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Timmons earning his pay

stillwright said:
Well Coach the posts you have been making had me wondering if you knew the difference. That was the reason I ask.
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Well, now you know.

I do not think Timmons is worth his cap number, but lately, in the past few games, he is! I welcome the performance but realize it won't last forever.

I think your main confusion is this. Unfortunately, football is a business and smart fans know that by overpaying for players, you hurt your team chances. For example, I was for cutting Hampton and Troy a year before they were cut, and if the Steelers acted we could have saved millions in cap space and signed better players as it was very clear the two were over the hill, accelerating on the steep decline. You coud say the same thing with Talyor.

You could argue the GM is as important or even more so than the head coach.
 
Coach said:
Well, now you know.

I do not think Timmons is worth his cap number, but lately, in the past few games, he is! I welcome the performance but realize it won't last forever.

I think your main confusion is this. Unfortunately, football is a business and smart fans know that by overpaying for players, you hurt your team chances. For example, I was for cutting Hampton and Troy a year before they were cut, and if the Steelers acted we could have saved millions in cap space and signed better players as it was very clear the two were over the hill, accelerating on the steep decline. You coud say the same thing with Talyor.

You could argue the GM is as important or even more so than the head coach.
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And you wonder why stillwright asked you are you sure you understand... "smart fans know that overpaying your players". This is the issue numerous other posters have been trying to make but you refuse to get it. Timmons cap hit is because the team came to him and asked him to restructure his contract TO HELP THE TEAM. TO GIVE THEM WIGGLE ROOM UNDER THE CAP. To sign players make room for the draft class whatever the reason was at the time. So how is he over paid??

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Steeler Nation mobile app
 
Coach said:
Well, now you know.

I do not think Timmons is worth his cap number, but lately, in the past few games, he is! I welcome the performance but realize it won't last forever.

I think your main confusion is this. Unfortunately, football is a business and smart fans know that by overpaying for players, you hurt your team chances. For example, I was for cutting Hampton and Troy a year before they were cut, and if the Steelers acted we could have saved millions in cap space and signed better players as it was very clear the two were over the hill, accelerating on the steep decline. You coud say the same thing with Talyor.

You could argue the GM is as important or even more so than the head coach.
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neither were cut.
both retired.
stop.
 
I might not be a smart fan, but we ate enough dead money letting Polamalu go when we did. If we cut Troy the year before, we'd have eaten another $8M in dead money.

Sometimes you have to wait until the right point in a contract to drop a player, because it would be financially irresponsible to drop the player a year or 2 earlier.
 
Superman said:
neither were cut.
both retired.
stop.
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Hey Supe, Steelers asked Troy to retire early with 2 years left on his contract. They let Troy keep the signing bonus, and the Steelers still had the dead money against the cap for 2 years.
 
Cope said:
Hey Supe, Steelers asked Troy to retire early with 2 years left on his contract. They let Troy keep the signing bonus, and the Steelers still had the dead money against the cap for 2 years.
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http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/troy-polamalu-informs-steelers-hes-retiring/

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu informed owner Dan Rooney Wednesday that he has decided to retire from football, the Herald-Standard reports.

"It's all about family," Polamalu said in a phone interview. "I live here in Pittsburgh now, and since the end of the season I've had a chance to enjoy my family on a level I never had before. It was awesome."

The Steelers had asked Polamalu, who carried an $8.25-million cap hit for 2015, to retire in February, but he resisted until this week. He dealt with a sprained knee ligament last season but believed he could still continue playing.

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was. not. cut.
 
Cope said:
I might not be a smart fan, but we ate enough dead money letting Polamalu go when we did. If we cut Troy the year before, we'd have eaten another $8M in dead money.

Sometimes you have to wait until the right point in a contract to drop a player, because it would be financially irresponsible to drop the player a year or 2 earlier.
Click to expand...

And IMO its bad business to turn around and cut a well respected member of the team when his cap hit is 15 million because the team asked him to restructure
 
Superman said:
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/troy-polamalu-informs-steelers-hes-retiring/

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu informed owner Dan Rooney Wednesday that he has decided to retire from football, the Herald-Standard reports.

"It's all about family," Polamalu said in a phone interview. "I live here in Pittsburgh now, and since the end of the season I've had a chance to enjoy my family on a level I never had before. It was awesome."

The Steelers had asked Polamalu, who carried an $8.25-million cap hit for 2015, to retire in February, but he resisted until this week. He dealt with a sprained knee ligament last season but believed he could still continue playing.

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was. not. cut.
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Right, he wasn't cut. Unlike most retirements, it did come with dead money due to retiring with 2 years left on his contract.

If he was to be cut the year Coach wanted him to, the dead money would have doubled.
 
The good news is that I don't see us having much "dead money" under the cap the next couple of years. We had a lot of good, older players in the period from 2010-2012 and the cap didn't go up much at all (it basically froze for 2 years when the lockout ended in 2011). So we had to do the restructuring dance every year just to squeeze under the cap. We managed to get by this offseason without restructuring / extending Timmons so all potential dead money with him is gone AND he's been healthy and damn good this season. It's a WIN-WIN and it seems like he will have a pretty healthy cap situation going forward. We need lots of space with new deals on the slate for Bell, AB, Shazier & Tuitt. As of now, it doesn't seem like we have many guys in the over-paid & underachieving category.

