Millions and millions and millions is all it will cost to pay Brandon Lloyd not to play

by Skin Patrol on Feb 28, 2008 1:38 PM EST in Redskins Analysis

His release, long anticipated, does not save Washington any immediate salary cap space, with the free agency and trade period beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday, but will create additional room this June. Lloyd, who could not be reached to comment, was designated a June 1 cut for salary cap purposes, executive vice president Vinny Cerrato said, which means his salary cap figure of $4.2 million will drop to $1.8 million on June 1. (Lloyd will count $5.5 million in dead cap space in 2009.)

I tend to agree with Ben that heaping big blame needs to be placed on Lloyd for his own inability to do anything right, though I'm still pissed at the team's inability to sniff out a problem child before dishing him millions and trading away some draft picks. I understand money is tight this year, but I'd just as soon cut ties immediately rather than spread out the moneys we'll be penalized for Lloyd over the next two years. Generally it always makes sense to pay tomorrow what you owe today in the NFL due to the ever increasing size of the salary cap (more on that in a moment). The cap will be larger in '09 than it is in '08 and thus 5.5M will be worth relatively less. Still, why should ownership want to remind us of their errors again this time next year, when we're all talking about getting under the cap because we've got dead moneys counting against us?

It's a reminder how costly the Redskins' decision to trade third- and fourth-round draft picks for him and give him a new contract with a $10 million signing bonus was. Lloyd has talent, but that talent doesn't translate into on-field results to anywhere near the extent necessary to justify such a huge contract. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is done paying Lloyd, but he isn't done paying the price for signing him.

And, as Tandler points out citing to PCs, without signing any draft picks or filling our 2008 roster, we're still already at over 120M dollars accounted for in the 2009 season.

Maybe all this worry is misplaced. As I said earlier, the cap is constantly increasing and, by 2011, perhaps it will just increase itself into infinity. Per the Dallas Morning News:

Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones believes there is a good chance ownership will opt out of the current labor agreement with the NFL Players Association by the November deadline...

NFLPA president Gene Upshaw has said once there is an uncapped year, a salary cap would never return.

Even though I know the Redskins would be one of the teams participating with an unfair advantage in the post salary cap era, I would still find this move very regrettable. The NFL as a whole has benefited enormously from the distinctions it has made between itself and the other major sports, and chief among those distinctions is our salary cap system.

But, if it is the case that the salary cap is going Brandon Lloyd, then maybe Dan Snyder will end up looking like a genius. All this postponement of salary cap payments through the use of restructures would be totally vindicated the day the cap disappears, since the Redskins have the payroll and financial security necessary to swallow any monetary hit so long as they aren't forced to restrict payments under a league mandated cap. There are few, if any, teams in the NFL operating with as unlimited as budget as Your Washington Redskins. Maybe that's been the plan all along?

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Comments

Look at it this way

While I'm not sold on moving the 5+M to 2009,

The 2008 Salary cap is 116M, which is an increase of about 7M from last year. If 2009 salary increase is about the same, then the Cap will be 123M.
Per PC(as referenced) 5.3M is included for Lloyd so the current total, 120M is still below the possible increase, which is better than taking the hit this year.
Plus Portis, Moss and others continue to restructure then the number for 2009 shrinks more. Your Washington Redskins are fine as far as Cap space....and can be said they use all available CAP space in an ATTeMPT to field a winner.

by dr WNC on Feb 28, 2008 5:27 PM EST reply actions

Well...

I don't think I'd disagree. It's the same amount of money either way, we're really only discussing how it gets structured. I think once you've eaten a dead cap hit, there's something to be said for postponing it for the reasons you've stated; 5.3M under the 123M cap is easier to swallow than 7M under the 116M cap.

I'm just so sick of Brandon Lloyd I'm almost eager to cut ties to anything related to him whatsoever. Perhaps that's a narrow way of viewing things, but I've got strong feelings about what he did (specifically didn't) for this team.

Go Register. Or else.

by Skin Patrol on Feb 28, 2008 5:30 PM EST up reply actions