, Prescott's case, he actually did go ahead and sign his second franchise tags that it became an official franchise tag. So the next time he's a free agent, I don't think he got a no tag clause, but it doesn't matter because it would be his third franchise tag just like Kirk Cousin. They kind of weaseled that in there and basically got themselves a no tag clause. Like all those little details.

Yeah. Like you said, Kirk Cousins, his extension last offseason was basically them franchise tagging him like a year in advance because they can't franchise tag him. So the one thing I wanted to ask about with these structures and the way that teams are doing this. You mentioned the option bonuses before. This may just me having a lack of awareness of it, but it feels like the amount of option bonuses and the prevalence of them is new in how teams are doing this. the option bonuses we're seeing like the one in J-1 hurts his contract, all of them. Josh Allen has some in his contract. Is this like a fairly new trend?

And do you think we're going to be seeing more and more of it because you do have a little bit of flexibility further into the deal because the pro-ration comes later? So it was a big thing, honestly, before I even covered the league. And then it kind of went away, you know, to this extreme degree we have it now. And so I do think for a couple reasons you're going to see more and more of it. So first, you know, just from the standpoint of, I think owners also in last five years, years are so much more aggressive in their roster construction in both directions, frankly. We're going to not tank, but we're going to be more willing to not chase 500 and be bad. Or we think we're close.

We're on the precipice. Let's just go out and make a big move, get a big time quarterback, and see what we can do. And what happens when you have those forces pulling in both directions is that, yeah, they're going to get creative and find new different ways to do this. We saw 10 deadline trades this year. Five was the previous record the last decade. Like everything they're doing is different. And I think because of that, the option bonuses come into play where you mention hurts, where you have all this flexibility, you can do whatever you want. And the second thing, I alluded to this with Aaron Rogers, you can actually get, so you do prorate it.

And historically, like for a signing bonus, as soon as you prorated out, it's gone. You can't manipulate it. You can't screw around with it. With these option bonuses and salary advances and some other things, the Eagles do, unsurprisingly, you actually can get salary cap credits back later. So you kind of get the upfront benefit, but don't have a guaranteed sunk cost with this dead cap. So, yeah, I think we're going to see it more and more. The two guys that we haven't really talked about because their contracts are kind of on the horizon, but the franchises they play for historically have not been willing to do a lot of this stuff.

They haven't shown the aggressiveness that a team like the Eagles consistently has. Are you worried about what life might look like for the Bengals and the Chargers after they hand out these deals? because in order to keep pace with some of these other teams that are trying to be competitive, they might have to throw around more cash than they have at previous times in their history. I mean, Cincinnati is going to be truly fascinating, right? Like I genuinely am not sure if T. Higgins gets done this offseason. And I think he's at top, I don't know, 25, 20 wide receiver in the NFL. And I think most teams, his extension already be done by now on most teams.

And I'm not even saying it's a Bengals thing. It's more just, I mean, it is. Anyway, just inherently like, they're going to have to make. make some tough decisions that I think other teams would still just kind of get it done and figure the rest out later. I think DJ Reeder is a phenomenal football player. He's due for an extension. Trey Hendrickson's already underpaid. They have all these decisions, even after losing talent and turning over the roster. And I think they've done phenomenally well the last couple off seasons. But yeah, like it's going to get hard. Look, Burrow, Jason Higgins could cost you, what, $110

$110 million a year for three players? Like, it's kind of crazy to even think about. But when we get to that point where Burrough has a $55, $60 million cap hit one year and every other team in that situation would just be like, well, we're not paying that. We'll push it off into future years. Can you envision a world where the Bengals are going to be willing to do something like that? And if they're not, again, are they kind of left behind the eight ball compared to all the teams they're trying to edge out for championships right now? Yeah. So it does get tough.

I don't. I don't think they're going to restructure a bunch of deals and push a bunch of cap down the line. And basically what it allows you to do is you spend more cash in that year. than the salary cap. I mentioned the Browns are first in the NFL. The Browns are spending more than $300 million on their 2023 roster under a $225 million salary cap. So yeah, like the Bengals, again, we talked about sometimes in some years, maybe the next two with this nucleus shore, but as soon as things get tough, I think they hit the abort button maybe earlier than other teams would. So we alluded to this a little bit, but I wanted to dig into it in a more holistic roster approach

here is the idea of restructuring contracts. Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap. who you know very well, said that 42% of teams had a restructured contract on their books from 2017 to 2019, less than half of the league. Now that number is 73%. That's a pretty huge jump over the last three years. Not hard to figure out where that jump came from. In 2020, the entire country underwent a pandemic that affected how money worked in pretty much every single capacity.

