Are the Pats in violation of the Salary Cap?

Question

I just read an article that asked that question, and was suprised at the people who ridiculed it.
This has been the talk of the NFL for 8 solid weeks, so anyone who doesn't know about it needs to find another forum to comment on.
The Pats are several million dollars over the cap. That's right...I said over the cap.
Anyone who follows football knows that this has been talked about all season.
The problem is that while the NFL has these rules, when a team violates them, the only thing they can do is warn them or fine them. They cannot do anything else, and the Pats knew this. So they have taken advantage of this.
I really find it amazing that all of you so-called football fans, who want to spout off at the mouth, had no idea that this has been going on all year long.

Answer 1

Hello . . . Yankees?

Every team knows that they can be over the salary cap and pay a fine. If it will make the team better, I say do it.

Answer 2

The Patriots must have some kind of salary cap expert. If they are over the cap, then we'll find out at the end of the year when they release players. What I do know is that a lot of their veteran players coming from other teams via free agency come to New England to win the ring. Players such as Corey Dillion, Junior Seau, and Rodney Harrison take huge pay cuts just for the opportunity to win a ring. In 2004, Tom Brady restructured his contract to give the Patriots more room under the cap. This may be the reason why they are doing okay this year. Now with Moss and Welker, if the Patriots were over the cap to begin with, the NFL would not approve the trade. The NFL will not allow teams to be over the cap. The NFL reviews all contracts for approval. MHO, I think the organization is cheap when it comes to paying their players (look at Asante Samuel, they franchise him instead of giving a long term deal); Lawyer Milloy and Ty Law all wanted more money and they're no longer on the team, but this team is built to win now. Their window of winning Super Bowls is closing fast. I like to think of the Patriots as the Wal-Mart of NFL teams. Pay lower wages to maintain being #1 in the market. In this case to be #1 in the NFL. I'm a long and suffering 49er fan, and I don't have the NFL Network, but they way I see it, if the Patriots mastered the salary cap without cheating or going over the cap, bravo to them. Wish the 49ers can do that!

Answer 3

The cap for the 2007 season is around 109 million. If you check my first source, you'll see that 9 NFL teams are over the cap this season. My second source states that if a team IS over the cap, they face fines (and only fines) from the league.

The teams that are over the cap will have to make cuts (remember, players are SALARIED for each game, so for example if you cut a player midway through the season, you get back half of his salary and reduce your cap). Otherwise, they will face fines at the season's end.

Answer 4

Thank you Robert C!

People just can't stand the fact that they are a winning team.

They still harp on the "cheating" issue but guess what folks, THEY STILL HAD TO GO OUT ON THE FIELD AND PLAY THE GAME!! It's done so get over it.

Pretty interesting dixiecow how you only mentioned the Patriots over the cap. Maybe if you really checked your sources you would have seen they were not the only one.

These babies just love to pick on the winners.

When the Patriots got their butt kicked to the Bears in 1984, I was mad at my team, not the Bears. It only made me more determined to stand behind my team, give them support to go out and kick butt.

My husband is a Bears fan and he cannot believe the flack that the Patriots are getting. Like you RobertC, he's rooting for the Patriots.

Jealously rears it's ugly head every now and then and boy it's a shame.

Answer 5

I tend to doubt that.

The NFL has a 'hard cap', not a soft one like basketball has.

There is a difference between the 'salary cap' and the annual payroll. You give a guy a 5 year contract for $2 mil a year with a $10 mil bonus, that player recieves $12 mil for the year, but only counts (due to the proration of the bonus) $4 mil towards the cap. But in year 2, he gets $2 mil and counts $4 mil. And if they cut him after year 2, the team gets a $6 mil cap charge (aka dead money) for a player who they don't have anymore.

The only way to get rid of that is to get rid of signing bonuses & incentive clauses in contracts. But signing bonuses are the only guaranteed money most players get.

According to the article I referenced below, all NFL contracts, trades, etc. have to be approved by the NFL main offices before they are accepted. If the contract or trade puts the team over the cap (which as I said before has nothing to do with the actual payout for a given year), it gets rejected.

In the past the Redskins paid out as much as $30 to $40 mil OVER the cap number (in years when the cap was MUCH lower) and yet never exceeded the cap, due to creative (and legal) contract manuvering. The downside to this is that it all becomes due in the end, and there are teams (like the post Aikman Cowboys) who had close half their cap as dead money (meaning their free spending in the past meant they had to field a team that got half as much money as any other team in the league). In the end it all works out.

To site a Pats example from THIS YEAR: When they made the Randy Moss trade, at the time of the trade the contract they traded for was for the 'Raider' money (they couldn't rework it until he came to NE). So in order for the trade to be approved by the league office they had to cut payroll (even though the team had no intention to pay the 'Raider' money but instead to rework the contract), which they did by Tom Brady having money taken out of this years contract to make room for him. If Tom doesn't do that (and nobody else on the team does either), they either had to cut people to make room (and I suppose attempt to resign those people once Randy get's his money reduced, but anytime you cut someone you risk another team claiming them) or you can't make the trade.

According to the 'rules', the NFL can do more that just 'fine' the team. They can make them cut players until they are under the cap. Plus punish them with taking away draft picks (the 49ers years ago tried illegal means to circumvent the cap and lost at least one draft pick due to it). And they take players from the bottom of the payroll. That might sound easier on the team than from the middle or the top, but being $10 mil illegally over the cap could mean losing 15-20 players (leaving them with not enough players to field a team in practice or on Sunday, which in turn would force several painful cuts of high & mid players in order to get enough bodies on the field).

But in the end all this talk (without concrete indisputable proof brought forth by people that have the legal background to successfully pursue this) will just make the Pats even more mad at the rest of the league and make them run up the score even more. Washington was supposed to be the best defense they played all year with a secondary made up of all #1 picks and they held the offense to only 45 points.

Answer 6

First of all, I am not a Pats fan, but I am actually becoming one as a direct result of the hate and jealousy directed towards them because they know how to ball better than any other team...

I am so sick of it. The Pats this year, might turn out to be the best team ever assembled. OK, I can live with that. It is what it is.

I am actually a Redskins fan, and am not bothered by them "running up the score". I am bothered that my Redskins had it in their heads that they were inferior and went out and lived out their beliefs..

Anyway, stop hating and start appreciating. We may be witnessing the best team ever..whether we like it or not.

Answer 7

so your saying your surprised the patsies are distorting the rules to fit their purpose? what do you expect from the pats really, the organization has proven they have no need for rules and thumb their noses at the nfl all the time, we cant really expect the patsies to play the game fairly when the nfl helps them out as much as they can, the nfl is fixed and the patsies are the proof

Answer 8

Uh...No they are not over the cap...Uh, there's this little thing looking over the shoulder of the Pats called the NFL...just like they do with all the other teams...There are rules about the salary cap...No one can be OVER it...You're obviously not familiar with the salary cap...

Answer 9

What have the Colts done in previous years? You are mad because the Patriots probably ate your teams head. Go Pats! WOOO!

Answer 10

Shut up! Your face is over the salary cap! Go PATS!!!!!
Go Red SOX!!!! GO Boston College!!!!! Go Celtics!!!!!
Go Bruins!!!!!! You whining little schoolgirl, just because your team is to cheap to drop some coin, you have to whine about other teams spending it. JEALOUSY! LOL!
We know they are over the cap, and are proud of it.
So get over it chuckles, you clown. GET A LIFE!!!!!!
and a winning sports team - then it won't bother as much.