I just noticed that www.askthecommish.com updated their numbers a few weeks ago. I don't know how I manages to overlook this for so long because I try to check out their site every now and then. They quoted the Jaguars at $13,849,200 under as of Monday, May 24th, so this is what I'm going to base my new estimate on. To figure out where they are now I need to consider every roster move and cap adjustment over the past four weeks.

For starters, I've been subtracting $25,000 per week of their Offseason Workout Program as a rough estimate to account for what they're paying everyone. The 10 week just concluded leaving only two weeks left. The last two days of "OTAs" are Monday and Tuesday, but players can still come in and workout for the remainder of next week as well as the following week. After that the stadium is shut down until Training Camp begins. Subtracting $100,000 to account for the last four weeks worth of workouts brings the above number to $13.75 mil.

That's the only "cap adjustment" I know to make, but I still have to account for roster moves over the past month. Since May 24th I only know of one roster move, and that is the claiming of TE Greg Estandia off waivers. I'll also include the signing of P Toby Gowin since he was signed on Saturday, May 22nd and most likely was not included in the above figure.

The additions of Troy Edwards, Randy Hymes, and Wayne Hunter occurred on Wednesday, May 19th, and TE Brandon Twito were waived on May 18th. This site reports Hunter as having been claimed on the 22nd when Gowin signed, but I'm going with PFW's transaction listing that this move actually coincided with Edwards' and Hymes' additions. I've learned that this site sometimes "officially" announces certain moves after the fact. It's possible they were also not included in the above figure, but I'm going with the assumption that they were included. For the record, in the event they were not included (and assuming that my estimates for their cap hits are correct), we're talking about subtracting an additional $514,000. If you want to double check this number by looking at their cap hits, remember to factor in top 51 rules (as they signed, each one knocked a $425,000 player off the 51-most expensive list).

I was initially thinking the savings from Jimmy's retirement should be added in, but he retired back on May 10th so the savings should be included here. I really don't get how we went from having a couple mil more than the above quote at a point in time prior to Jimmy retiring, to only having this much after the fact, but the result does seem to comply with Vance saying how the team will by just over $10 mil under after the draft picks are signed. As Bullseye suggested, it's possible that Jimmy's retirement hasn't been made official for cap purposes and that the savings have yet to be reflected in the numbers, but If I learn of that being the case in the future I'll simply adjust my numbers accordingly at that point in time.

Accounting for the two moves that were likely not included in the quote, we have...

• May 22nd - P Toby Gowin signed: estimated $510,000 cap hit knocks off $425,000 player from top-51 list. Difference = -$85,000
• May 30th - TE Greg Estandia is claimed off waivers with $275,000 base salary. Does not count against cap.

Above in this thread I said that I was estimating a $5000 bonus for Estandia as a rookie free agent signing, but since he was actually claimed off waivers he never received a bonus. His rookie minimum base salary is not enough to count.

Subtracting $85,000 brings my new official estimate to $13.67 mil.

Now the trick is making my spreadsheet comply with this new number. It was at $17.22 mil under, so I need to subtract $3.55 mil from that. For starters I'm going to wipe out my "additional savings" amount of $2.85 mil, which puts me only $700,000 away. Then, I never did learn how much was added to the cap for 2005 LTBEs not earned when the league adjusted the Jaguars cap (every team has their own "adjusted cap," which is the league's $102 mil cap with space added or subtracted depending on '05 LTBE results). I've been estimating $3,700,000 as the amount added to the Jaguars adjusted cap, but this was based on very vague assumptions. So I'm simply going to change this number to $3 mil even.

Voila. My spreadsheet now reads $13.67 mil under.

 

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

It's all updated now, though.

2003-2006 Salary Cap data spreadsheet:  http://www.buttshark.com/SalaryCap.html

2006 Salary cap info:  http://www.buttshark.com/2006salaries.html

2006 Roster info:  http://www.buttshark.com/2006ROSTER.html

LANCE & THE CUBBIES OWN DAV & THE 2006 World Champion CARDINALS !!!

I'll at least start working on this over the weekend.

As an update, I edited the RAW DATA (yeah, I can do this now) to show TE Greg Estandia and DE Omari Hand as having been waived. Their release has no effect on the cap.

That said, I also made an adjustment to my overall estimate. Vito recently reported that the Jaguars are just over $13 mil under. Well, I had them at $13.65 mil under, which is way over. I think I know what happened. If you read my above quote you see that I made the assumption that the last quote from www.askthecommish.com included the signings of Troy Edwards, Randy Hymes, and Wayne Hunter. However, it would seem with what Vito is reporting here that these three were not included in that quote, and therefore their signings have to be subtracted from it. I also worked out that in the event I need to do this, that the difference would be precisely $514,000.