And in order to field rosters, a lot of these teams had to do stuff that they wouldn't otherwise. So do you think that because of that, the pandemic kind of spurred on evolution and innovation and how some of these teams are doing it because they realize that while restructuring some of these things, maybe it's not as dangerous or as risky as we previously thought and almost accidentally usured us into a new era and how the NFL as a whole was looking at some of this stuff? 100%. And I know it maybe sounds silly. I thought you were expecting a different answer. Yes. Like I really, really do.

It almost seem too simple. I was like, I was like, oh, man, is that, is that it? Did the league change forever because of this? Right, right. You're like, I think of a genius, but I don't know. Yeah, no. Yeah, no, totally. Like 100%.

I think the one mechanism that everyone, you know, talks about nowadays, void years, which in simplistic terms is basically just a dummy contract year. You're not actually under contract for that season, but it's in your contract and teams can push cap hits into those void years. I would bet the percent of teams that have done that before COVID was, I don't know, 20% 15%. Even that seems high. Yeah, it might.

It might be high. Right, right. There might be three or four teams. And post COVID, it's 29, 30, 31. I think it might be all 32 at this point. You know, I know the Falcons and their football administration to department hate void years. Anyway, that's a total tangent for another day. But yeah, I do.

I think it caused teams. And it ties back to the thing, too, of like, I think teams then were also more willing to explore trades or explore the idea of, let's not look at prorated bonus money pushed out as a summer. cost or something that's going to prevent us from making a transaction, I think what they realized was, look, unused gap space, you can carry it over, you can roll over into the following season, that which you do not use. As long as you don't spend on top of it, you can just kind of eat that deficit, right? So I think it did. It caused a lot of, I think owners more than front offices. I'm sure they knew about the possibilities. I think owners, though, had to be more realistic with like all

the different mechanisms at their disposal. Explain a little bit more about not treating the pro-rated bonus money as a sunk cost. What were team is not doing before that they are doing now in the way that they were looking at that. I think the number one thing is with trades, right? So like I said, if you give a signing bonus or a restructure bonus, that money gets pushed out. When you move the guy, you can't get rid of it, right? There is dead money that cannot be manipulated in any way to your performance. So it was funny. I mentioned, what was it? Carson Went. Okay. So Carson Wentz had the record for the most dead money ever post-trade. It was about $34 million. A couple months after him or before him was Jared

golf, that was the record. A couple months before that was Brandon Cook's, that was the record. Like, Todd Gurley was the record. Kaleel Mack was the record. So like teams, they basically said it looks bad. I think it's bad optics, or I feel as though if I've given this much cash out, I should get my return, even though you are spending more salary on top of that. And I think once a couple teams, the Rams, the Eagle, the big ones, once they said, you know, who cares? This guy is not as good as the cash I'm going to pay him for this season. So let's get him out. of here. I don't care about the sunk cost of the priority money. And now I think you're seeing

more and more and more teams be comfortable having some dead cap. And like you said, it also points to aggression and points to trying. So I think there's, there was a conversation when that was all happening of you need an owner who's willing to eat those dead money heads. And is that, in your opinion, that's more of an optics thing than it is a practicality thing. The owner being willing to say, ah, I don't care. We'll pay him that much to not be on the team. So that's more about the owner willing to absorb the optics than it is willing to absorb the cash. It seems. that way to me. There's, of course, the cash component of a guy. So I just gave this guy 40 million. I'm not going to spend that for one season. But, but I think if you're like going into the third or fourth year of a deal and there's like 12 million in signing bonus money left, you're saying, we already paid this guy, this signing bonus. We've already had him for three. Like, who cares? I do think optics was as big of a part of it as simply just saying, I want to get my money's worth, so to speak. That's really interesting, but it makes total sense. Okay. Let's talk about the saints. Okay. If we're talking about teams that restructure these deals, obviously the saints are the most extreme case. single year, like you alluded to, it's March 3rd. And we see the inevitable story about how the