Timmons will likely test the market this season. If some team pays him stupid money, he'll leave. Maybe a team with a Pittsburgh connection like the Titans would want to make a splash. I would think he'll give us a hometown discount if the deals are reasonably close. I don't want to stretch too much to keep him because age will catch up to him soon (he has played A LOT of NFL snaps)...he's already been very well compensated thus far in his career so we need to pay him with future performance (not past performance) in mind.
 
antdrewjosh said:
And you wonder why stillwright asked you are you sure you understand... "smart fans know that overpaying your players". This is the issue numerous other posters have been trying to make but you refuse to get it. Timmons cap hit is because the team came to him and asked him to restructure his contract TO HELP THE TEAM. TO GIVE THEM WIGGLE ROOM UNDER THE CAP. To sign players make room for the draft class whatever the reason was at the time. So how is he over paid??

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Steeler Nation mobile app
Click to expand...

Once again, he's not worth the total amount of his contract. He's very good, but was paid like he was great. I'll expalin it one more time.

Timmons contract was 5 yr(s) / $47,795,750 signed in 2011 when the cap was much lower ( $120.375 Million ). I think we overpaid for his services, but he's still a very good player at inside linebacker.
 
Cope said:
Right, he wasn't cut. Unlike most retirements, it did come with dead money due to retiring with 2 years left on his contract.

If he was to be cut the year Coach wanted him to, the dead money would have doubled.
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Don't forget that we had extended Troy's contract even though he didn't get any new money in the deal (we did the same with Heath Miller). He did us a favor (it's different than a typical restructuring when salary is changed to signing bonus --- in that case the player isn't doing any kind of favor). You can't turn around and cut that guy the following year after he helps you like that.
 
Timmons can be brought back with a team friendly contract. Its all about whether he's willing to take less to stay here knowing he won't get a fat contract again. Farrior stayed around and played late into his 30s. I think Timmons is still good for another 2 years max.
 
Cope said:
I might not be a smart fan, but we ate enough dead money letting Polamalu go when we did. If we cut Troy the year before, we'd have eaten another $8M in dead money.

Sometimes you have to wait until the right point in a contract to drop a player, because it would be financially irresponsible to drop the player a year or 2 earlier.
Click to expand...

But how much would you save if he's cut, dead money aside. A few million
 
Coach said:
But how much would you save if he's cut, dead money aside. A few million
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Most players don't save money by cutting them early in a contract. Dead money means it costs the team that money, while not playing for that player being rostered. We did it for 2 years with Woodley when he was playing for the Raiders, and that's the biggest dead money hit we took on a player with 2 years left. He had a huge salary and low production, so it merited a cut since he was no longer a starter.

Pretty much, the rule of thumb for cutting a player and saving money, the salary amount is the only money the team saves. Anything prorated or bonuses paid are locked into the salary cap.
 
Superman said:
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/troy-polamalu-informs-steelers-hes-retiring/

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu informed owner Dan Rooney Wednesday that he has decided to retire from football, the Herald-Standard reports.

"It's all about family," Polamalu said in a phone interview. "I live here in Pittsburgh now, and since the end of the season I've had a chance to enjoy my family on a level I never had before. It was awesome."

The Steelers had asked Polamalu, who carried an $8.25-million cap hit for 2015, to retire in February, but he resisted until this week. He dealt with a sprained knee ligament last season but believed he could still continue playing.

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was. not. cut.
Click to expand...

Bruce Arians retired. Dick LeBeau resigned because he felt it was the right time to walk away. Polamalu may not have been "cut," but he wasn't coming back if he didn't retire.
 
Coach said:
Once again, he's not worth the total amount of his contract. He's very good, but was paid like he was great. I'll expalin it one more time.

Timmons contract was 5 yr(s) / $47,795,750 signed in 2011 when the cap was much lower ( $120.375 Million ). I think we overpaid for his services, but he's still a very good player at inside linebacker.
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ok. So how much overpaid? His avg is 9.5m or so. #5 for ILB. #10 for ILB is around 7m, I think. If you don think Timmons has been a top 10 ILB for the majority of this contract, I think you are wrong. So, min $7m. Considering he rarely misses plays, much less games, $7m is too low, imo.

The fact that it is $9.5 rather than $8.5 doesn't bother me, at all.

hell, if you think he is woth 9m and got paid 9.5, "he is overpaid" is a true statement. How much is the issue.
 
Here's the interesting part of Timmons contract. Remember when we were supposed to have actual salary cap increases, and we didn't for like 4 years? You can thank Timmons for keeping us under the cap every year from 2011-2013. He signed a $47.8M/ 5yr contract in 2011. He restructured in 12, 13, and 15 (13 spread the restructure over 13 and 14. 15 spread the restructure over 15 and 16. Since Timmy restructured so much, here were his cap hits by year:

2011 $5.378M
2012 $3.985M
2013 $5.816M
2014 $11.8M
2015 $9.251M
2016 $15.131M

Total dollars paid over that time were $51,378,750/ 6yrs

His cap hits were non existent in 2011, 12, and 13. so the money did have to be paid forward. Big hits in 14 and 16, but his 2015 amount did provide a couple million in relief, and we got another year to spread out the hits.

This is the perfect example of capology, Omar Kuhn doing his job to pay a top player well, while not killing the cap the first 3 years, and restructuring to the point where the cap increases pay the difference of pushing the money down the road.
 
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