Updated salary-cap space numbers for all 32 teams (1 Viewer)

[Faust]

Listed below are the most recent salary-cap space numbers for all 32 NFL teams, from highest to lowest, according to a league source.Kansas City Chiefs: $32,759,542Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $29,570,557Cincinnati Bengals: $29,030,430Jacksonville Jaguars: $28,028,480Denver Broncos: $24,537,469Buffalo Bills: $24,465,476Chicago Bears: $19,374,218Cleveland Browns: $18,856,161Seattle Seahawks: $18,309,368San Francisco 49ers: $15,470,512Green Bay Packers: $12,811,997New England Patriots: $12,578,934Washington Redskins: $11,003,649New York Jets: $10,781,806Miami Dolphins: $9,502,565Arizona Cardinals: $9,429,051Tennessee Titans: $7,962,421Carolina Panthers: $7,759,774Dallas Cowboys: $6,326,861Oakland Raiders: $5,311,249New York Giants: $4,693,715New Orleans Saints: $4,338,984Indianapolis Colts: $3,729,978San Diego Chargers: $2,709,447Baltimore Ravens: $2,344,835Pittsburgh Steelers: $2,268,471Houston Texans: $2,216,564Philadelphia Eagles: $2,123,094Atlanta Falcons: $1,883,163St. Louis Rams: $756,538Detroit Lions: $736,714Minnesota Vikings: $374,688Total cap space: $362,046,711Average cap space per team: $11,313,959

 

[PrinceofDarkness]

So what are the rules around the use of cap? Every team needs to have cumulative salaries that expend at least 75%, am I remembering that correctly?

 

[Faust]

So what are the rules around the use of cap? Every team needs to have cumulative salaries that expend at least 75%, am I remembering that correctly?

I thought it was higher, but I could be wrong. I was surprised to see so may teams still so far below the cap.

 

[David Yudkin]

IIRC, teams do not have to meet a minimum spending threshold. That doesn't start until the 2013 season. I believe that teams must spend to at least 89% of the cap or face fines or loss of draft pick penalties.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Awesome. The Bills have tons of money so that they can sign lots of good players as soon as free agency starts. They obviously know this since their o-line is so terrible.

 

[Faust]

Good companion to this:

How to win big by losing cheaply

One reason NFL action is so competitive is the league has a hard salary cap. The new collective bargaining agreement adds a hard salary floor, mandating that nearly all cap space be spent each year -- as cash, not as amortization of past bonuses. This is a provision NFL players are going to like quite a bit. Fans of perennial cheapskate teams will like the provision, too.

But the must-spend clause does not take effect until 2013. The result is that many NFL teams have oodles of unused cap space, yet made few if any moves in free agency. The Chiefs have nearly $33 million of unused cap space. The Bucs, Jaguars, Bengals, Bills, Broncos and Browns have at least $20 million each. Another six teams have at least $10 million unused. And cap space is not cellphone minutes. It doesn't roll over to next season.

Cash flow is no problem for any of the teams with ample salary-cap space. The $125 million each NFL club will receive this season from the league's many national television contracts will cover player expenses, while ticket sales and local marketing cover overhead, and then some, even for small-market clubs. That leaves mucho grande greenbacks. Yet many NFL teams are not spending anywhere near as much as they could.

Player expense might not equate to wins, of course. But there's something more basic happening. In the NFL structure, a cheap team that loses might have more profits than an expensive team that wins. Victory is nice, to be sure, but losing cheap can be remunerative. As all NFL teams save the Packers are privately held, and of those all save the Raiders are family businesses, money that is not spent on players goes into the pockets of the owner and his relatives.

Each NFL team gets exactly the same national TV payment whether it's winning big on "Monday Night Football" or losing badly and never aired nationally. Ticket sales can vary and generally are where the profit resides. But the revenue swing between packing the house and having a poor gate just isn't that great.

Most teams go into the season knowing they will sell about 90 percent of their seats no matter how they perform; a few know every seat will sell regardless of performance. In 2010, even given a slack economy, the league average was 94 percent of seats sold, and every team except Oakland and City of Tampa sold at least 80 percent of its home seats. Winning can help sell tickets, but even a clunker season will fill most of the house.

