I love Bill Polian for his football acumen, his eye for talent, his unwavering stance that what he believes is right.  I love Bill Polian because he has always told the fans the truth, regardless of popular opinion, what he was going to do when making his plans known would not otherwise hamper the team.  I have defended him for years on a variety of stances; his stance on free agency, his stance on promoting from within; his stance on keeping key players as a foundation and building around them.

In 2006, with a new CBA up in the air, Bill Polian said that Reggie Wayne was a priority and if there were sufficient funds left, the team would try to sign Edgerrin James.  They signed Reggie Wayne, there wasn’t enough money for James, and he left for Arizona.

In 2007 he said that re-signing Dallas Clark was a priority.  He said that Dallas wasn’t going anywhere.  He said the same about Kelvin Hayden in 2008.  Both players were re-signed shortly thereafter.

This morning, I am a scorned lover.

 For the first time, I feel directly lied to.  And this is not a “we hope Marvin will be back this week” lie.  This is a lie without benefit to the team, and a lie that is not attributable to optimism.

Like many, I was disappointed in the decision to rest the starters on Sunday.  Like many, I called in to the weekly Bill Polian Show on Monday evening.  Like few, I got through and was the second caller to get to ask a question.

My question was simple; why is it that the team is willing to risk starters in Week 17 in meaningless games for individual milestones (Marvin Harrison in 2008 to pass Cris Carter for #2 all-time in receptions, Reggie Wayne in 2007 to lead the league in receiving yards, Peyton Manning year in and out with both 4,000 yard games as well as his consecutive start streak, etc.) but was unwilling to take those same risks for a team milestone.

The answer I half-expected was that the team’s goal is a Super Bowl Championship, and that anything that may have looked like it was pursuing a team or individual milestone was simply the result of the team going to its playmakers in one last fine-tuning of the offense before the playoffs.

To my pleasant surprise, there was an express acknowledgement about concentrated efforts to let players meet individual milestones.  Then, to my sheer amazement, the most shameful avoidance in my immediate recollection was given (and I’m a lawyer!). 

To-wit:  The answer was that it depends on what you consider to be a team milestone.  To Mr. Polian, 16-0 was never a milestone.  Therefore, individual milestones never trumped team milestone. 

QED.

Now keep in mind that up until this point, Mr. Polian had continued to stress that amongst the team’s great accomplishments this decade was the 23 game consecutive win streak as well as having the winningest decade (in terms of total regular season wins, I believe) in the history of the NFL.

The direct point that was never pursued wasn’t the merits of going 16-0 (or 19-0, which was completely ignored in lieu of focusing on 16-0).  The point that if the team set the record for consecutive regular season wins at 23 is a good thing, then setting it at 24 is a better thing (with 25 being better yet, etc., ad infinitum).  Similarly, if being the winningest team in a decade is a good thing, then having to two more wins in the decade is a better thing.

Therefore, even if we ignore the pursuit of 19-0 (and necessarily by extension 16-0), the team still had at least two milestones (as explicitly stated) that could have been extended and were not.

This leaves us at two possible outcomes.  First, the team views milestones as only a milestone until it is minimally passed, at which point there is no purpose in pursing to exceed that milestone.  In other words, do enough to just exceed the record and then stop.

I fail to believe that this is the reality at all.  First off, both records had already been exceeded, and so under this theory there would be no need to continue to play on last week against Jacksonville.  However, more philosophically, Bill Polian did not become the talent evaluator he did by merely doing what was necessary to keep a scouting job.  Bill Polian isn’t the great GM that he is simply by doing enough to not get fired.  Peyton Manning didn’t become great simply by trying to be good enough for the NFL (and then stop).  When drafting players, I’m sure Polian looks for the kids who are trying to maximize their potential, rather than simply make it to the NFL.  Success is not defined by merely achieving your goal.  Success is defined by maximizing your potential.  If you set a goal of having the all-time consecutive regular season win streak, then pursue it with pride, full effort, and diligence.  If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.  I’m 100% positive that no one that reached the NFL (at least on the Colts) in any capacity has any different opinion.

The only other logical outcome is that Polian is flat out lying; either about the consecutive regular season win-streak mattering or about individual milestones not trumping team achievement.

There’s no competitive advantage to keeping secret why individual records trump the pursuit of team achievement.  If you’re truly afraid of injury, show it consistently.  If you feel that a consecutive regular win streak or the most wins in a decade is important, then pursue it continually.  But saying those achievements, both team and individual, are important while only pursuing one makes you either an idiot or a liar.

I fail to believe that Polian is an idiot.

That’s more disappointing to me than anything that happened Sunday.  If there was a good reason for the team’s actions on Saturday, say so and stick to it proudly, like has been admirably done in the past.

Just don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

With the tremendous assistance of GS over at Coltsdigital.com, I’ve been working on integrating all the data I have into a singe database, viewable by dynamic pages that will update immediately once the database is updated.  At this point, the salary cap and futures pages are now fully online and ready to go.  Further, I’ve created a search tool for looking for players both active and no longer be active (though it doesn’t go back very far) that can be found under the Individual Players tab.

