Mike Florio ,
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As the Cowboys struggle to properly, and timely, pay their best players, the Eagles have cracked the code on how to manage the cap while keeping a championship-caliber team together.
Beyond knowing whom to pay and when to pay them, the Eagles have maximized the use of voidable years in their contracts.
As explained by Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal , the Eagles have $380 million attached to cap charges that will land in voidable years of current contracts. Per Beaton, it’s more than double the amount of any other team.
It’s the new cash-over-cap hack, with more money being spent now — and with the cap charges hitting later. And it requires, as Beaton explains, an owner who is willing to write the checks.
“Our cash over cap has been high and it’s continuing that way,” Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie told Beaton. “I only know one way. All of these decisions are strictly how to win big.”
The key to the voidable-year approach is the ongoing growth of the cap. It makes the relative cap charge smaller, because dollars paid in one year have a reduced impact when they hit the cap in future years. And, in those future years, new voidable-year contracts can push current cash even farther down the road, when the cap will be even higher.
“We have to do whatever we can to make sure that we keep this window open for as long as possible,” Eagles G.M. Howie Roseman told Beaton. “But we have to get creative to make sure that we’re keeping as many of our good players as we can.”
It works as long as business keeps booming and the cap keeps growing. It also requires the Eagles to pay as many of the right players as possible, and to refrain from paying the wrong ones.
The approach has helped to deliver a Super Bowl win. It could lead to more. And their status as contenders will continue to deliver as long as they draft talented players, develop them, and reward the ones whom they believe to be critical to current and future success.
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