According to a financial officer for an NFL team, after ticket price, concessions and parking are added up, and then the visitor's share, overhead and taxes are deducted, each sold home seat represents around $30 in profit. This jibes with the numbers reported by Green Bay, the sole NFL club that discloses financial data. For 2010, the Packers sold 566,362 tickets and reported an operating profit of $10 million -- about $18 per occupied seat. The Packers' expenses were high in 2010, as they appeared in four road playoff games. Had they not, the profit per seat would have risen to $25 or $30.

The $30 estimate is a simplified number, but suppose it's roughly accurate. That suggests the 2010 attendance leader, Dallas, had a $21 million profit on seat sales, while 2010's worst-drawing team, Oakland, had a ticket profit of $11 million. That's a $10 million swing between the best case and the worst case for filling the stadium. Because most teams are in the middle of that calculation, going all-out to win with player and coaching salaries will add considerably less than $10 million in profit on packing the stadium. Contrast that with not spending up to the cap, which can add $20 million to $30 million to the bottom line. If your first goal is financial results, losing cheap can look a lot sweeter than winning expensive.

When this is taken into account, seeming nonsense suddenly makes sense. The Bengals, a low-spending team, are refusing to trade Carson Palmer, who says he retired but actually wants out of the Queen City. What's the point of getting nothing for Palmer? The point is to shed Palmer's large salary while creating an excuse for another bad season. When in this situation, teams with winning mindsets shrug and trade the unhappy star for whatever they can get -- think Green Bay with Brett Favre or Philadelphia with Donovan McNabb. Cincinnati management does not make winning its first priority. Losing cheap is fine, and getting nothing for Palmer generates a nifty excuse for a weak 2011 season.

Buffalo, 11 consecutive years out of the playoffs, just traded one of its few established performers, Lee Evans, to the Ravens for a middling draft pick. Unloading Evans and replacing him with a minimum-salary young player cuts the Bills' costs by about $3 million this season, which is more than profits would rise if every seat were sold. Trading Evans makes a winning season less likely, but the odds of a profitable season go up -- and a built-in excuse is created. How long until a Buffalo team official says, "We knew we'd have an off year when we lost Lee Evans," as if he had been swept from the practice field by helicopter-borne commandos, rather than deliberately traded away.

For Buffalo, this is a recent pattern. Just before the 2009 season began, the Bills waived their starting left tackle, Langston Walker, and the team's highest-paid offensive player. Two games into the 2010 season, the Bills waived their starting quarterback, Trent Edwards, their second-highest-paid offensive player. Both actions increased profits while setting up an excuse for a losing season.

There is a way most NFL teams could enhance the bottom line while also spending freely on players: reduce front-office costs. But some teams are loath to do that, as the front office is populated by family members and cronies with senior titles, hefty salaries and few if any duties.

For example: The Bears, who are $19 million below the salary cap, have four senior managers with the last name McCaskey. Chicago has a chairman of the board, a secretary, a president and CEO, a general manager, seven senior directors and numerous people with the title director or manager. The team masthead lists 38 people in the front office, and that's not including clerical and sales personnel. If Apple had the same ratio of senior titles to revenue as the Chicago Bears, it would have 244 presidents and 1,708 senior directors.

The story repeats at other NFL clubs. Revenue will be about the same whether the team wins or loses; profit will be a lot higher if salary-cap money isn't spent; family members would rather the team lose with them in cushy front-office roles than win with streamlined management. Some NFL owners go all-out to win anyway. But until 2013, there's considerable incentive to lose cheap.

 

[eaglesfan7]

I thought teams had to get to 90 something percent of the cap number this year as well. That's incorrect?

 

[GroveDiesel]

Good companion to this:

How to win big by losing cheaply

One reason NFL action is so competitive is the league has a hard salary cap. The new collective bargaining agreement adds a hard salary floor, mandating that nearly all cap space be spent each year -- as cash, not as amortization of past bonuses. This is a provision NFL players are going to like quite a bit. Fans of perennial cheapskate teams will like the provision, too.

But the must-spend clause does not take effect until 2013. The result is that many NFL teams have oodles of unused cap space, yet made few if any moves in free agency. The Chiefs have nearly $33 million of unused cap space. The Bucs, Jaguars, Bengals, Bills, Broncos and Browns have at least $20 million each. Another six teams have at least $10 million unused. And cap space is not cellphone minutes. It doesn't roll over to next season.

Cash flow is no problem for any of the teams with ample salary-cap space. The $125 million each NFL club will receive this season from the league's many national television contracts will cover player expenses, while ticket sales and local marketing cover overhead, and then some, even for small-market clubs. That leaves mucho grande greenbacks. Yet many NFL teams are not spending anywhere near as much as they could.

