PFT: 2021 Salary Cap will be $180M

$5M over the floor, $18M under optimistic projections. PFT is a rumor mill, this could be complete shyte, but if it's true I think the Steelers should end the practice of kicking the salary can down the road and just tank in 2021.

They could do all kinds of histrionics to get under the $180 but would still have to let too many players walk to be competitive, so why push the pain further down the road to go 8-8 vs. 4-12?

https://steelersdepot.com/2021/01/l...-salary-cap-number-speculated-at-180-million/

 

All the more reason I don't want Ben back. I don't think he has enough left to help us win even if we were a good team. Maybe if he was healthy, but I think we all know Ben just isn't the kind of guy that stays healthy, especially at this age. We aren't going to be a very good team next year. Playoffs is possible, but we won't go deep. So lets see what we have in Rudolph with a new, hopefully competent OC. Spend a pick or 2 on OL and try to protect him as well as develop a running game. If Rudolph thrives, we don't need to draft a QB right away. We can take it year by year. If he sucks, we left him walk and we hopefully draft Ben's replacement.

But what kind of idiotic plan is it to draft a QB in the 3rd round and refuse to ever see if he has what it takes.

 

Speculation my good sir. Nothing has been definitive just yet. My current prediction is $195 Million at the moment due to the rise of streaming services and how much the NFL made off like a bandit with said services. Never mind that, the NFL Contracts with other Broadcasters is set to expire in 2022 and I seriously doubt the NFL wants to lose its main source of revenue because of some constraints.



All in all, $192-197 will be the target point for both the NFL and NFL PA. Anything less is essentially going to fill up Free Agency like never before; subsequently creating an even greater divide between the Low income and High income classes of the NFL while the Middle Class will be essentially wiped out.

 

Move on, draft well, fix some things on defense, protect the QB and put some resources into the O line and run game.

 

CBS Sports:

The NFL and NFLPA set a $175 million salary cap floor for 2021 with league revenues declining due to COVID-19. If revenues are better than expected, the 2021 salary cap could be higher but will likely remain below the current level of $198.2 million.

https://www.nfl.com/news/2021-nfl-s...hree-major-consequences-of-projected-decrease

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...including-the-three-teams-wholl-be-hurt-most/

 

I do not know the game referenced, but the streaming services brought in a lot of revenue and it is only going to increase. Not saying it will affect this year as much, but that's the future revenue stream the owners are salivating over. I watched many games on the NFL and Yahoo sports app for free this year, bet that won't happen again, lol. Networks are already saying the Thursday night game is overpriced. In the end one may pony up, but if it gets into a bidding war with deeper pockets the way we watch games in the future will change. There will likely always be 'free' games available, but if the income stream will be increased by offering certain games via paid streaming (and it increases income) you can bet the owners will be all over it.

 

Yep lost way to much Stadium Money and Merchandise money ... Need to just tell Ben to retire or we going to cut you..Give Pouncey the same deal ..Bye JuJu ... Bye Villy...Bye Conner.. Maybe by Bud if he wants to much ..Draft OL a RB and a pass catching TE and see what Mason and Dobbs can do for the season ..Let the OC see how his scheme works on the NFL level and see exactly the type guys he needs to make it work ...Throw that BPA crap out and target guys that fit the specific scheme...

 

I know it’s speculation at this point but if it’s anywhere in that $180m range I think it may force their hand with some of these big earners that are coming to the end, specifically Ben, Pouncey, Decastro and Haden.

I don’t know if it’s a good idea to extend any of the above, maybe Haden. If they all leave / retire that’s $43m in combined savings

Some ideas for other ways to compliance

Cut one of Vance or Ebron to save approx $5m, extend the other to save another approx $ 2.5m

Restructure Tuitt & Heyward $10m

Extend Nelson and TJ, save approx another $8m if you structure TJ with a backloaded deal and a low year 1 like the Browns did with Garrett or the Saints did with Thomas

That’s potentially nearly $ 70m in savings there without looking at guys like Vince or Boswell but you’d only have about thirty players on your roster and some pretty enormous holes.

Even if they do all of the above they’ll need about $6m to sign all the rookies and another $10m to fill out the roster based on league minimum values, so they’d have roughly $20m + left to re-sign guys over and above that with a $180m cap if that makes sense.

If they are re-signing their free agents you can structure it to keep the first year very low by making it mainly signing bonus. I expect a lot of teams will be doing that this year, especially if there is a good chance that the cap rebounds strongly in 2022.

There are ways out of the cap mess without losing everyone. It’s all about choices for the team now. Do they want to hang on to Ben, Pouncey and others for another year and let the young guys like Hilton and Juju go get their money in free agency, or do you make the tough call and sit the veteran guys down for the same talk they had with Troy.

Of course it doesn’t have to be strictly either / or, they may go for a bit of both, keeping some of the vets and re-signing some of the free agents. Either way the next two drafts are absolutely critical. They have to get more young, cheap talent on to the roster.

The bottom 10 guys on the 54 this year are probably going to be journeymen or undrafted so we better hope the injury gods are kind next year.

 

No more restructures. You've already gutted the roster, what's the point of handcuffing the team in a few years when they hopefully have their next QB.