The hope is that these changes will allow me to update everything much more easily (and quickly) in the future.  If you notice anything is incorrect, please feel free to Email me so that I can look into it.

- BAV

We’ll it’s been a great hibernation, but now it’s football season.  And with football season comes rookie signing season.  Psst, follow me on twitter; user: coltscap.

Now, most rookie deals are straight forward and as I get to the rest of our rookies later this week, you’ll see what I mean.  However we’re going to go early and we’re going to go big.  First round draft picks have always been more intricate than their later-round counterparts and with the unique rules surrounding the last capped year, this has never been more true than this year.  However, we’ve got the numbers (we think) and the explanations (we hope) behind them to make them all seem easy.  Think a late first round pick is simply giving a player a five year deal with minimum base salaries and a signing bonus less than the guy ahead and more than the guy behind?

Think again.

Brown’s contract has a five year term, the maximum allowed for a draft pick in round 1 for picks 17-32.  His initial base salaries are  as follows:

• 2009 - $310K
• 2010 – $1.21M
• 2011 – $1.45M
• 2012 – $1.68M
• 2013 – $1.72M

Brown has a $1M signing bonus prorated over 5 years.  Brown also has a 2009 roster bonus of $660K, which was already met when he reported to training camp.  Adding this roster bonus to a 2009 base salary of $310K also lets the contract meet the requirements of the 25% rule for rookies, limiting the maximum annual growth of contracts to 25% of the initial year 1 value ($970K x .25 = $242,500).

The base salaries for 2009 - 2012 are also fully guaranteed.  Why?  At this point, the contract only guarantees Brown the $660K roster bonus, vastly deficient from the millions other players are getting below him in the first round (Eric Wood received a reported $6.5M guaranteed).  This way, if Brown gets cut, he’s still got an additional $4.34M guaranteed for future years.  Under the unique provisions of the CBA during the final capped year, if the salary for 2009 wasn’t fully guaranteed, then any guaranteed salary for uncapped years (2010 - 2012) would be included in the capped years (2009).  Similarly, if there’s a gap in fully guaranteed salary in one of the uncapped years, then all guaranteed salary for years following would be included in 2009.  Thus, all years from 2009 to 2012 are fully guaranteed.  Similarly, there’s a provision that 50% of guaranteed salary for all contract years after the third uncapped year (2012) is to be included in capped years (2009).  This is why there is no guaranteed salary in 2013.

After the 2009 season, there is a $3.26M option bonus that the team will exercise.  This option will be prorated over the remaining four years of the contract.  This option also acts to reduce the yearly base salaries from years 2010 - 2013 as follows:

• 2010 – From $1.21M to $395K
• 2011 – From $1.45M to $635K
• 2012 – From $1.68M to $865K
• 2013 – From $1.72M to $905K

You’ll note that the yearly drop in base salaries is $815K.  Multiply this by 4 and you’ve got $3.26M  This is no coincidence.

While previously the full amounts of base salary in 2010 - 2012 were fully guaranteed, after the exercise of this option only the full amount of years 2010 - 2011 are guaranteed.  Only $585K of 2012’s base salary is fully guaranteed.  What about the provision discussed earlier about salary with the full amount not guaranteed in a year being accelerated into the current year?  That only applies to contracts entered into in capped years.  For purposes of this section, the renegotiation (exercising the option bonus) counts as a new contract.  As 2010 is set to be an uncapped year, this provision is thus inapplicable.

There is also a 2010 roster bonus that can be earned above and beyond the option bonus.  This roster bonus is valued at $1.605M and can be met in one of three ways:

• Attendance at the 2010 training camp, or
• Meeting an individual RB NLTBE incentive in 2010-2013 that’s listed in the contract, or
• Having the team meet a team incentive (listed in the contract) while meeting an individual playing time incentive (again, listed in the contract).

Should this roster bonus be met (tremendously likely), the effect under the agreement is that the guaranteed base salary in 2010 - 2012 is no longer guaranteed, with the exception of $10K in 2012.  You’ll note that if you sum these previously guaranteed figures up ($395K + $635K + $585K - $10K), they sum to $1.605M, the amount of the roster bonus.  Again, no coincidence.

Rounding out the contract is a maximum of $3.2M in escalators for 2013 tied to a laundry list of incentives.  These incentives are tied to Brown participating in 90% of the workouts each year, giving him incentive to continue to come to offseason workouts rather than holding out towards the end of his contract.  Should he not participate in up to 90% of the workout in a single year, he’d lose out on the entire escalator.

