(03-17-2024, 09:52 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(03-17-2024, 09:31 AM)Jaguarmeister Wrote: Allen signing will probably lower his cap hit this year and create enough space for the rookies.  If we were to trade for Aiyuk or otherwise make another big splash in free agency, I think something big would have to happen to the roster to accommodate it, like cutting/trading Cam.  I'm surprised Armstead's signing didn't already force some moves based on what I was looking at the other day, but perhaps I was looking at dated or incorrect numbers.  Armstead doesn't have a cap hit yet because the terms of his deal have not yet been made public, but if you assume it'll be in the $13M range for year 1 and cut the bottom end of the roster to 53 on spotrac, it leaves you with about $2M in cap space prior to Allen's deal getting done.  They could alternatively do a much larger signing bonus and much lower year 1 salary to get his cap hit even lower this year, but I just think you have to be mindful of the cap beyond the current year and such a move would make Armstead's cap hit significantly higher over the 2 years.

Riley is a fine back up plan at Kicker, but I think we're still gonna prefer a better option if we can manage it.  Perhaps that comes in the draft or college free agency and doesn't cost much, but if they go the veteran route (if any decent ones are still available), that could take up $2-$3M as well.

It's pretty easy to get a lot more cap space with simple restructures.  Overthecap.com says the Jaguars could generate an additional $34 million in cap space with simple restructures.  

For anyone who doesn't know what a simple restructure is, the team takes a player's salary for this year, declares it a bonus, and spreads the cap hit over the remaining life of the contract.  It doesn't require the player's permission, because it doesn't affect the player at all.  He still gets the same amount of money at the same time as he would have before the restructure.  

For example, Christian Kirk has a base salary for 2024 of $14,500,000.  His contract goes for 4 more years including this one (they tacked on 2 voidable years).  So, if the Jaguars want to declare his 2024 base salary to be a bonus, then that reduces his cap hit for this year by $10,875,000.  With the stroke of a pen, you have generated $10,875,000 of additional cap space for 2024.  

Restructure Potential | Over the Cap

Of course, when you do something like this, you are just pushing a lot of this year's cap hit into future years, so you have to be cognizant of that.

Yes I'm aware, but we're going to have to pay Lawrence next year and that should be influencing Baalke to not want to do something like that with Kirk.  Kirk was already restructured last year as well so doing it again this year is a mistake in his situation in my opinion.  Doing it to Cam might otherwise be very attractive but is a big risk in my opinion given his PED suspension history.  I'm not a big fan of selling out for one year and then paying for it for the next few.  I'd rather a consistently well maintained cap situation that allows us to truly compete every year.

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