I had previously posted about another column that si.com writer Andrew Brandt made where he criticized how Tom Brady took less money:
I said at the time that while Brandt worked for the Green Bay Packers front office for a number of years and managed a salary cap for a living, I still think he is off-base on this one.
I think that much of what he says in this column is true, but at the same time it does not take away from the fact that it is a lot easier to build a roster around a quarterback on a rookie contract as opposed to a king-sized one. Case in point: look at how Seattle did when Russell Wilson was on his rookie contract and the players they had to shed once he went from something like $500,000 per year to ~$30 million per year. I don’t care how well you manage your cap; that is going to have an impact.
On another note, Brandt used to repeatedly say that the NFL does not have a hard cap but a soft cap. He was talking about how NFL teams can structure contracts to pay more cash out up-front while pushing out the salary cap impacts out into later years. However, the NFL salary cap number itself is hard with no loopholes, so it is hard and there is no getting around it. That contrasts with the NBA’s salary cap which has exceptions under which teams may exceed the cap, notably by re-singing their own players, so that is soft. However, I did see where he recently did say that the NFL salary cap was not like the NBA, so I have to give him credit there.
I bet he could make more money managing an NBA salary cap. That system is totally convoluted. While I don’t pretend to understand the details of the NFL and NHL salary cap systems, I can at least understand how they work at a top level, as can you. With the NBA, there is no simple top-level explanation.
On a related note, I recall reading an article recently talking about how some quarterbacks had not been properly supported by their teams. One example was Drew Brees, and it went on about how the Saints had failed with providing him with a supporting cast. It ended by saying that Brees could have given the Saints some flexibility with the cap but did not, but that it was not his responsibility to do so. The message was that Brees was entitled to get whatever he could and it was on the Saints to put a good team around him. To me that is bullshit. Brees made the decision to get as much as he could from the Saints, and his decision played a big part in how much the Saints had left to pay those players around him.
Yes and you could have an elite team if $30+ million players are willing to take $5M or maybe $20M
Imagine Patrick Mahommes getting only $10
-$30M instead of $45M and recruiting 7 guys willing to take $5M who would be worth $30M. If people could buy a trip to the moon, they would. What about players that want to win eight consecutive Super Bowls? Probably a blatant attempt to get around the rules but players willing to pay for a dynasty rocks
With all the Patriots scandals, this was probably the most successful
Patrick Mahomes would never do that, nor should he be expected to. As I mentioned in the other thread, Tom Brady was always paid well and was never in the poor house. He always took up a good chunk of his team’s salary cap. However, Brady knew that the more he took for himself the less there would be for a supporting cast, and he balanced both sides pretty well throughout his career.
That would not be any attempt to get around the rules. If a quarterback of Mahomes’ caliber wanted to sign a much lower contract than he could get to get to leave a lot more for a supporting cast, that is his decision. There is no rule whatsoever preventing that.