Saints are $60 million over the salary cap. Oh my God, what are they going to do? The Saints are $60 million over the salary cap. And then over the next two weeks after that, we see five, six news stories about how they've restructured pretty much every single big money deal on their books. We've talked about this a bunch on the show just because I think it's fucking hilarious. If you look at the Saints over the cap page, every single notable member of the New Orleans Saints, has a base salary between one and like $1.3 million, because they've restructured every single one of those deals. If you look at next year, the Saints are set to be about $60 million over the 2024 salary cap. If they were to restructure Derek Carr, Ryan Ramcheck, and Marcus Latimore, without cutting a single person, that's $50 million in savings right there.

So this is going to happen most likely, again, based on the way that they've built this roster. this is my question to you. What are the actual downsides of doing this when it's not for the quarterback? When you're not saying, oh, if the quarterback's bad, we're going to be bad anyway, we'll just take it on the chin one year. When you're doing this as a team building method and as your identity as an NFL franchise, what are the practical drawbacks of operating this way? Yeah, so look, they would probably nitpick and push back and say, oh, we didn't really want to keep. They sure would. Oh, on everything, yes, of course.

But at this point specifically of being like, look, like, do I think they maybe had an interest in keeping a Trey Hendrickson and Marcus Williams? I'm sure they would have liked to keep those players around. Like, you know, Toronto Armstead. Like, I think they have lost some players because they, you know, they didn't want to find a way to make it work, which is valid, which is fair. But they probably in a different environment would have said, you know, we think we can make this, you know, manageable. But under the current construct, it's not. So, look, you point to those restructures totally fair. you also could say, Cam Jordan, Andrus Pete, and James Winston next year in New Orleans,

none of whom are under contract, have a $50 million cap hit for three guys. Yeah. So it's like they're fascinating. I mentioned the 2017 draft class. And look, am I making excuses? Sure. They also somehow have Cam Jordan and DeMario Davis are like still top 15 players in their position and they're 34 years old and it makes no sense.

Like they can't keep getting away with this. But like it's kind of there is an element to that with the Saints right now. You look at it, the names you brought up the exact names I was going to mention this year, for example. They lose Marcus Davenport, Shy Tuttle, David Annamad, and Free Agency. They have to bring in Nathan Shepard and Kalin Saunders is almost direct replacements for those guys. Lesser players that they're still having to pay for. 2022, they lose Tehran Armstead. They have to make a very aggressive move in the draft to go get Trevor Penning in order to replace him.

They lose Marcus Williams. They have to sign Tehran Matthew and Marcus May in order to get some production back. Again, for lesser players. So they're kind of slowly downgrading in these. spots as they lose the most expensive players on their roster and free agency. It's not some disaster, right? It's not a catastrophic thing every year, but it's similar to what we're talking about with the quarterbacks.

It's one, two decisions, one, two players that maybe you would have liked otherwise that you can no longer retain because you operate this way. It's that. And then I would say this. And again, I think we already agree, like, who really cares? But when they do inevitably say, all right, let's start over. I think it'll take them one extra season, right? I don't think they can flush the books.

Like you mentioned the bills, right? The 2018 bills that Josh Hound's rookie season had the most dead cap in the NFL. I think if you take it as a percentage of the cap, it's one of the highest of all time. But they just said, we're just going to stink. Get rid of all these veteran guys. But they were able to do it one off season done. I think New Orleans it probably takes it. The Bears last year are a good example where it's just like we're getting rid of all of this stuff right now.

