2019 Franchise Tag, Restructures, RFA & ERFA

I'll just do that for 2 of my 3. Jenkins is getting older but this is probably the last year I'd be comfortable with it. I would have probably done Jackson instead earlier if knew I was able to at the time like it seems I am. I don't want to make things even more complicated. My cap space is fine for now anyways and I'll save Desean for later if I need it.

 

The Browns have signed RFA's

Rashad Higgins
$3,095,000

Briean Boddy-Calhoun
$3,095,000

 

Just to give you the math on the plausibility of the Desean Jackson numbers, suppose you were to extend him on a 5-year deal (which is what the real team did). But we'll keep it more straightforward. You convert 8.75 million of his 10 million base salary to signing bonus.

Never mind whether the next four years are regular years, option years or to-be-voided "dummy" years. The cap calcs are all the same - you're extending him 4 extra years no matter what option or void clauses are involved. (This is part of why I say we really need to treat those dummy years as real years. They work exactly the same in the cap calcs. You have to extend him the full four years to get this benefit regardless of whether they are real, option or totally bogus.)

Spread the 8.75 million over 5 years = 1.75 million per year
Remaining 2019 base salary = 1.25 million
Resulting 2019 cap figure = 3 million
Net savings = 7 million

That's a very simple way of extending him. The real team did something more complicated. But you get the idea - the real team's new cap figure on him is certainly feasible, and considering that it actually happened it's obviously going to be more realistic than whatever numbers used to be in the Spotrac or OTC models.

 

And there it is.

 

Well double check with Tim, but for actual retirements, I feel like you can have a re-do. Just obviously you can't assume Gronk is playing for you next year.

 

Precedent is we can assume they are not retiring because our dynamic is different. But if they retire IRL then we can allow it to happen if the current owner so chooses.

So for us the Pats with their restructure enticed Gronk to stay one more year.

 

I'd opt to retire him like in real life. To do that, remove Gronk from your Top 51 salary calcs, take the $2M hit in dead money, and then hopefully make it back (and more) when you restructure someone else.

 

Nah no worries. Was the chance I took. Right after the SB I was sure he was retiring...as the weeks crept by without an announcement And reports of him working out at Gillette came along I talked myself into it that he was gonna go for one more. I might’ve stayed in the bidding for James a bit longer if it had happened sooner but it is what it is. On to the draft.