(03-17-2021, 09:09 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(03-17-2021, 08:51 AM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: That's what Baalke failed to do in San Francisco and a contributing factor why he was fired. Depending on how this contract is structured, front loading avoids this altogether when you have an incompetent GM. Say you have a ton of cap space. You offer a guy 5 years $80 million contract. You give them $25 million the first year, $23 million the 2nd year, $18 million the 3rd year, $9 million the 4th year and $5 million the final year the cap numbers are easier to swallow. You never know what the future holds. Spend the money when you have it and save for the future. 

I'm all for carrying over some cap space for the future, but if you carry over too much, you're not getting good players. You're basically getting bargain basement players.

---

But any garden variety accountant can project the cap hit from these contracts.   It's really easy.   It's like when Coughlin got us into cap hell and took all the blame.  It wasn't just Coughlin.  It was Weaver and Michael Huygue and everyone else who said, okay, let's roll the dice, go for it, and worry about the consequences later.  TC gets to be the scapegoat, just like Baalke, because I am 100% certain that the ownership in San Fran knew what was going to happen.  

Besides, in your scenario, your player is going to quit after year 3 and demand a new contract.  So what you've done is instead of giving the guy a 5 year $80 million contract, he's taken a 3 year $66 million contract and now you have a disgruntled player who is refusing to play.

When you are GM, you should expect to take the hit when that happens. It's your job to structure contracts that are beneficial to the team. You can try to assign the blame elsewhere, but it ultimately will fall on the GM. The ownership may know what is going on, but they hired the GM to take care of it and Baalke failed. 

Maybe he does in year 4, but that's when evaluations will be made anyway. You had a star player for 3 years. Now, you take a look at the current cap space, the players' performance and go from there. I'm not afraid of holdouts. If you decide to cut or trade the player, the cap hit is significantly smaller. If you want to keep him, you structure the deal to make it beneficial to the team. It all depends on your current cap situation. Right now, we have tons of money, that's why I like front loading deals this year. It's gonna fluctuate depending on our cap status.

---