Player expense might not equate to wins, of course. But there's something more basic happening. In the NFL structure, a cheap team that loses might have more profits than an expensive team that wins. Victory is nice, to be sure, but losing cheap can be remunerative. As all NFL teams save the Packers are privately held, and of those all save the Raiders are family businesses, money that is not spent on players goes into the pockets of the owner and his relatives.

Each NFL team gets exactly the same national TV payment whether it's winning big on "Monday Night Football" or losing badly and never aired nationally. Ticket sales can vary and generally are where the profit resides. But the revenue swing between packing the house and having a poor gate just isn't that great.

Most teams go into the season knowing they will sell about 90 percent of their seats no matter how they perform; a few know every seat will sell regardless of performance. In 2010, even given a slack economy, the league average was 94 percent of seats sold, and every team except Oakland and City of Tampa sold at least 80 percent of its home seats. Winning can help sell tickets, but even a clunker season will fill most of the house.

According to a financial officer for an NFL team, after ticket price, concessions and parking are added up, and then the visitor's share, overhead and taxes are deducted, each sold home seat represents around $30 in profit. This jibes with the numbers reported by Green Bay, the sole NFL club that discloses financial data. For 2010, the Packers sold 566,362 tickets and reported an operating profit of $10 million -- about $18 per occupied seat. The Packers' expenses were high in 2010, as they appeared in four road playoff games. Had they not, the profit per seat would have risen to $25 or $30.

The $30 estimate is a simplified number, but suppose it's roughly accurate. That suggests the 2010 attendance leader, Dallas, had a $21 million profit on seat sales, while 2010's worst-drawing team, Oakland, had a ticket profit of $11 million. That's a $10 million swing between the best case and the worst case for filling the stadium. Because most teams are in the middle of that calculation, going all-out to win with player and coaching salaries will add considerably less than $10 million in profit on packing the stadium. Contrast that with not spending up to the cap, which can add $20 million to $30 million to the bottom line. If your first goal is financial results, losing cheap can look a lot sweeter than winning expensive.

When this is taken into account, seeming nonsense suddenly makes sense. The Bengals, a low-spending team, are refusing to trade Carson Palmer, who says he retired but actually wants out of the Queen City. What's the point of getting nothing for Palmer? The point is to shed Palmer's large salary while creating an excuse for another bad season. When in this situation, teams with winning mindsets shrug and trade the unhappy star for whatever they can get -- think Green Bay with Brett Favre or Philadelphia with Donovan McNabb. Cincinnati management does not make winning its first priority. Losing cheap is fine, and getting nothing for Palmer generates a nifty excuse for a weak 2011 season.

Buffalo, 11 consecutive years out of the playoffs, just traded one of its few established performers, Lee Evans, to the Ravens for a middling draft pick. Unloading Evans and replacing him with a minimum-salary young player cuts the Bills' costs by about $3 million this season, which is more than profits would rise if every seat were sold. Trading Evans makes a winning season less likely, but the odds of a profitable season go up -- and a built-in excuse is created. How long until a Buffalo team official says, "We knew we'd have an off year when we lost Lee Evans," as if he had been swept from the practice field by helicopter-borne commandos, rather than deliberately traded away.

For Buffalo, this is a recent pattern. Just before the 2009 season began, the Bills waived their starting left tackle, Langston Walker, and the team's highest-paid offensive player. Two games into the 2010 season, the Bills waived their starting quarterback, Trent Edwards, their second-highest-paid offensive player. Both actions increased profits while setting up an excuse for a losing season.

There is a way most NFL teams could enhance the bottom line while also spending freely on players: reduce front-office costs. But some teams are loath to do that, as the front office is populated by family members and cronies with senior titles, hefty salaries and few if any duties.

For example: The Bears, who are $19 million below the salary cap, have four senior managers with the last name McCaskey. Chicago has a chairman of the board, a secretary, a president and CEO, a general manager, seven senior directors and numerous people with the title director or manager. The team masthead lists 38 people in the front office, and that's not including clerical and sales personnel. If Apple had the same ratio of senior titles to revenue as the Chicago Bears, it would have 244 presidents and 1,708 senior directors.

The story repeats at other NFL clubs. Revenue will be about the same whether the team wins or loses; profit will be a lot higher if salary-cap money isn't spent; family members would rather the team lose with them in cushy front-office roles than win with streamlined management. Some NFL owners go all-out to win anyway. But until 2013, there's considerable incentive to lose cheap.