But framing it in those terms I think is so interesting because that's the downside. It's one extra year. We're going to have one year where we have to totally suck if we operate this way. As a fan, if I'm rooting for these teams, why wouldn't I want them to operate this way then? If the worst case scenario is we're bad for two years because we try to be competitive for 10 years, that's a pretty good trade-off in my mind if I were rooting for one of these teams. I don't think there's a Rams fan out there that's ringing his hands about cutting Leonard Floyd and cutting. It's like, oh, well, yeah, I got a ring and now we're here.

the other teams that I think are worth looking at this offseason because there's several of them that are now operating in this sort of more aggressive way and are going to be dealing with some realities over the next year or so the dolphins come to mind okay they've restructured tirichols davian howard toa toron armstead Bradley chubb jill and ramsaylon ramsayette they all have like one million dollars this year there are 32 million dollars over the cap the chargers are 60 million dollars over the 2024 cap cleo mac joey bosa mike williams keenan allen so these teams that are doing it kind of in the short term here. Are we really just looking at maybe a one year kind of swoon because of these sort of decisions? Like if you're the Chargers next year, are you just kind of saying, ah, if we got to move on from a couple of these guys, it's going to be a little bit more difficult. But we have Justin Herbert. We have a couple young pieces we're excited about. We'll bounce back in 2025. Is it really that simple when you're operating this way? It's, hey, we're going into the fourth year of the rookie contract. And sure, they might pay Herbert, but still, you go back, look historically at the extensions for these quarterbacks. They keep the cat.

hits pretty low. Yeah, it's saying, look, we have one more year of cost control on a rookie deal for this guy. Let's go in all in. I mean, look at the last couple off seasons. So, you know, Bengals for them spent a good amount. The Chargers obviously went nuts last offseason. You know, Dolphin, same thing. You didn't look at years before. Cala Murray, Daniel Jones, like those teams were very aggressive, you know, and so on and so forth. Going into that third or fourth year of the rookie deal before the fifth year option, a lot of teams just say, let's just pull the trigger. And yeah, if we have to kind of turn things over, we'll do that after the fact.

So in your mind, again, getting back into the practical elements of this, kind of the opportunity cost that comes with it, what is the downside to a team like the Chargers doing that this year? Like what is the worst case scenario based on the decisions that they have made for this year that will impact them over the next year or two? Yeah. I mean, I want to say Khalil Mack, Mike Williams, and Keenan Allen, who, you know, potentially all are not on the roster for 2024.

I think it would be the last year of all of their deals off top of my head. again massive cap hits like 20 mil plus i think for all three of those guys and so again like you're saying being bad one year is not the worst thing but you could you could definitely make an argument of all right you have 26 year old justin herbert on his fifth year option season and we're sitting here and don't have a lot of talent at you know edge is kind of getting kind of getting tricky now and and receiver is basically quentin johnston like josh palmer like it's very quickly it goes from like yeah we're retaining our core guys to how can we get off jacson how can we get off this deal How can we get up this deal?

And it kind of just waste some time, you know, some prime years of a great player. So let's bring it back to where we started. If they extend Justin Herbert next offseason and they get whatever his cap it is down to single digits next year, you save the $15 million there that you ended up having to give to Kille-Mack because you restructured it. Now we're back in the same sort of merry-go-round that we were on before. You just kind of keep on kicking it down. So that's one of my takeaways from this is that the downsides, if you're willing to spend the cash, maybe aren't as catastrophic as we like to think when we're framing it when we talk about these

teams. I don't think it's unfair at all. And here's how you put a bow on the whole thing. And I genuinely believe this. If you draft well enough, I think you can get away with it. If you compound the timing of these seasons, which you're probably going to be picking later, at least you hope you are. And, you know, two or three of those drafts where you just don't add guys, then you're like,

you're devoid of talent, both cheap and expensive. But yeah, a couple good draft classes can get you through a lot. All right. We talked about this a little bit when we were discussing the Eagles. I wanted to ask you, as somebody who studies this all the time, which teams are doing the best job at creating edges with the way that they deal with the salary cap? The Eagles right now, you just mentioned that they have all this proration, hundreds of millions of dollars in prorated money out of future years. And they've done a lot of the same stuff that the dolphins and the chargers and other teams we're talking about have done. The Chargers are $60 million over the 2024 salary cap.

The Eagles are $47 million under the 2024 salary cap despite all of the talent they have on their roster. So I assume the Eagles are going to be one of these teams, but who are the others and what do these mechanisms look like? Yeah. Eagles are the one-one decision here. We'll go into maybe some more detail. I mean, look, when the GM is a cap guy in Howie Roseman, I think you're just held to a higher standard and so that it kind of trickles down. So they're one that I look, I'll read through their contracts and find things. I've never seen before happens all the time. Saints are on there as well.

