Traveler
02-20-2008, 04:21 PM
Guess I can pimp myself too.ROFL! The first question is mine! Yeah!:wiggle:
This should clear up the Javon situation concerning the salary cap.
February 20, 2008
Working the what-ifs
The pre-combine Inbox is open for business. With the best draft hopefuls in Indy, the offseason is in full swing.
With that, off we go . . .
Anthony Marshall in Atlanta gets a pre-combine Inbox off with one sent on by a few others in recent weeks . . .
Q: What exactly are the cap ramifications if the Broncos cut Javon Walker? I've also heard there is some type of "poison pill" clause in the contract. Would you find out how much would the team have to pay him if he is cut outright and how much he'll get because of the clause?
A: By cap rules, to release Walker it would escalate remaining bonus calculations on the remainder of the contract to this year's salary cap – about $8 million worth of cap space.
His cap figure for '08, under his current deal, is scheduled to be $7.05 million. That's not that big of a difference on the bookkeeping side.
That cap hit is so big because releasing a player far closer to the beginning of the deal than to the end will always have a bigger impact on the cap. And Walker, if an option year is exercised, next month, has a deal that could run through 2011 – four more seasons.
And with that kind of cap hit and the Broncos, in the form of owner Pat Bowlen, having already said cash and cap management is an issue right now, a team would have to be very committed to the idea of releasing a player who was a 1,000-yard receiver in '06.
It would not be quality cap management to sign a player to a deal as big as the one Walker got and release him two years later. And Bowlen has talked a great deal, since season's end, about how teams have to effectively manage both their cap space and cash to make it into the Super Bowl mix.
He had the majority of the team's impact plays on offense that season. Last season his knee was a problem and heading into the upcoming season that will certainly be the question mark that follows him until he shows he is healthy.
That knee and his contract's current format make him difficult to trade as well. The contract does include a cash payment to Walker – some I know in the league have said it's more than $1 million and could even approach $2 million – if the Broncos don't exercise a $3.4 million portion of the $5.4 million worth of bonuses he's due in the first week of March
So, status quo means the Broncos would pay him a $3.4 million option bonus, and he would get a $2 million roster bonus as well in the first week of March.
To keep him and not exercise the option year of the deal (2011) with the option bonus would cost them cash payments of a $2 million roster bonus and what could then be as much as a $2 million "non-exercise'' fee. So it's pretty close to even there.
To release him saves them the immediate cash out of their pocket, but they instantly lose $8 million worth of cap space. They could release him after June 1 to spread that out over two years, but they will have already paid him the cash under the current deal.
They could try to trade him, but teams are going to want to look at that knee, and because contracts go with the player in a trade, few teams I've just tossed it out to over the last few weeks are going to be willing to take the deal with Walker under that scenario.
Sure, the Broncos weren't thrilled Walker kept alluding, following the season, to the idea he wanted out if he couldn't be used more in the offense. Just like they weren't thrilled he publicly demanded the ball more during the season on the day before he left for Houston for knee surgery.
But Walker has tried to mend the fences some. The Broncos would certainly like him to re-do the deal, but it's difficult to get anyone in any job to surrender money that has already been negotiated.
The Broncos could try to make it an incentive-driven deal, but Walker's representatives are going to know that Brandon Marshall looks like Jay Cutler's No. 1 receiver – the two have already worked out together extensively – so any "lead the team'' clauses are going to be a risk from their point of view.
And yet if they do want to trade him – and there hasn't been much buzz about that among the general managers I've spoken with around the league – they could tell Walker it would be easier to move him if he reworked his deal.
So, a complicated affair to be sure. There are many inside the team who say history has shown the team can have two 1,000-yard receivers and a quality running game, so there would be room for Walker and Marshall to co-exist in the offense.
The bigger issue in terms of releasing him would be what happens after.
The Broncos, from Shanahan on down, do not want Brandon Stokley to have to be an every-down receiver on the outside because of his age and injury history. They believe Stokley's impact will be greatest if he is a spot player in the slot.
His body wore down last season filling in for the injured Walker and Rod Smith on the outside, and they believe he missed time down the stretch with a knee injury because of it. That only serves as more incentive, to them, to watch his playing time more carefully in '08 if they have that luxury.
