Paging Joe Banner

While I fully recognize just how good Eagles cap guru Joe Banner is at his job, there are very few times when I would consider myself to be on his side.  It's not that he's a bad guy, it's just that sometimes he comes across a little ... off.  Fans are pleading for wide receivers and talent and Super Bowls and he's out there patiently explaining cap management, actual cash outlays and long-term roster building. 

There's a lot of talking past one another.

But today I'm a Joe Banner guy.  And it's all because of this faux-smart online piece penned by a Harvard Law School student that philly.com saw fit to publish.  I was so annoyed by this piece that I considered for a moment drafting a response and seeing if I could get the site to post that. 

Then I realized that's why I have a blog.

I would guess that the hyper-sensitive (and very good) Eagles' media team is already hard at work crafting the team's official response (coming soon from an anonymous source near you).  But what I'd really rather see is Joe Banner emerging from the room where they keep all the money this franchise prints and blasting this guy with both barrels.  Because while there's one very good point he makes in the middle somewhere (more on that in a bit) the rest is so ridiculously devoid of context that it's begging to be blown out of the water. 

While we wait for the team's response, let's give this baby the old line by line treatment.

When the NFL's free-agency period started, the Eagles quickly nabbed Asante Samuel, signing the Pro Bowl cornerback to a six-year, $57 million contract with a $20 million signing bonus. The decision to sign one of the most expensive free agents, rather than to pursue younger, cheaper cornerbacks, may harm the team in future seasons, because compiling a roster of high-priced free agents is a losing strategy in the long-term.

It takes exactly two seconds for us to spot the first lack of context.  While it's certainly true that "compiling a roster of high-priced free agents is a losing strategy in the long-term," the author neglects to show that this is what the Eagles are doing. 

Take a look at the team's roster for a second (the depth chart has been temporarily disabled).  How many expensive free agents do you see?  It depends upon how you decide what's "expensive," but let's call it four:  Runyan, Curtis, Howard and Samuel.  Now I would argue that Curtis and Howard weren't all that expensive and really we're just talking about Runyan and Samuel.  But either way, that's what, three starters out of 22?  Is that really a roster of high-priced free agents?

In contrast, look at all the home-grown talent on this team.  Even the big-money guys like McNabb, Dawkins, Westbrook and Lito were all Eagles' draft picks.  (Takeo came in a trade, not a free agent signing, and the Eagles have paid him nothing but salary.) 

There's simply no way you could say that the Eagles are anything but a draft-built team.

When the Eagles were successful in the early 2000s, they drafted most of the team's productive players and were able to sign them to reasonable contracts; stockpiling cheap and productive players allowed the team to have depth and talent at almost every position. By 2004, however, those drafted players started to become eligible for free agency, demanded large signing bonuses, and consumed a greater percentage of the Eagles' salary cap. The team lost depth and productivity at many positions because only a few contracts occupied a large portion of the Eagles' maximum team salary.

Translation:  Because the Eagles were so successful in the draft, they ended up with lots of good players that they then paid to retain.  It's fair to argue that the Eagles lost depth at some key positions from 2004-2006, but that had more to do with a few drafts that didn't pan out as well for the team.

And while quality depth is certainly important, is it more important than having two good starting cornerbacks?

I also think the author meant to write: "...depth and talent at every position [except wide receiver]." 

NFL contracts traditionally contain both a non-guaranteed salary and a guaranteed signing bonus; franchises often prefer to pay stars with low salaries and large bonuses. Since the signing bonuses are prorated over the life of the contract, they count toward the salary cap. It usually works great in the first year. For example, in 2004 the Eagles doled out $35.2 million in guaranteed signing bonuses for Sheldon Brown, Jevon Kearse, Donovan McNabb and Lito Sheppard. Since each player except McNabb earned the league's minimum salary, the Eagles attributed significantly less than $35.2 million to the 2004 salary cap. That year, those stars helped the Eagles go 13-3 on its way to a Super Bowl berth. By 2005, though, those hefty signing bonuses significantly restricted the Eagles' cap space, which prevented the team from signing important reserve players. That season, the team was 6-10.

There's a logical error here.  The author claims that the Eagles were fine in 2004, but in 2005 "those hefty signing bonuses significantly restricted the Eagles' cap space."  Signing bonuses are prorated equally over a set number of years.  Therefore, the signing bonus hit from those four contracts was exactly the same in 2004 as it was in 2005. 

The salaries might have changed, but that's a bad error to be making.

He also -- and here's that context thing again -- never mentions the words "Terrell Owens" or "Mike McMahon."

Large signing bonuses can be debilitating to a franchise when players leave the team before the end of their contracts, whether through waiver, trade or retirement, because the total unpaid portion of the signing bonus "accelerates" and is counted in the next season's cap, creating "dead money." That's what happened to the San Francisco 49ers in 2004. The team had $27 million in dead money, including accelerated bonuses for Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens. Since the salary cap was about $80 million that season, the 49ers had only $53 million to pay their players. Not surprisingly, the team went 2-14.

Also not surprising, once the 49ers no longer had Jeff Garcia at quarterback and Terrell Owens at wide receiver, they weren't particularly good.

Two other problems here:  1) The Eagles have typically been very good at minimizing the dead money hit from releasing high-bonus players.  They aren't the 49ers.  2)  The salary cap has exploded since 2004, meaning we're in a period right now where some of the constraints of previous eras aren't yet in place.  They will be, after wages around the league (which are somewhat "sticky") adjust, but for now it's Christmas in March for free agents.