They aren't just kicking the can down the road. You know, Kai Harley down there does a good job. Does a lot of things that are different, convinces players to agree to things. And then I'll say- Give me an example. Salary de-escalators is a big one for Kai Harley. So everyone knows about salary escalators. Hey, if you get this many sacks or you play this many snaps, your salary for next year will increase from $10 million to $12 million.

They also have the inverse. And there are not a lot of teams that have those baked in. But if you build precedent and your top players are agreeing to these, you know, terms, then you can keep asking more and more people. So, yeah, that's just one. And it's not a massive. You know, you might save a million here, a million and a half there. But just all these creative ways, the margins always matter.

So, yeah, that's one of the saints have kind of, you know, been historically known for. And then the bills, and I think this is a larger conversation. But the bills and the Eagles are kind of the gold standard. But getting deals done early with almost all of their guys. And they were so good at it for a stretch that, like, yes, Stefan Dix can stay because we got everybody else's deal done early. Kind of makes sense. And then second thing, and this is, again, this could be a whole podcast. But I think the Buffalo bill sat down when the new regime came in.

And they said the number one way a team in Buffalo, New York can compete and can win in this league with a salary cap league is let's spend as much money as possible on things that are not under the salary cap. I've been told players, I've been told players have signed there because of their training. facility. I've been told players have signed there because of the accommodations they make for the players, yada, yada, yada. And yeah, it's not inside my purview, but, but I think it trickles back. You see guys take pay cuts there. You see guys take veteran discounts there. And I think it is not by, it's not just because I want to play with Josh Allen. He's awesome. I think it's the entire organization buying it. I can tell you with 100% certainty that that conversation happened when the new regime took over because of that exact reason. And when you were saying this, this idea of take guys taking

money early and how that can just get you so far ahead of the game. That is where some of these hard-to-define elements of teen culture start to actually manifest in real ways. The other very good example of this was what the Vikings were doing for that three or four-year stretch where everyone was signing these deals early and all of these countries were like, why are they taking these deals? Daniel Hunter and Diggs and so many guys, Adam Thiewen, and it was happening right as they were building this palatial facility in Minnesota and kind of revamping those ancillary parts of what it was like to go to work every day as a member of the Minnesota Vikings.

And that's stuff where we have a hard time describing it. We have a hard time defining it. But it really does manifest in ways that actually do matter. 110%. No, no. The precedent is so big. But look, they were first in the NFLPA report card. I'm biased.

I enter in there for a little bit. But it's not a surprise. The rating comes out and you're like, yeah, I mean, it's a first rate organization, even outside of football. but I think it all does kind of come back down and funnel down into the football team. Yeah, it's probably a smart way to do business. Spend on coaches, spend on all these various things that aren't technically capped. All right.

Let's get into a couple more of the specific things that the Eagles are doing. You said you dig through their contracts and you see stuff all the time that you've never seen before. We talked a little bit about the option bonuses, how they're using them and wielding them in ways other teams in the NFL aren't. And that goes back, like you mentioned, even to the Carson Went's deal, before they were as prevalent as they are in contracts around the week. What are two or three other things in your opinion that the Eagles are doing that other teams could do if they had the no-hull or the wear-with-all to try? I think one that stuck out to me was Derek Barnett last season. So a salary advance is a mechanism again where you can prorate it at the time. So let's say we're going to give you a $5 million salary advance.

That would get treated on the cap as, you know, if it's a five-year deal, five-one-million-dollar cap hits. But essentially, let's say you're two years into that contract and you trade that player, you can get a salary cap credit later on and recoup money if you didn't pay out the full cash already. Or basically the long answer is essentially doing things where they get the upfront cap relief right away, but they actually still can recoup some savings if they want to. I just think it's kind of a new frontier that more and more teams are going to kind of pour into. The Packers, they did rework Rogers' deal. But what would have happened if they didn't,

if they traded him to the Jets before his option got picked up for this year, they actually would have carried his cap hit for this year all the way through the season and then got credit at the end of the year. So anyway, just kind of finding new ways to buy yourself outs, basically. Second example would be guaranteed. So there's things called per game roster bonuses, which is we'll say, all right, a million dollars over the course of a season. each game you play, you get one 17th of this per game roster bonus.