Releasing Walker would leave a significant hole in the depth chart that may cost plenty to fill in free agency, even more than keeping him does – the cost of not only the cap hit of releasing a player with up to four years left on his deal, but also the hefty expense of signing a good enough player to replace him.
Suddenly that roster spot goes from an $8 million cap hit to a $13 million cap hit to sign a good enough player in a high-priced market to replace him.
Receiver is also not routinely a position that offers immediate help in the draft – those players often take longer to integrate, on average, into an offense. Guys, even the elite, struggle to get open, struggle with defensive backs who are routinely stronger and often just as fast.
Each year, the production of the rookie receiver classes, as a whole, are routinely below the expectations brought on by their draft position. Only a handful of guys have been 1,000-yard receivers as rookies over the last two decades.
And in the last 22 seasons a wide receiver has been the league's offensive rookie of the year just three times – Carl Pickens, Randy Moss and Anquan Boldin. Over that same span running backs have won the award 16 times.
That's the difference between immediate impact and not immediate impact.
That's also why even considering releasing Walker with his current deal is such a difficult idea for the Broncos. Nothing is ever totally off the board in the Shanahan regime, but it's a difficult proposition to simply cut him.
And to answer a host of folks who wondered and wanted a review . . .
The Broncos' draft picks in April, as it stands now:
First round (12th); second round (42nd); two fourths, one from Washington; two fifths, one from Oakland; and two sevenths, one from Tampa Bay. They do not have a third- or sixth-round pick.
The picks from the third through seventh rounds for every team will be finalized in March when the compensatory picks are awarded.
And Jon Peress leads a hat trick on the Hall of Fame selection process and the announcements last month . . .
Q: It’s a sad day to see that Randy Gradishar . . . wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame. Randy Gradishar and at least one other player from the Orange Crush definitely deserve to be inducted into the Hall of Fame . . . Are they being deprived of the Hall of Fame because people outside of Colorado are prejudiced against the Denver Broncos?
And Kyle Montgomery . . .
Q: Is there anything you can tell us fans regarding Gradishar's failure to get into the Hall of Fame? . . . Did you get a sense of that bias still being present in the voting room Saturday? What do you think of his chances to get in as a senior candidate?
And Dennis Smythe in Highlands Ranch . . .
Q: Would you give us some insight on the duties . . . of being a Hall of Fame voter? I'd be interested in learning about your activities throughout the year and especially on the day when the committee votes in new members.
A: This year was Gradishar's 20th and last to be considered as a modern-era candidate for induction into the Hall. He was also a finalist for just the second time, this year, in that 20-year span.
And there were points in the final selection meeting this year when I believed he would make it in, but with so many defensive players on the ballot this time, including four pass rushing defensive ends/outside linebackers in addition to Gradishar and cornerback Darrell Green, the votes likely eventually split among those defensive players.
That was a difficult thing to hear for a seven-time Pro Bowl selection and a former Defensive Player of the Year (1978) like Gradishar, a most-deserving candidate to be sure.
I don't think I've encountered anyone in the 10 or so years I've been on the committee that was deliberately trying to keep Broncos out or didn't think there were several deserving Broncos to be in.
I think it's a matter of facing difficult choices, going from a list of 15 in the final meeting this year and taking it down to just five, people are naturally going to lean to players they saw more.
Sometimes that leaves some teams, some players out. That also means as a voter, you have to work all year to make the players' cases, to bring all they have done in their careers to the forefront.
It's no secret over the last four decades or so the Broncos have been underrepresented in the Hall. They have just two of their Ring of Fame players – John Elway and this year, Gary Zimmerman – who have also been picked for enshrinement.
That's far too low for a team that has had the same number of Super Bowl appearances – six – as losing seasons – also six – since the start of the 1973 season. Especially when compared to several teams who have not reached that kind of long-term success.
Shannon Sharpe is eligible for the first time in the Class of '09 in what will be a difficult class to crack in terms of modern-era candidates because, I believe, it will also include Deion Sanders and Rod Woodson for the first time.
Terrell Davis has made it to the cutdown to 25 players the last two years, Zimmerman got in and Gradishar was a finalist this year as well, so there has been some headway. Not as much as people would like or as much as there needs to be, but some.
