Fascinating article on The Athletic about how the Eagles use void years to spend more than the cap every year, but it’s only possible because their owner pays the bill.
I was struck by this visual of how much more the Eagles actually spend than the Giants (Eagles are the green dot further to the right, Giants white)
I wonder if they sold part of the team to catch up?
19 comments
We don’t have anyone to pay (because our GM let them walk)
Not to discount the money aspect, I’m sure that certainly helps, but (it pains me to say this) Howie Roseman and the Eagles Front Office run circles around the Giants Front Office. It’s not even close.
I despise that franchise more than any other (along with their fanbase) but you can’t deny they are a well run football team.
The issue is Roseman is just an elite GM all around. no one in football understands the cap better than him and no one in football has better scouts and draft guys than him. That combination is deadly. Mara if anything has miffed on finding that kind of GM who comes from that background. But I’m not going to pretend this isn’t hard. If you told me Schoen and Ryan Poles would be bombs as GM’s I would’ve laughed at you. Picking these guys just by looking at their current organization just doesn’t work. You have to fully dive into their credentials.
The key with the way the eagles spend, and a huge credit to them, is you have to get the right guys to kick the can on for this to work, if not you’re spending tons of money for zero production, it wouldn’t be worth it, The giants have tried it, but have an abysmal hit rate on FA/5th year draft picks
Eagles have paid money to players near the top of their position. Giants high priced signings haven’t worked out that way for the most part
Mara isn’t cheap by any stretch, but he’s also relatively poor by NFL owner standards. He’s worth a ton but pretty much all of his wealth is tied up directly with the team so he’s not very cash rich. What the Eagles do basically requires having an owner who is willing to pay large guarantees up front, which is way most owners don’t do that. Tisch is actually rich and selling off shares to the Koch brothers does free up more money for them, but still. The Eagles also great at scouting and developing players. If we tried doing what the Eagles do with our current organization we would end up like the Saints.
They have spent plenty. Just allocating it incorrectly.
The league is going to eliminate/limit the use of void years. Matter of time.
I know the franchise is a dumpster fire but there’s never been a time that I thought they weren’t spending enough. Void years only make sense when you’re in real championship mode. They haven’t been, and you imagine if Nate Solder or Kenny Golladay were still counting against the cap?
Good for the Eagles, but their day is coming to pay the piper. Look at the Saints now as an example.
Not a cap expert, but here’s my understanding.
The Giants ownership group is one of the most cash-poor in the league. This article claims that Mara and Tisch combined are worth $2.1 billion (https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-richest-owners-net-worth-ranked/). This puts them at 24th richest in the league.
Their net worth is tied up in the value of the Giants franchise. This is not liquid capital. Sure, the franchise is probably worth over $10 billion if they sell, but they can’t use that to pay the bills unless they sell. This is why they’re selling small stakes to the Koch family: to cash out and realize the valuation. It’s why all of these owners are exploring the recently-approved option to sell minority stakes to private equity.
(As an aside: I think many people are unhappy about the Koch sale because it undermines the long term financial stability and health of the franchise. If they own 10%, that means 10% of the Giants’ annual revenue gets hoovered up and sent to the Koch family, rather than in the hands of owners who have a much stronger incentive to reinvest it in the franchise so it can grow and prosper. So Mara/Tisch get a big influx of cash now, but lose control of a substantial portion of revenue long-term.)
Being cash poor makes it more difficult to do contracts because fully guaranteed money means the money needs to go in escrow. So if they want to do a $100 million guaranteed contract, John Mara and Steve Tisch need to scrounge up $100 million dollars. They’re rich, but not so rich that this is a trivial decision. Compare this with the Hunt family (Chiefs), who are reportedly worth ~$25 billion, or Stan Kroenke (Rams), who is reportedly worth ~$21 billion.
This has costs. If you can’t guarantee the money up front, you may be unable to persuade talent to stay, or you may need to pay out more non-guaranteed over time.
All of that said: I think the effect of this is probably overrated. The Eagles are the best in the league at managing the cap, and Jeff Lurie is only worth ~$5 billion.
And the issue is not really that the Giants are incapable of getting contracts done. I really don’t think that’s what’s causing the team issues. The team’s issues stem from bad coaching, bad scouting, and (a distant third) bad contracts. I don’t think you can find many concrete examples of contracts we should have done (but didn’t do) as a result of Mara/Tisch’s reluctance to put cash in escrow. Maybe Saquon, but that appears to have been a principled decision by Schoen re: RB value, not a money decision.
I don’t know too much about finances but imo as long as the league is growing and the cap is growing pushing money back is a good idea to remain competitive ONLY on good players.