You can guarantee those, right? And they're guaranteed against getting cut or, you know, being off the team. But if you're inactive and miss a game, the team doesn't pay it, right? So even though it's guaranteed, if you don't pay the cash, it doesn't hit your salary cap. So again, a mechanism where you're giving a guarantee, it can be treated like a guarantee, it can be viewed as an assurance, but you actually still buy yourself a little bit of wiggle room. And I know it sounds silly to save like six figures, but it adds up. The Niners do a lot of that, correct?

The Niners get a lot of savings that way. Niners are big on it as well, no question. On the other end of the spectrum here, and I'm not asking you to shit on anybody, are there teams in your opinion with the way that they operate, that they put themselves at a consistent disadvantage compared to other teams in the league? They're so far away from the Eagles that it's almost like they're playing a different sport sometimes. Here's where I'll go. And there's still a good organization to do a lot of things.

correctly, but I like them as an example because I don't think ownership, it can be an excuse. Because I do think, frankly, we can't sit here and make fun of the bank. Like, yeah, they're trying to operate in a different, you know, stratosphere. But the Cowboys, we talked about them already. Their issue is, and at the same time, their division rival, the Eagles are signing Jordan Milata for 16 million a year and Josh Sweat for 14 million a year and getting every single deal done early and getting tremendous value. The Cowboys trade for Amari Cooper, then wait to the last minute.

I want to say the Washington Commanders, she made an offer to Amari Cooper. than they still had to wrestle him away and sign him. So you do it with him. You franchise tag to Marcus Lawrence. You still pay him. Your franchise tag deck, Prescott, you still end up paying.

Like, sign a deal early one time. Like, save yourself some money. And have it not be the Ezekielia deal where they didn't save themselves any money. True. Yeah, exactly right.

Exactly right. It's like they did it with Tyron Smith. He signed an eight year contract. He's still playing on. And then they just like haven't really done it much since. It's like C.D. is a third year guy and at first rounder. But why not beat Justin Jefferson to the market?

Go for it. Like just like they just haven't really. done it. Why do you think that is? Do you think that's kind of like the shifting power in that building and just the entanglements that could potentially come with that in terms of like who's making these decisions? That would be like my very novice guess. I think that's probably a fair guess. I think too, though, there is, and I think it's valid to a degree. I think there is an opinion or a belief of we need to be viewed as very difficult to negotiate with and we draw a hard line in the sand and we don't give in and all these things to help the next negotiation like the every contract

negotiator when they're doing something whether it's the length of the deal or how the guarantees are paid out when they become guaranteed all these things they're thinking of the next deal as much as the current deal they're working on right and i think for them they just got so obsessed with like winning quote unquote each negotiation that they just kind of like almost hamstring themselves by just never doing a deal or i mean like dac making 40 million a year he probably would assign for around 30 two all seasons prior with golf and wents and all those guys. Yeah, that's the best example because it's clear. It's right there.

If they had done it a year earlier, it just would have been so much different. The last thing I wanted to ask you, just kind of a parting thought here, getting back using the restructuring as an example, what's something just about the way that teams operate that you've kind of had to change your thinking on over the last two or three years as teams have gotten more aggressive as they've been willing to do things they weren't willing to do either? Because in my mind, when I see something like the dolphins and how much they're over the cap next year, the Chargers, I kind of wince a little bit. But as you dig a little bit more into it, it's like, that's okay.

Like, it's okay to kind of eat those every so often when you're trying to win a championship. The downsides of it and the actual practical realities of it maybe aren't as scary as we might have thought they once were. So what is that kind of stuff for you where you've had to shift your thinking out of a little bit? That's one big one right there, frankly, is I used to hate window theory is what I would call it and kind of, telling us, oh, we have to chase this window. We have this narrow window. And when you study kind of roster construction from the standpoint of looking at contracts, looking at these guys ages and career curves and drop off in development with our data

and everything like that, like, if you're the, let's use the bucks to the example again, and you're sitting there, and yes, it's Tom Brady, but even let's just, you know, say enter ex quarterback that's a good player or whatever. And you're saying, we have rookie contracts on Tristan Worf, Chris Godwin, Vita Vaya, Mike Evans on a good, like, we have this phenomenal football. team that's cheap at a lot of these spots. And we are held back by one spot and one spot only. I think a couple years ago, I would have been like, oh, yeah,