 

I wasn’t advocating any particular approach, all I was trying to do was lay out the options.

A couple of restructures would not bother me however. 2021 will be an anomaly hopefully, and with a strong resurgence in revenue the rising cap will take care of that money. Restructuring players you definitely want to keep is fine as long as you are drafting well and the cap keeps going up.

 

You watched those games free no question. Here comes the big question though. Did you watch those games with zero ads?!


If you did not, that is how the NFL got its revenue. Does not matter which platform the League uses. If advertisers and marketers need to showcase their products to a mass populous of people then you can bet a nickel the NFL will cram commercials within the eyeballs of hundreds of millions.




Why else has Super Bowl Commercials gotten more expensive for marketers?! The NFL demands high levels of revenue and profit to not just pay off the Broadcasting Networks but to also increase the leagues bottom line. Keep in mind that during Super Bowl LIV, a 30 second slot ended up being $5.6 Million Dollars. Who knows how much it will be thanks in part to COVID 19?!

 

we are on the hook for most of Ben’s money whether he plays or not. Personally tear the bandaid off and force him to retire, but it’s not my decision

 

the cap will be a 1 8 7

 

Good point, yes not commercial free. But I assume, unless its a promo that these streaming 'games' when they become more available, will be mostly limited to paid subscribers of those services, and still will have advertisements.

 

This season wasn't as profitable as other seasons for team owners, but they didn't 'lose' any money. They could move the salary cap up as planned without a problem. I'm surprised the player reps are going along with this reduced cap.

 

Didn't the owners lose money from mostly empty stadiums, no parking and concessions?

 

That is the aspect of it all though. Streaming NFL Games have been their most accessible in 2020 than they ever have thanks in part to various outlets like Yahoo, Amazon, YouTube, Apple, ESPN+, etc. For that matter, for even some of these companies to get NFL Content on their platform, they would to meet the following;


1.) Pay the licensing fee to get said content on their platform. That whole "written without the NFL's consent is prohibited" commercial that runs is very much real; punishable by Federal Law within the USA.


2.) Have a hefty amount of services on the platform: Notice how the likes of Jim Nantz or even Al Davis promotes some type of TV Show or upcoming one?! That is part of the league to sell their partners product to others; increasing the likelihood of people who are potentially interested in said shows on said platform to watch American Gridiron Football to see if there is a new IP from that Broadcasting Platform or even staying tuned for said show to air just before the game is over.


3.) Station Rights: Will any of these rights by the platform impede the NFL's ability to showcase games on that day?! How often will certain rules have to be followed within a finite set of time; i.e. words that are potentially "EXTREME" like "Hell" and "Damn", political discussions, etc.?!


4.) Moral Conduct: Self explanatory but in all honesty the League needs to be certain that said platform is a place where no forms of degradation, harassment or mistreatment of a host of aspects are tolerated.


BIG ONE


5.) Compensation: The NFL pulls in immense ratings; more than any other Sport in North America. That said, I believe it would be in the best interest of the networks to not just simply expect the NFL to merely collect Ad Revenue and miniscle parts of the Viewership Figures. Each Broadcasting Network has their own form of this so I cannot give any definitive answers here. That said, I imagine that NBC Sports gives a considerable share here as Sunday Night Football is the most watched Prime Time Sports Event in North America.




Long story short?! Like @groutbrook stated, the League and Owners as a whole did not make as much money compared to last season. However, to state that said Viewership Figures and overall Revenue would slide merely due to lack of attendance is unfair to those platforms. For that matter, given how much major Tech Company TV Alternatives like YouTube TV, Apple+ and others have grown exponentially, expect the NFL to invest and sign more Contracts to these types of Companies in addition to the TV Broadcasters as well.

 

They did but they made up for those losses in the form of Streaming. There are more streaming venues to choose from nowadays. Twitch, YouTube, Roku, Amazon, Apple TV, Chromecast and a number of other notable ones made big time contributions to the revenue this year. Not to offset those losses completely but greatly mitigate them overall. More people are moving towards that direction as it stands so the NFL capitalizing on said ideas when it did Seven Years Ago is now showing big dividends.


Expect those dividends to increase as the years roll on bye.

 

The owners made less money (maybe), they weren't operating at a loss for 2020.

 

I guess the $5 million cap space rollover helps a bit?

 

Serious purge coming. Ya just can't keep them all you would like. Draft well atleast 2 OL
and RB.. The OL coach hire is the biggest hire the Steelers will make this year, it better be a good one.

 

most sites have it projected at 175.

 

Ed Bouchette has an article in the Athletic today that charts the ways the team can navigate the cap issue, a lot of it mirrors a post I made on the first page of this thread a few days ago. They don’t have to lose all their free agents as long as they are willing to make some difficult choices in relation to their high earning veterans.

His main point is that as a first step the team would have to accept that they are not going to be contenders in 2021, and following that you use it as a reset year. No need to blow everything up and trade away your top guys, just use it as a year where you purge the bad contracts and try to get some young guys in to the team. You can still be competitive if it’s done right.

Running it back by extending Ben, Pouncey and others would be complete madness and can only lead to a wasted year. 2020 was their shot and they weren’t good enough unfortunately, time to move on.