The process of selecting senior candidates was changed this year to help the process, too. Now the seniors committee – a smaller group of more experienced voters on the full board of selectors – will pick two seniors candidates each August. Those two candidates automatically become finalists for induction – the 16th and 17th players that are considered in the final selection meeting each year.
Those two candidates are now also voted on separately, simply on a yes-or-no basis. They are not pitted against the modern-era players.
There was a time when many believed the seniors candidates were struggling because they were being voted on against the modern-era players and that more voters would lean toward the modern-era players at the seniors nominees' expense.
This should help seniors hopefuls for the Broncos like Floyd Little or Gradishar in the coming years. Little has been close to coming out of the committee a couple times in recent years, and Gradishar would be certainly be a compelling player for the committee to look at even as soon as '09.
As far as the process of being a voter . . . You receive the full nomination list during the year. You work, gather information, talk to coaches, executives, former players – in short as many people as you can – and in some cases I've gotten my hands on game video.
You put together any and all information on select players on the list – for me those players are the former Broncos -- you think would be useful to the other voters and put it in some form that is both usable to them and also doesn't get lost in the flurry of information they're going to get.
Then that list, often very large, is trimmed to 25 players by vote of the selectors. You consider that list of 25 in the same way. You meet with, talk to as many people as you can about the players on that list as well as send out any additional information for review if, for me, there are former Broncos remaining on that list of 25.
Often I'll go over notes I've kept over the years on players to see if there is anything to be pulled from there. I've also put together some stuff on players I may have covered in other cities previously if someone has asked me to.
The list of 25 is then trimmed to 15 modern-era candidates. Those 15 and the two senior candidates are then debated – with the voters face to face in a room in the Super Bowl city the day before the Super Bowl.
It can be a seven-hour meeting. Some finalists are debated longer than others, but it's quite a process. In that meeting the 15 modern-era finalists are first trimmed to 10. Those 10 can be debated again.
The list of 10 is then trimmed to five. And the final five are voted on, simply as yes or no, for induction into the Hall.
They have accountants on hand. We hand them our final ballots on the final five modern-era candidates and the two seniors candidates and don't know who officially made it in until the announcement.
That's it, and thanks.
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/broncos/archives/2008/02/working_the_wha.html#more
This should clear up the Javon situation concerning the salary cap.
February 20, 2008
Working the what-ifs
The pre-combine Inbox is open for business. With the best draft hopefuls in Indy, the offseason is in full swing.
With that, off we go . . .
Anthony Marshall in Atlanta gets a pre-combine Inbox off with one sent on by a few others in recent weeks . . .
Q: What exactly are the cap ramifications if the Broncos cut Javon Walker? I've also heard there is some type of "poison pill" clause in the contract. Would you find out how much would the team have to pay him if he is cut outright and how much he'll get because of the clause?
A: By cap rules, to release Walker it would escalate remaining bonus calculations on the remainder of the contract to this year's salary cap – about $8 million worth of cap space.
His cap figure for '08, under his current deal, is scheduled to be $7.05 million. That's not that big of a difference on the bookkeeping side.
That cap hit is so big because releasing a player far closer to the beginning of the deal than to the end will always have a bigger impact on the cap. And Walker, if an option year is exercised, next month, has a deal that could run through 2011 – four more seasons.
And with that kind of cap hit and the Broncos, in the form of owner Pat Bowlen, having already said cash and cap management is an issue right now, a team would have to be very committed to the idea of releasing a player who was a 1,000-yard receiver in '06.
It would not be quality cap management to sign a player to a deal as big as the one Walker got and release him two years later. And Bowlen has talked a great deal, since season's end, about how teams have to effectively manage both their cap space and cash to make it into the Super Bowl mix.
He had the majority of the team's impact plays on offense that season. Last season his knee was a problem and heading into the upcoming season that will certainly be the question mark that follows him until he shows he is healthy.
That knee and his contract's current format make him difficult to trade as well. The contract does include a cash payment to Walker – some I know in the league have said it's more than $1 million and could even approach $2 million – if the Broncos don't exercise a $3.4 million portion of the $5.4 million worth of bonuses he's due in the first week of March
So, status quo means the Broncos would pay him a $3.4 million option bonus, and he would get a $2 million roster bonus as well in the first week of March.