but if they want to build a sustainable team that can win for a long time, and I'm like, you know what, whatever. Like go ahead and add a couple guys and see if you can capitalize on. We have eight kids we like that are 24 to 28. Like that's literally what it can come down to. And I think I've changed my mind on that a good amount. Yeah, I mean, the other one I would say is this is probably more from working more closely now with clubs and agents and stuff like that is like the veteran that signs the deal

that you think is more than maybe it should be to stay on a team to build a keep a culture and all those things around like it's real it matters a lot and i think we can certainly kind i mean eagles are a good example like fletcher cox 10 million for what he did last year i think's probably a bit steep but like for all we know about what he's done for the last decade in that building they probably think it's a steal right they probably think oh we just got a great value on fletcher ca and i think i have to kind of appreciate that a little bit more as well I remember talking about this with Howie Roseman a couple of years ago and the lessons that he learned kind of when the entire Chip Kelly thing happened and when he went away for a little bit and kind of had some time to think about this stuff. And the way they built those dream team Eagles teams where they gave up all this money to players from the outside and how quickly that culture and that building collapsed because of it because you didn't have a foundation.

You didn't have a bedrock of you didn't build it the right way essentially. And then when he retook over the Eagles, the first things he did outside of jettisoning every single guy that Chip Kelly brought in were resigning all of those guys that the Eagles drafted. Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz, all of those guys that were worthy of extensions, they got them. And that's how you build up the culture to eventually convince a guy like Jordan Milata to take the deal early so you save the money down the road. And trying to balance that stuff is incredibly difficult. But I'm with you. Like it's so easy to look at this stuff as numbers on a lot. spreadsheet and just say, well, why would you do that? Because the value proposition there is

incorrect when in reality, the human element of this stuff is eventually going to save you so much money in the long run that you can't grade or treat each individual transaction as right or wrong or good or bad because you have to consider them in the aggregate of everything. The analogy I would make is, you know, if you look at just the EPA numbers for rushing the football in a vacuum, you say, oh, it's always a negative proposition. No, the two rushes that get two are and set up the play action that gets 80. Like it's the same, I think, kind of foundational principle with this. Like, I mean, we'll see how this goes.

But without, you can make the argument. Without Fletcher Cox, do the Eagles draft Jalen Carter? And then if Jailen Carter pans out and becomes an elite football player, you're saying, we bought ourselves the ability to take this kid ninth overall that we didn't have, you know, that kind of, you know, a way of looking at it. Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. And I think it's a really good thing to keep in mind for everyone who tries to pay attention to learn about this stuff because it took me a while for it to really sink in.

and it's absolutely important. Brad Spielberger, thank you very, very much for the time, my friend. I know I learned a lot during this conversation. I hope you guys did as well. This is the hidden stuff that really does matter. And we spend so much time looking at these contracts talking about them, but actually exploring what the opportunity costs associated with. The practical downstream consequences of it, I think is really, really important.

So thank you very much for the time again during a holiday weekend. Where can people check out the other work that you're doing right now? Yeah, first, thanks so much for having me. You can follow anything I'm doing at PFF.com. Actually, have an article coming out about salary cap health looking at a three-year window into the future. So very relevant right now. And I got to plug overthecap.com. There are multiple contract sites, but over the cap.com is the best one in my unbiased opinion.

It is where I spend an inordinate amount of time. So thank you to Jason Fitzgerald and all of the guys over there and the work that they do because it is completely invaluable in covering the league and understanding it. So I completely agree. Brad, thank you very much for the time, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. All right, guys. That's all we got. Thank you again to Brad for his time. We will be back tomorrow with my buddy J.P. Acosta from SB Nation.

We're going to talk about some of the free agents still kind of floating around out there and where they might make the most sense as we get toward training camp here. We're going to have shows Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week. Next week, just a reminder, we are not going to have our normal podcast schedule because Jordan Roderig's new narrative podcast series, the Playcaller's, will be debuting on this feed. All five episodes on Monday, July 10th, you'll be able to find it there. I highly encourage you guys to check it out. So be on the lookout for that. That is all we have for now.

Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.