Wednesday Why's

Why would the Raiders release players they just paid millions to acquire, such as DeAngelo Hall? It has long been the opinion here that free agency is an unlikely path to success.  The teams that make noise in March rarely make noise in January.  Oakland is a shining example of this.  Having spent the most money in the league in 2008 on players – approximately 150M – they are now realizing the folly of their ways.  Jacksonville’s high-priced forays into free agency with Drayton Florence and Jerry Porter have had similar results, as have Miami’s with Ernest Wilford and others.  The evidence is there every year, but come March, there will be more teams throwing more money at high-priced free agents.  Count on it.

Why is there no signing bonus in Aaron Rodgers’ new contract with the Packers? Aaron’s deal is all guaranteed salary this year, although the guarantee is relatively meaningless in the year the player is already playing.   He will receive 12.5M of new 2008 salary over the last nine weeks of 2008.  Thus, the contract salary provision for 2008, called the Paragraph 5, will actually read 23.61M, meaning that if you divide that number by 17 – the number of weeks in the season – and multiply that by 9 – the number of remaining weeks in the season – then you will reach the number 12.5M.  Aaron will then get a 7.5M roster bonus next year – guaranteed for injury – to reach the 20M guaranteed plateau.

Signing bonuses are, by definition, prorated throughout the life of the contract, creating potential acceleration for the future in the event a player is cut, traded or retires.  More and more, teams are judiciously managing the Cap to avoid some or all future proration, foregoing signing bonuses and instead using roster bonuses or guaranteed large salary amounts in order to “pay as you go” in Cap management.  We started this at the Packers years ago, a trend that has been used by teams such as Minnesota, Philadelphia, San Diego, Tennessee, Kansas City and others.  Aaron’s deal eats up over 12M of Cap room for 2008 -- room that would have otherwise gone unused – reducing the available room for the Packers from close to 20M down to 7.7M.

By the way, there is still an average of 6.25M of available Cap room for NFL clubs.

Why would Jerry Jones not have spent more to acquire a backup quarterback? Having spent 80M on bonuses this year, one would think there would have been a couple million spent on an insurance policy for Tony Romo, especially with such extravagant spending on luxury items such as Roy Williams (the receiver).  The truth is that Jones and the rest of the Cowboys’ brain trust felt that Brad Johnson was the answer at backup quarterback, despite his age and wear and tear.  Now that Johnson has been relegated to being backup to the backup, that confidence has been betrayed.  Having said that, there wasn’t much out there to be had this offseason – Daunte Culpepper, Byron Leftwich, Joey Harrington, etc.  One option that probably should have been further explored would have been Josh McCown, one of a surplus of quarterbacks in Miami at cutdown time.  Carolina made the deal for him when he was available.

Why did Daunte Culpepper negotiate a two-year deal with the Lions rather than just one year, allowing him to pick his team next year?

Negotiations are all about one thing:  leverage.  In this case, it would appear that the Lions had the leverage – if Culpepper wanted a job, he would have to forego any potential free agent suitors in 2009.  Culpepper had passed on the Packers in April and may have been coy with some other teams.  He obviously liked the opportunity at Detroit, although it is hard to know what this team will look like in six months.  Culpepper, who acted as his own agent, took what he could get.  Perhaps he wanted to commit to two years; a good agent would have probably advised otherwise.

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