To keep him and not exercise the option year of the deal (2011) with the option bonus would cost them cash payments of a $2 million roster bonus and what could then be as much as a $2 million "non-exercise'' fee. So it's pretty close to even there.
To release him saves them the immediate cash out of their pocket, but they instantly lose $8 million worth of cap space. They could release him after June 1 to spread that out over two years, but they will have already paid him the cash under the current deal.
They could try to trade him, but teams are going to want to look at that knee, and because contracts go with the player in a trade, few teams I've just tossed it out to over the last few weeks are going to be willing to take the deal with Walker under that scenario.
Sure, the Broncos weren't thrilled Walker kept alluding, following the season, to the idea he wanted out if he couldn't be used more in the offense. Just like they weren't thrilled he publicly demanded the ball more during the season on the day before he left for Houston for knee surgery.
But Walker has tried to mend the fences some. The Broncos would certainly like him to re-do the deal, but it's difficult to get anyone in any job to surrender money that has already been negotiated.
The Broncos could try to make it an incentive-driven deal, but Walker's representatives are going to know that Brandon Marshall looks like Jay Cutler's No. 1 receiver – the two have already worked out together extensively – so any "lead the team'' clauses are going to be a risk from their point of view.
And yet if they do want to trade him – and there hasn't been much buzz about that among the general managers I've spoken with around the league – they could tell Walker it would be easier to move him if he reworked his deal.
So, a complicated affair to be sure. There are many inside the team who say history has shown the team can have two 1,000-yard receivers and a quality running game, so there would be room for Walker and Marshall to co-exist in the offense.
The bigger issue in terms of releasing him would be what happens after.
The Broncos, from Shanahan on down, do not want Brandon Stokley to have to be an every-down receiver on the outside because of his age and injury history. They believe Stokley's impact will be greatest if he is a spot player in the slot.
His body wore down last season filling in for the injured Walker and Rod Smith on the outside, and they believe he missed time down the stretch with a knee injury because of it. That only serves as more incentive, to them, to watch his playing time more carefully in '08 if they have that luxury.
Releasing Walker would leave a significant hole in the depth chart that may cost plenty to fill in free agency, even more than keeping him does – the cost of not only the cap hit of releasing a player with up to four years left on his deal, but also the hefty expense of signing a good enough player to replace him.
Suddenly that roster spot goes from an $8 million cap hit to a $13 million cap hit to sign a good enough player in a high-priced market to replace him.
Receiver is also not routinely a position that offers immediate help in the draft – those players often take longer to integrate, on average, into an offense. Guys, even the elite, struggle to get open, struggle with defensive backs who are routinely stronger and often just as fast.
Each year, the production of the rookie receiver classes, as a whole, are routinely below the expectations brought on by their draft position. Only a handful of guys have been 1,000-yard receivers as rookies over the last two decades.
And in the last 22 seasons a wide receiver has been the league's offensive rookie of the year just three times – Carl Pickens, Randy Moss and Anquan Boldin. Over that same span running backs have won the award 16 times.
That's the difference between immediate impact and not immediate impact.
That's also why even considering releasing Walker with his current deal is such a difficult idea for the Broncos. Nothing is ever totally off the board in the Shanahan regime, but it's a difficult proposition to simply cut him.
And to answer a host of folks who wondered and wanted a review . . .
The Broncos' draft picks in April, as it stands now:
First round (12th); second round (42nd); two fourths, one from Washington; two fifths, one from Oakland; and two sevenths, one from Tampa Bay. They do not have a third- or sixth-round pick.
The picks from the third through seventh rounds for every team will be finalized in March when the compensatory picks are awarded.
And Jon Peress leads a hat trick on the Hall of Fame selection process and the announcements last month . . .
Q: It’s a sad day to see that Randy Gradishar . . . wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame. Randy Gradishar and at least one other player from the Orange Crush definitely deserve to be inducted into the Hall of Fame . . . Are they being deprived of the Hall of Fame because people outside of Colorado are prejudiced against the Denver Broncos?
And Kyle Montgomery . . .
Q: Is there anything you can tell us fans regarding Gradishar's failure to get into the Hall of Fame? . . . Did you get a sense of that bias still being present in the voting room Saturday? What do you think of his chances to get in as a senior candidate?