I'm not saying that Buffalo isn't cheap, because their salary cap figures have been pretty low the past few seasons (although, they've generally been pretty close to the middle over the last 15 years typically), but does anyone really believe that the Bills would have been a better team with Trent Edwards and Langston Walker? Both guys that aren't even #2 backups at their positions on bad teams now? And Trent Edwards was about the 14th highest paid player on the Bills when he was cut, not the 2nd. He was also cut partway into the season which meant that, if he chose, he could have exercised his one time option to have his entire contract for the year guaranteed which would have saved Buffalo nothing.He also forgets to mention that the Bills paid Evans a $1.3M bonus shortly before trading him. If they truly were as cheap as TMQ claims, they would have traded him before that or simply cut him. But they liked what they had in Parrish, Easley, Jones and Nelson so they made the move.

And implicit in TMQ's entire premise is that spending money equates to wins. There's a certain amount of truth to that, but not always. How have the Redskins done while spending tons? How successful have the Cowboys really been over the last decade?

 

[GroveDiesel]

Alright, ran some numbers from last year really quickly and the top 10 spending teams in the NFL last year spent $1,442,200,000 (or about $1.4B). The lowest 10 spending teams in the NFL last year spent $989,600,000 (or about $989M). The top 10 spending teams accumulated 86 wins. The lowest 10 spending teams accumulated 63 wins. That means that the top 10 spending teams spent $16.77M per win while the lowest spending teams spent $15.71M per win. Which means that the lowest spending teams actually were more efficient spending their money and got a better return.

Of course, 6 of the 10 top spenders made the playoffs while just 1 of the bottom 10 made it. But, both of the top 2 spenders missed the playoffs despite there being a $20M spending gap between the 2nd highest spender and the 3rd highest spender. In fact, only 2 of the top 5 spenders made the playoffs and that includes a Seahawks team that was 7-9 and there only because of the division that they played in.

I'll do 2009 in my next post.

 

[GroveDiesel]

In 2009, the top 10 teams spent about $1.2B. The bottom 10 teams spent $925M. The top 10 teams had 94 wins to the bottom 10 teams 70 wins. Which gives an efficiency edge to the top 10 teams in 2009 of $12.9M spent per win to the bottom 10 teams' rate of $13.2M per win.

However, just 4 of the top 10 spenders in 2009 actually made the playoffs while 4 of the lowest spenders made the playoffs as well (including the Patriots and Cowboys).

 

[GroveDiesel]

In 2008, the bottom 10 spending teams blow out the top 10 spending teams. The top 10 spending teams spent $1.3B for 84 wins at $15.6M per win. The bottom 10 spending teams spent $950M for 74 wins at $12.8M per win. A MUCH better efficiency.

4 of the top 10 spending teams made the playoffs. Only 2 of the bottom spenders made the playoffs with both the Falcons and Patriots missing the playoffs despite being 11-5. Note that some of the organizations considered the most well run in the league, like the Packers, Colts, Ravens and Patriots were all among the bottom 10 spenders in the league for 2008. In fact, the Patriots made the list in both 2008 and 2009.

 

[GroveDiesel]

One last post on this.

Since the 2000-2001 season, the Buffalo Bills have spent about $920M on salaries. The New England Patriots have spent about $959M on salaries. So the Patriots have spent about $3.5M per year more than the Bills over the last decade or so. Not really a huge amount. And if you take out last year, when there was no salary cap or floor, then the Patriots have spent just $15M over that 10 year period than the Bills, or just $1.5M more a year.

Over that 11 year period, the Bills averaged the 19.7th team in spending. The Patriots averaged the 17.4th team in spending.

4 times the Bills were amongst the bottom 10 teams in spending, ranking 29th, 25th, 30th and 26th.

5 times the Patriots were amongst the bottom 10 teams in spending, ranking 25th, 24th, 31st, 24th, and 30th.

This whole idea that the Bills are cheap and that's why they lose has SOME merit to it, but I think it's also a pretty lazy argument and there's plenty of data to refute it. And if the Bills are so cheap, than the Patriots aren't really far behind. But of course, they get a free pass because of their success and hitting the Tom Brady sweepstakes. And they should get a lot of credit for fielding such a successful team while minimizing their outlays. But it's pretty clear that the difference in the NFL isn't really spending, it's about how good your organization and players are.