Very much looking forward to this piece. So much to comment on though I'd rather keep it specific.
I think it's important to distinguish a paycut from a restructure, as the two are quite different. The former never benefits the player financially, the latter is always in the player's best financial interests.
A restructure is the shifting of Year X base salary into guaranteed bonus money, which is thus prorated over the course of a contract. What the team gets in return is that salary cap money can be shifted in Year Y over the course of many seasons. Presuming a veteran has a 3M base salary, you can shift around 2.2M of that into guranateed money prorated over the course of, say, 3-4 years. Thus rather than costing the team 3M in base salary (plus whatever bonuses they already had) you only pay them 800K + 1 years proration of 2.2M plus whatever bonuses they already had.
This is always beneficial to the player, since guaranteed moneys are checks cut immediately to the player which they can then put in the bank or invest to create more money. For the purposes of the salary cap the bonus is "prorated" but the money is paid up front, the day of the contract.
An additional benefit of shifting salary into guaranteed money for the player is that it protects their high base salaries in later years. The likelihood of a team cutting a player to save cap space is proportional to the cap hit the team takes in doing so. When you cut a player, their bonus money accelerates either to that year or prorated (kind of sort of) over two years. The more guaranteed money the player has protecting their salary the less likely they are to get cut. Suppose you have 8M in bonuses remaining on a 6M cap hit in year X. The team would take a 2M hit to cut you in that year. Fast forward the following year, and it might be an 8M cap hit protected by (now) just 6M in remaining bonuses. The team saves 2M. Hence the more guaranteed money the player has, the more likely the team is to pay their salary on any given year.
Anyways, I'm pretty sure that Mark Brunell took a paycut, and not merely restructured his contract.
Whenever you hear a player say "I'm willing to restructure for the team" just remember that it is ALWAYS in their best interests to do so.
This is good info pertinent to this issue. Sign of a football wonk.
In the sense that both restructures as you have described and direct paycuts are alterations of the standing terms of a contract, both are a 'restructuring' of the contract terms, and are generally reported as such. You have to get down in the weeds to learn the terms and whether it was a conversion or a paycut or some of both.
I seem to remember that Mark accepted a conversion last offseason and pretty sure it was a paycut this season.
Although paycuts do not benefit the player financially against the existing terms of the contract (because who in the world wants a paycut?), the concept can benefit the player if he believes his reduced salary still would exceed what he could get from another team or on the market, or extend his career. Mark should have a legitimate concern that if the Redskins let him go, his football career may be over.
If you are making two million dollars and one million is the only thing you could get from another employer, and I knew that, I could force you to accept up to a one million dollar paycut or release you. So although the paycut does not benefit the player directly, it can benefit his career by extending it or ensuring continued employment.
A contract restructure that converts salary into bonus is always beneficial to the player in a number of ways, as you both mention but, from the team/business perspective, has to be viewed as a negative overall. In some situations it can be immediately helpful but always comes with future cost. Part of a players compensation for a given year will be taken from a future year's cap. This amounts to a "I'd be happy to pay you tomorrow for a beer today" situation.
In a very base sense, the team will be forced to work with a lower salary cap than other teams in a future year. For many teams this is a difficult pill to swallow and, in a very competitive league, can be difficult to successfully sustain. The 'skins approach seems to be that if you do it every year there is zero sum loss. However, I have to believe that at some point it will catch-up with them one way or another.
The cap space they are creating always seems to go to the next free agent. This has created a lack of personnel continuity that seems to be a problem. Then of course there is the case of the year in which no restructures happen and they do hit the cap wall that everyone has predicted for a number of years. However, The Danny seems to magically make this cap wall go away. Personally, I don't believe in magic and think that the end result is a year in which the skins are force to release a bunch of players that they really didn't want to let go.
I agree with WM here in that I generally think restructuring contracts is a bad idea, although I can appreciate some situations where it would be in the team's best interests.
Because the salary cap increases over time, and cannot decrease per the CBA, dollars spent become less valuable with each passing year. Thus, postponing 300K that you owe a player from 2007 to '07,'08,'09,'10... means that you're spreading the cap hit over years where X amount of money is actually worth less. Rather than paying the player 50K in '07 you end up paying them 50K in '09, when the cap is 15 someodd million higher thus devaluing the 50K.
The concern here is that you shift enough money into guaranteed money that you end up marrying yourself to their 09 salary, which is probably significantly higher than their 07. Thus you could end up costing yourself more money, which is why I'm generally against restructures. I don't mind it for low contracts (such as James Thrash) or for players who aren't going to devalue significantly over time (such as low contracts, young players, or role players). For a guy like Samuels though, it's very dangerous. He's getting long in tooth and I wonder if he'll be able to maintain the level of play he's held for so many years.
Is he really the most valuable player on our team? Because he is about the highest paid.
Of football salary caps and relativity - very good point SP. I sure hope you can't spin that logic into a WMD but I'm sure The Danny will pay you millions if you can (and then prorate it over the life of your new toy).
Great series Ben and I think the bottom line in DC is culture - one generated by egos and fed by money. In most cities I'd say drop the bomb and start over because that is the only way to deal with a culture problem. However, DC is in a unique spot because the genesis of this culture is in the front office and can be tracked straight to The Danny's office. I fear (well not really because I'm not a fan) that without a change in the owners box it will be really hard to change much of anything in DC. The good news is that an occasional run to the early rounds of the playoffs is possible but I don't think that this environment can produce a sustained winner.
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