And Dennis Smythe in Highlands Ranch . . .
Q: Would you give us some insight on the duties . . . of being a Hall of Fame voter? I'd be interested in learning about your activities throughout the year and especially on the day when the committee votes in new members.
A: This year was Gradishar's 20th and last to be considered as a modern-era candidate for induction into the Hall. He was also a finalist for just the second time, this year, in that 20-year span.
And there were points in the final selection meeting this year when I believed he would make it in, but with so many defensive players on the ballot this time, including four pass rushing defensive ends/outside linebackers in addition to Gradishar and cornerback Darrell Green, the votes likely eventually split among those defensive players.
That was a difficult thing to hear for a seven-time Pro Bowl selection and a former Defensive Player of the Year (1978) like Gradishar, a most-deserving candidate to be sure.
I don't think I've encountered anyone in the 10 or so years I've been on the committee that was deliberately trying to keep Broncos out or didn't think there were several deserving Broncos to be in.
I think it's a matter of facing difficult choices, going from a list of 15 in the final meeting this year and taking it down to just five, people are naturally going to lean to players they saw more.
Sometimes that leaves some teams, some players out. That also means as a voter, you have to work all year to make the players' cases, to bring all they have done in their careers to the forefront.
It's no secret over the last four decades or so the Broncos have been underrepresented in the Hall. They have just two of their Ring of Fame players – John Elway and this year, Gary Zimmerman – who have also been picked for enshrinement.
That's far too low for a team that has had the same number of Super Bowl appearances – six – as losing seasons – also six – since the start of the 1973 season. Especially when compared to several teams who have not reached that kind of long-term success.
Shannon Sharpe is eligible for the first time in the Class of '09 in what will be a difficult class to crack in terms of modern-era candidates because, I believe, it will also include Deion Sanders and Rod Woodson for the first time.
Terrell Davis has made it to the cutdown to 25 players the last two years, Zimmerman got in and Gradishar was a finalist this year as well, so there has been some headway. Not as much as people would like or as much as there needs to be, but some.
The process of selecting senior candidates was changed this year to help the process, too. Now the seniors committee – a smaller group of more experienced voters on the full board of selectors – will pick two seniors candidates each August. Those two candidates automatically become finalists for induction – the 16th and 17th players that are considered in the final selection meeting each year.
Those two candidates are now also voted on separately, simply on a yes-or-no basis. They are not pitted against the modern-era players.
There was a time when many believed the seniors candidates were struggling because they were being voted on against the modern-era players and that more voters would lean toward the modern-era players at the seniors nominees' expense.
This should help seniors hopefuls for the Broncos like Floyd Little or Gradishar in the coming years. Little has been close to coming out of the committee a couple times in recent years, and Gradishar would be certainly be a compelling player for the committee to look at even as soon as '09.
As far as the process of being a voter . . . You receive the full nomination list during the year. You work, gather information, talk to coaches, executives, former players – in short as many people as you can – and in some cases I've gotten my hands on game video.
You put together any and all information on select players on the list – for me those players are the former Broncos -- you think would be useful to the other voters and put it in some form that is both usable to them and also doesn't get lost in the flurry of information they're going to get.
Then that list, often very large, is trimmed to 25 players by vote of the selectors. You consider that list of 25 in the same way. You meet with, talk to as many people as you can about the players on that list as well as send out any additional information for review if, for me, there are former Broncos remaining on that list of 25.
Often I'll go over notes I've kept over the years on players to see if there is anything to be pulled from there. I've also put together some stuff on players I may have covered in other cities previously if someone has asked me to.
The list of 25 is then trimmed to 15 modern-era candidates. Those 15 and the two senior candidates are then debated – with the voters face to face in a room in the Super Bowl city the day before the Super Bowl.
It can be a seven-hour meeting. Some finalists are debated longer than others, but it's quite a process. In that meeting the 15 modern-era finalists are first trimmed to 10. Those 10 can be debated again.
The list of 10 is then trimmed to five. And the final five are voted on, simply as yes or no, for induction into the Hall.
They have accountants on hand. We hand them our final ballots on the final five modern-era candidates and the two seniors candidates and don't know who officially made it in until the announcement.
That's it, and thanks.
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/broncos/archives/2008/02/working_the_wha.html#more