Jalen Hurts alone has $60 million in void years spread out 2030-2032. By then $60 million will definitely be a much smaller % of the cap then it is now and allows for more money now to remain competitive.
I don’t think this strategy works with the Giants as they don’t even have a franchise QB yet (maybe Dart) and the team hasn’t shown they are competitive in the slightest. Extending someone and adding HEAVY void years to someone like JMS doesn’t make any sense.
That’s my 2 cents on the void years summed up. Good strategy to exploit for competitive teams, not so much for rebuilding/noncompetitive teams like the Giants.
I feel like spending hasn’t been the issue for Mara, there’s been plenty of big money contracts they’ve recklessly handed out. I think it’s just Joe Schoene and his value of position thing he preaches. If Gettleman were still here McKinney, Saquon, Leo, Love all probably would’ve resigned somehow.
Not saying it would be the right move for all of them, and granted those aren’t Schoene’s “guys”, but idk it’s weird lol.
Using void years only makes sense if you’re a good team, that’s 1-2 good players from being a SB contender. At some point they catch up to you.
They’re also best when you draft young players that develop into elite talent and want to extend them. That’s only happened twice (Lawrence/Thomas) with the Giants in recent years and one of those could be a disaster since he can’t stay healthy.
The Eagles, much as I hate to say it, spend well. New Orleans spends a ton over the cap, how does that work for them? Same as Dallas. Kansas City does not (relative to the Eagles at least) and wins regularly.
Playing the void year game has risks. At some point you find yourself with an unmanageable amount of dead money. You can’t kick the can down the road forever. If it works for a while you win some Super Bowls. If it doesn’t, ask the Browns about Deshaun Watson.
Our defense is the 2nd most expensive in the league and it amounts to nothing.
I just think Schoen is really focused on being cap healthy a much as possible. Also, I don’t think the giants have players that they can overspend on.
I see a lot of folks saying the eagles spend well, which they do, but that’s not the point here. Plenty of teams spend well
The Eagles have figured out how to effectively add almost $100m to their payroll each year, there are only two teams that spend close to the eagles money on payroll each year.
This effectively is negating the cap, the challenge is you have to have an owner that’s willing to send $100m more in cash out the door each year which many teams don’t. The best analogy I can come up
with is the late 90s Yankees who dumped $100m more a year in payroll then even middle of the road teams because they could afford it while others couldn’t wouldn’t
So what does this mean for Howie? He’s playing with more tools then other GMs, he can resign more vets and afford to make trades to cover up weaknesses because he has a bigger stack of chips at the poker table then the other players
This is the “hack” post cba teams have capitalized on, the eagles/bills/rams/broncos are willing to spend like crazy while the giants/pats and other pre CBA teams are still running their books in an antiquated fashion: that’s why the broncos were able to eat Russ’s dead cap while building a contender while we cry about depth because DJs dead cap just had to be eaten
It’s also why the 2023 team was destined to fail, instead of doing what the eagles did and pushing our big money guys out to 2023 to allow investments in the o line and secondary we kept clean future books to keep our annual cash out low thus hamstringing the teams ability to compete with orgs that spend aggressively
I haven’t lost my mind about it because we haven’t been that great but long term either Mara needs to get comfy spending or the league needs to close the bonus/void year loophole to put a real hard cap back in place
Our problem is not money spent but talent evaluation and retention. Our drafts for the last 3 years has been rated highly but who really has had an impact.
Void year spending works successfully when teams add at the skill positions when they already have a solid core for the team. Think adding that extra free agent WR, RB, Edge or CB that puts the team from a likely contender to a probable contender. You can’t just spend your way out of a bad roster. Cornerstone positions like top 10 QBs, WRs or LTs rarely hit free agency so teams are not typically able to buy their way out of bad decisions at those positions. The Giants need to maintain their focus on drafting a solid core before they start spending future cap space.
There are 2 reasons for this.
1. The Maras and Tischs are among the most cash poor owners in the NFL basically thier entire networth is tied up in the Giants. This matters because any garunteed money in a contract needs to be put into escrow as soon as the player signs it. For example let’s say the giants owe $500 million in garunteed money over the next 5 years all $500 million would have to be put up right now. There’s a real chance that Mara and co simply dont have enough cash on hand to spend like the Eagles, though the recent sale will probably change things.
2. There just isn’t anyone worth paying on this team right now. The only player on this team who is worth a big contract and hasn’t already been paid is Nabers, who won’t be a free agent for another 3 years. Using Void years like the Eagles only make sense in scenarios where you are trying to keep an expensive core together or adding a big free agent that you think will put you over the top for a superbowl run, neither situation applies to the Giants right now.