Total Possible Value: $12.835M
Total Initial Guaranteed Money: $6.31M
Total Guaranteed Money After 2010 Bonuses: $6.845M

Next time people see it taking a while for a team to sign a player, especially a first round draft pick, this will give them a better idea of the in depth nature of the discussions going on behind the scenes.  More likely than not there’s more to a contract than simply a signing bonus and yearly base salaries.  Here, the team manages to save over $500K in 2009 over simply giving the guaranteed amounts to Brown in a signing bonus, which means $500K more under the rookie pool for the team to use to outbid other teams (as larger signing bonuses) for the undrafted rookies that have been a staple of the team in the Bill Polian era.

These figres are consistent with the figures currently being reported.

http://www.twitter.com/ColtsCap

Just getting going, so please bear with me.

Typically, a team would convert an entire bonus if they were going to make the effort to convert anything.  However, complicating things in this particular year is the 30% rule requiring that future cap hits (excluding signing bonuses) increase by no more than 30% of the 2009 cap hit (again, excluding signing bonuses).  Should the entire $5M roster bonus have been converted to a signing bonus, only the base salary of $620K would have been left under the 30% rule, which would have limited yearly growth in future years to $186K.   As Sanders’ base salaries rapidly grow over the remaining years of his contract, such a renegotiation would have violated the 30% rule.  By only prorating a portion of his roster bonus, the remaining portion of the roster bonus ($2.83M) is included in the 30% calculation, making the renegotiation allowable under the CBA.

Other changes that ColtsCap has learned are that Sanders has a $500K workout bonus for 2009, as well as a $33,333 proration resulting from a conversion of a bonus for Sanders’ 2007 Pro-Bowl berth.

The resulting calculation of Sanders’ 2009 cap hit now places him with a 2009 cap hit of $6,130,832.

Finalized, updated figures will *hopefully* be posted over the weekend, including any UDFA’s…unless the weather’s too nice to leave the golf course.

This came to light after PFT released it’s current salary cap status for the Colts and I attempted (and continue to do so) to resolve the discrepancy.  The Colts appear to have converted $720K of Wayne’s 2009 base salary into a signing bonus and prorated it at $240K per year over each of the next three years.

The move would save the team $480K this season.

More updates to come once/if I can further resolve the discrepancies.

ColtsCap has since learned that the reported one-year deal is for the veteran minimum ($620K) of a player with 4-6 credited seasons (Seward has four).  A one year deal for a veteran with four or more seasons at the applicable minimum salary potentially qualifies the player for what is called the “Minimum Salary Benefit”.  This benefit is a reduction of the salary cap accounting for a veteran player who signs a contract that meets certain requirements:

• The contract is for one year in duration;
• The contract is at the minimum applicable salary; and
• The contract contains no more than $50K in bonuses.

Should a contract meet the requirements for the benefit, that player’s cap hit for the year will be that of a veteran with two credited seasons ($460K in 2009), plus any bonus money he received.

Given the team’s history with these types of contracts, I think it’s likely that Seward received the full bonus amount of $50K on top of his $620K base salary.  If true, his 2009 cap hit would be $510K.  As this bumps out a player with a 2009 cap value of $385K under the Rule of 51, the team’s net cap space is only decreased by this signing by a mere $125K.

The team has a long history of using these types of contracts.  Both Aaron Moorehead and Rob Morris had multiple contracts of this type.  More recently, this is the same type of contract Dominic Rhodes signed with the team last year (and I expect him to sign again this year, FWIW). It’s an excellent mechanism to bring back veterans who want to play, and to be able to do so for the same cost as many third year players on their rookie contracts.

This benefit was agreed upon primarily to help older players avoid being phased out simply because the required minimum base salaries for them were much greater than those younger players.  These additional required costs associated with signing older players were eliminating the opportunities for those players, rather than their abilities.  This benefit evens the negotiating field in that if a player is willing to accept a contract under this benefit, then with the financial differences essentially a wash, the teams can make decisions on talent, rather than cost.

The expected salaries for both players are $310K for Ball and $385K for Davis.  Both should be for a single year in duration.

With off-season activities getting set to commence and both players needing to do all they can to make the final 2009 roster, it’s no surprise that their signing occured at this time.

I’ll disclose them; 1 year, $535K.

Federkeil was an Exclusive-Rights Free Agent (ERFA).  An ERFA is an NFL veteran with less than three accrued seasons.  A Restricted Free Agent is an NFL veteran with three accrued seasons.

What’s interesting however, is that Federkeil is a three year veteran, being active in 2006, 2007, and 2008.  His minimum salary for 2009 of $535K is that of a veteran with three credited seasons as well.

The distinction that is made is that between credited seasons and accrued seasons.  An accrued season is a season “during which [a player] was on, or should have been on, full pay status for a total of six or more regular season games”.  A credited season is a season in which the player “was on, or should have been on, full pay status for a total of three or more regular season games”.

Therefore, in 2006 when Federkeil was activated for the last five games of the season, he was advancing himself a year ahead in terms of credited seasons for purposes of the minimum salary applicable to him, however he was getting himself no closer to the threshold for free agency, which is determined by accrued seasons, not credited seasons.  It’s also why a veteran going into his fourth credited year was still considered an ERFA rather than a Restricted Free Agent.