Teams can avoid excessive dead money by guaranteeing larger salaries rather than huge signing bonuses, but franchises have historically refused to do so. Guaranteed salaries have the benefit of spreading cap charges over the life of the contract - salaries are charged against the cap in the year paid - without the potential for acceleration. Furthermore, when teams have smaller cap charges for releasing players, they acquire greater flexibility to rid the payroll of excessively large contracts and sign more valuable players. Therefore, NFL teams should shift much of the signing bonuses into larger guaranteed salaries to retain cap flexibility in the future.

This is an interesting idea.  In fact, I think it's the one good idea in the piece.  I wonder, though, about the wisdom of guaranteeing future salaries in terms of future trade values.  But I'd like to read more about this.

In the salary-cap era, teams need to selectively choose those high-priced players who fit with the teams' on-field schemes and off-field organizations, and then fill the remaining roster spots with players who fulfill needs and can support the stars.

...which has been the Eagles self-professed strategy for years.  So basically the author is saying the Eagles need to do what they've been doing.  Got it.

Eagles' fans must hope that Samuel's contract is an aberration and that management will become patient to pursue only undervalued players in free agency and build up the team through the draft.

Here's the problem with this.  What exactly is an "undervalued" free agent?  I'm not saying the NFL player market is fully efficient, but basic economic theory suggests it's going to be very difficult to consistently beat the rest of the field, no matter how good you are.  And how's the Eagles record of picking up "undervalued" free agents going so far...

As for what Eagles' fans must hope, I can tell you we're a long, long way away from the day when we're going to be worried about this team mortgaging its future by betting it all on a few big-time free agents.

Although the rookies would undoubtedly be less prepared for the starting role than Samuel, they could be a better value in the long term, growing to be Pro Bowlers, with relatively cheap contracts signed as rookies, after playing a season or two behind Brown and Sheppard.

Yes, or they could end up being Matt McCoy.  You just never know. 

Furthermore, it's not like the Eagles traded away draft picks for Samuel.  They signed him as a free agent.  They can still draft a first-round cornerback if they like.

And here's where the lack of context again rears its ugly head.  We all fervently hope the Eagles will make a seamless transition from McNabb to Kolb somewhere down the line.  But the odds of that happening aren't exactly great.  Which means we've got a window here of indeterminate length -- let's call it two to three years -- to win a Super Bowl while McNabb and Westbrook are still at their peaks.  In that situation, waiting a couple years for some rookie to develop doesn't seem all that appealing.

Throwing large bonuses at high-priced free agents restricts cap space for up to six years and hurts the team's future success.

Um, unless the guy plays really well.  When Andy Reid got here, one of the first things he did was "throw" a large bonus at right tackle Jon Runyan.  Does anyone -- anyone! -- actually believe that this hurt the team's "future success"?

Furthermore, the Eagles actually managed to advance almost $14 million in cap space from 2007 to 2008 by using the LTBE incentive trick (known forever in Philadelphia as "Haucking money forward").  This is important, because it means the Eagles can basically pay Samuel this year with last year's cap space.

It's for that reason I would bet that a fair amount of the $20 million in guaranteed money that Samuel received actually came in the form of a roster bonus, not a signing bonus.  The difference there is that for a roster bonus, the cap hit occurs all in the year it is paid out -- meaning much less dead money in the future should Samuel not pan out and much greater future cap flexibility than this author realizes.

Comments

[mbtoole]

I actually did respond to the author. Among the points I made:

1) Samuel wasn't given a 20 million dollar signing bonus, that number represents the guaranteed money in the contract.

2) He never provides any examples of the free agent exodus that cause the Eagles to drop off in 2005 (I hope he isn't hanging his hat on Corey Simon)

3) He never address the McNabb and Westbrook injuries in 05, nor the TO debacle.

4) Sure it would be nice if teams could get players to agree to large yearly salaries, rather than huge signing and roster bonuses, but why would a player or agent accept such a deal in an era of non-guaranteed contracts?

5) Similar to your blog, he doesn't look at the context of this particular Eagles team and the shelf life of McNabb, Dawkins, Runyan, Westbrook, etc.

I can't understand why a paper would post such a poorly researched and analyzed article.

[Pat]

Nice work... I sincerely hope the author of the original piece finds his way to your blog.

[James]

Why on Earth did the Inquirer allow a Harvard law student (who admittedly is studying the NFL) to publish this article?

[Josh]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I was infuriated when reading the article; it is beyond me how philly.com thought it was worth any amount of space.

[Gabe from Bounty Bowl]

Well done, sir.

I'm astonished that the Inquirer would print that. For the Wire fans out there, this reeks of the meddling of Managing Editor Thomas Klebanow.

Still, if they're looking for guest authors, why not reach out to one of the very intelligent and well-researched Eagles blogs? Like, um, IGGLES BLOG?

This is why we (really I) call them blathermonkeys.

[Eagle Scout]

Nice work.

This doesn't wash:

By 2005, though, those hefty signing bonuses significantly restricted the Eagles' cap space, which prevented the team from signing important reserve players. That season, the team was 6-10.

However:

Check out he USA Today salary database from 2005, the Eagles had the 5th lowest payroll in the NFL. Am I missing something? We should get the author of Eaglescap.com to write a rebuttal.

USA Today: http://content.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2005

Eaglescap.com
http://www.geocities.com/eaglescap/Storage.html

[flee]

nice post. my first thought when reading that inquirer article was that it was completely moronic. my second thought was that the author is giving harvard law a bad name.