Subtracting this amount puts me "slightly over $13 mil under per the T-U quote." It also makes sense that there should be some money listed in "unknown salary" because there is likely bonus or incentive info that I just don't know about. So I put $500,000 in my "unknown salary" and tacked on another $15,000 to my "small dead money hits" making that figure $30,000.

Additionally, I need to account for the remaining workouts, which I'll go ahead and do now even though a couple weeks still remain. I'll assume that roughly 1/3 of those normally showing up are still showing up to workout over the final three weeks of their Offseason Workout Program. That in turn leaves me with one final $25,000 installment bringing my total workouts estimate to $300,000.

Having done all this, my new estimate for the Jaguars is $13.11 mil under the cap.

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

The Jaguars of course have no 6th round pick, but they do have two 7th round picks so I'll work on them today. James Wyche was the 5th pick in round 7, or #213 overall, and Dee Webb was #236 overall selected with the Jaguars original 7th round pick. I'm going to attempt to at least stay ahead of Vance, which isn't the most difficult job considering he's the opposite of what I'd call a "price setter." He tends to wait until there's no doubt as to the price, which is good for me because it makes me look really accurate.

There are two methods to consider when trying to predict what a draft pick will sign for. If possible I like to combine both methods to help compare, and these are the same methods used for the most part by both GMs and agents when determining the price for a draft pick. Method #1 involves looking at what the guy last year signed for at that spot and tacking on a percentage. The percentage is typically determined by percentage increase of other already-signed picks in that round with the percentage increase of the first overall pick suggesting a relative increase for the entire draft class. Interpreting what I just said makes for much of the negotiations we hear about between GM and agent. The second method involves what's known as the sliding scale. You take what draft picks have signed for around your pick's overall number, and apply logic with the concept in mind that the lower the number the higher the gap, or difference in contract value, between players.

For the most part sixth and seventh round picks are going to sign three-year contracts (although so far this year I'm noticing quite a few 4-year deals). This is the same for most of the rounds after round two, although as you approach round two you start seeing more and more four-year contracts. Players/teams sometimes opt for four-year deals because they can often arrive at a deal that involves substantially more total bonus money while resulting in less bonus money per year. At the same time this makes it difficult to look at a player who signed for four years, and then trying to determine what that means for a player expected to only sign for three years.

It's also helpful to understand how simple late-round contracts are. With very few exceptions, late round picks sign straight forward contracts that involve minimum base salaries in each year and a signing bonus. You won't find roster bonuses or incentives or anything else aside from special cases, so really the only real difference between contracts is the amount of the signing bonus. The minimum base salaries are spelled out as follows (even though I'm only considering three-year contracts for Wyche and Webb, I'll list the minimums for the next four years)...

• 2006 - $275,000
• 2007 - $360,000
• 2008 - $445,000
• 2009 - $530,000

So a player with a three-year contract is going to sign a contract worth $1.08 mil plus whatever his signing bonus ends up being. Looking around at the players signed already, one thing I'm running into are several with "undisclosed contracts" meaning we still don't have their details. The 49ers signed their late round picks and disclosed their amounts, but they signed them to 4-year deals where we're looking at 3-year deals for Wyche and Webb. For instance, S Vickiel Vaughn, #254 overall, signed a 4-year deal with a $33,534 signing bonus. That helps, but I need more. The Redskins signed #230 and #250 to deals, which would help give me a sliding scale for Webb at #236, but they haven't disclosed the info on these two. I'll have to track down more of the contract details on already signed picks to arrive at a reasonable prediction, so let me post this now and hopefully I'll have some numbers for these two either later today or within the next couple days.

As I get closer to filling out the predictions for the Jaguars draft class this year, the "Rookie Pool" will have to be factored in. This is the total amount of first year cap hits for rookies, and it includes UDFAs (UnDrafted Free Agent rookies). Top 51 rules still apply, however, so the 11 UDFAs currently on the Jaguars roster are only counting around $20,000 against the Rookie Pool and the Salary Cap. After the final cut down, the total cap hits of remaining rookies must still be under the Rookie Pool which in part explains why you almost never see teams keeping more than three UDFAs. For 2006 with only six draft picks, and most of those late in the rounds, the Jaguars rookie pool is a mere $2,871,527.

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