First, I need to account for their workouts over the past few weeks. The Jaguars typically have a 12-week offseason workout program, but the league allows for up to 14. By weeks end they'll have completed six weeks of the program, which at my estimated $25,000 per week rate works out to $150,000 altogether. I was listing $75,000 for their first three weeks, so an additional $75,000 came off the cap since.

The other update is that OT Richard Collier just signed a two-year extension. This hasn't been reported anywhere, and I wouldn't have even known about it had Del Rio not mentioned this fact during one of his draft press conferences.

Looking up his details at the nflpa site (you now have to register at their site), Collier has a $950,000 base salary in '09, and a $1.1 mil base salary in '10. I'm guessing that on top of this he received a $450,000 signing bonus which counts $150,000 per year starting this year. This estimate leaves Collier with the following cap hits...

• 2008 - $595,000
• 2009 - $1,100,000
• 2010 - $1,250,000

The Jaguars haven't even added another OT leaving Ryan Gibbons and Andrew Carnahan as his only competition on the roster. This suggests to me that the team is rather confident if Collier's ability to be the 3rd OT this season, and Del Rio even made a comment that Collier might challenge Barnes for the start at OLT.

As for the 14 new UDFAs, their base salary won't count as they are not among the 51 most expensive. However, as I did last year I'm estimating a bonus for each UDFA equal to $2,500 per year that they're signed up for. This counts against the cap, so for 14 UDFAs that's a deduction of $35,000 represented in my "Additional Bonus Hits" column.

Having includes these updates on my spreadsheet, I'm now showing the Jaguars at $19.07 mil under the cap. I'm going to wait a couple days before posting updates to my raw data and spreadsheet because I want to include all the rookies in it, but I need to wait to find out how long each UDFA signed for.

Also, there's one more thing I learned recently. Last year the team went after some of Stroud's signing bonus for the time he missed while on suspension. In all they managed to have Stroud pay back $122,354. This does not effect my overall estimate, but I reduced this amount from his dead money figure and then adjusted my "unknown savings" figure to compensate.

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."

JAGUARS 2009 UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS

• LT Khalif Barnes ('09 is believed to be voidable)
• QB Todd Bouman
• MLB Tony Gilbert
• C Brad Meester
• DT Rob Meier
• S Pierson Prioleau
• WR Reggie Williams ('09 is voidable)
• MLB Mike Peterson
• DE/OLB Kenny Pettway
• RG Tuten Reyes
• SS Gerald Sensabaugh
• LDE Paul Spicer
• CB Scott Starks
• LS Joey Zelenka

JAGUARS 2009 RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS

• SS Jamaal Fudge
• LB Brian Iwuh
• DT Tony McDaniel
• LDE Jeremy Mincey
• RB Montell Owens

The Jaguars are way under the cap, but as you see there are several players they have to be thinking about extending. I imagine that's how they'll end up spending their remaining cap space. Who would you extend?

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."

This latest quote has the Jaguars at $13.97 mil under as of May 28th. Whenever I get a new quote, the most important thing is to figure out who precisely is being accounted for. For instance, does this count Pierson Prioleau? Clearly when the quote came out a month ago, I had assumed wrongly that it must have been counting contracts that it wasn't.

The best site I've found to determine when roster moves are made is the PFW transactions page. According to the page, Ricard was released on the 29th and Prioleau was signed on the 30th. So these two moves were not accounted for in the above quote. The UDFAs were signed on the 25th, so they're probably accounted for in this number. Collier's contract was extended just prior to the draft, so this move should be accounted for as well.

The first thing I need to do is get an accurate current number...

Ricard's release has no effect on the cap. He had a small amount (I'm estimating $5000) counting as dead money, and that amount remains the same. His base salary was never counting since he was not in the top 51.

Prioleau's addition probably has a small effect on the cap unless they gave him no bonus. As estimated, Pierson signed a one-year contract for the minimum base salary. I don't know his bonus, but I'll stick with my estimate of a $40,000 bonus being the max a player can get under the Beneficial Salary Program. If correct, his $485,000 cap hit knocks off a $445,000 cap hit which in turn puts the Jaguars at $13.94 mil under the cap. This is the number I'll adjust my cap spreadsheet to match.

I also need to make a couple adjustments. For one, there were only 13 UDFAs instead of the initially reported 14, which is a $2,500 discount. Also, I learned something new about Tuten Reyes. The Jaguars purposely avoided taking advantage of the Beneficial Salary Program by giving Reyes a base salary of $731,000 instead of $730,000. I had him down as having been signed to a BSP contract with a $10,000 bonus wherein he'd count $455,000, but I learned that his total cap hit is also $731,000. So he's not getting a bonus, but he's counting his entire base salary which may be an intentional move to help them reach the cap minimum.

My spreadsheet now reads $13.94 mil under, and the biggest change is that instead of counting nearly $6 mil in "unknown savings," I'm now showing nothing in that column. I was going to put $1 mil in there, but I noticed I was also listing $1 mil in "unknown incentives." By wiping out that cost along with slightly adjusting my "small dead money" figure, I ended up matching the $13.94 mil under figure.

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."

http://www.kffl.com/team/20/nfl

Jaguars | Team’s rookie pool money announced
Wed, 7 May 2008 22:19:21 -0700

John Clayton, of ESPN.com, reports the Jacksonville Jaguars have been given $3,721,960 to sign their five draft picks from the 2008 NFL Draft.

3rd Year Season Ticket Holder Sec.440 baby! 5 seats!

Thanks.

When considering how much will count against the cap when the draft picks are initially signed, consider two things...

1. The fifth rounders will not count their $295,000 base salary.
2. The first two picks will each knock at least a $445,000 player off the top-51 list.

So when you look at this $3.722 mil figure, you want to subtract these amounts. Subtracting $1.48 mil from their rookie pool leaves leaves $2.242 mil. This is how much I'd expect the five picks to count against the cap right away (of course after the last cut, rookie cap hits will count in full).

The Jaguars currently standing at $13.88 mil under, but after accounting for their draft pick signings they really only have $11.64 mil available to sign additional players and hand out extensions.

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."

Well, I just learned how they're accounted for. It's sort of like the top 51 rule where those who aren't in it only count their bonus money, but not their base salary. I considered this possibility before, but discounted it as well because the entire cap hits of even 7th round picks count against the rookie pool even though they're never in the top 51. But this is precisely what the league does. The projected $295,000 base salary for a UDFA does not count in the total because so few of them actually make league rosters, but any additional money has to count within the rookie cap.

The Jaguars have 13 UDFAs wherein I'm estimating the total of their bonuses to be $32,500 (13 x $2,500). Subtracting this amount from their rookie pool leaves them with right about $3.69 mil in first-year cap hits for their five draft picks.

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."

I'm updating my raw data and spreadsheet to a new estimate for Spicer along accounting for Rob Meier's new extension, the addition of a rookie UDFA WR, and more workouts. Additionally I still need to update my raw data for the original 13 UDFAs, and for the new WR, but the NFLPA still hasn't included their data. They usually have this info up there by now so I don't know what the hang-up is.

For Spicer I'm showing him as counting his $2.5 mil in base salary with no additional amortization (2007 represented his last signing bonus hit from his '04 contract) along with $800,000 in LTBE incentives which I count seperately.

Like with the other UDFAs, I'm estiming a $2,500 per year signing bonus for WR Derek Richards. With him being such a late signing he may have joined on for little or no bonus, but I still do them all the same to make the math easy.  While I don't yet know how many years Derek signed for, I can add an additional $2,500 to the "additional bonus hits" column on the spreadsheet.

Like with most contracts handed out over the past couple years, we get practically no details and I'm forced to guess. I can't stand guessing, but yet again they inked Meier to an extension and won't say a word. Again I'll enquire and may learn more details, but for now I need to estimate his cap hit. Rob was scheduled to earn either $1.095 mil or $2.095 mil in base salary. I was listing $1.095 mil in base salary which is what he had been scheduled to earn per the nflpa, but a recent report at the T-U said $2.095 mil. It's possible he earned a $1 mil escalator in his base salary, but in either event his new deal overwrites the old amount. As it relates to figuring out how much they're under overall (and to stay on the safe side), I'm assuming that I was correct at $1.095 mil.

Rob Meier's new base salaries are as follows...

• 2008 - $1 mil
• 2009 - $1.5 mil
• 2010 - $2.25 mil
• 2011 - $2.5 mil
• 2012 - $2.5 mil

While I don't have any bonus or incentives details, the T-U reported that his overall contract extension was worth about $15 mil. Since his base salaries total $9.75 mil, that leaves roughly $5.25 mil for bonus money (incentives are not typically included in overall contract value quotes unless it says "up to" first).

Looking at the trends Vance has used so far in contract extensions (heavy upfront roster bonus, etc), I'll estimate that this year he received a $1.25 mil signing bonus (counts $250,000 per year) and a $3 mil roster bonus, and that next year he's due another $1 mil roster bonus. This estimate gives him the following cap hits...

• 2008 - $4.61 mil (includes final $360,000 SB hit)
• 2009 - $2.75 mil
• 2010 - $2.5 mil
• 2011 - $2.75 mil
• 2012 - $2.75 mil

At least this is what a typical Paul Vance contract would look like this year. That is, an overall flat structure but with a bigger first year cap hit.

As for their workouts I'm now listing $200,000 which should roughly equal how much the Jaguars have paid out to players up through this upcoming week ending March 23rd.

With all of the above accounted for, my spreadsheet is now showing the Jaguars at $10.68 mil under the cap.

'02 Check out my CAP_INFO, and join my new WEBSITE. Coach Del Rio: "Respect every opponnent, and fear nobody."