FanPost

Book Review: 'Crunching the Numbers.' Fitzgerald and Natarajan

With free agency around the corner I thought this book might be of interest to the pilgrims of these parts.

Crunching Numbers by Jason Fitzgerald and Vijay Natarajan.

This book was published in 2016 and so is not particularly recent. Some of you may be familiar with the authors as they are contributors to the overthecap website. They researched the book by repeatedly reading the CBA, which is of itself a fairly impressive effort as it is a fairly dry read, without too many funny jokes.

Many of you will no doubt have a working knowledge of capology and so will find this book of limited value. Not trying to teach my grandmother to such eggs y’all will understand. I came to the book with very little knowledge, but have learnt a lot from it. However, as they say, there is no-one more zealous than a convert, so any enthusiasm is coloured by my previous ignorance.

The chapters deal with various subjects in turn:

History of the Salary Cap

This deals with the origin of the salary cap and the successful 1992 anti-trust suit by the players following the introduction of Plan B Free Agency. Broadly speaking, the salary cap was as a quid pro quo granted to the owners in exchange for surrendering their exclusive rights to 37 players. Thus it was a parturition dictated by financial exigencies.

Ten Questions and Answers

A useful introductory and definitional chapter which sets out many of the themes: different categories of free agency, waives/released distinction, top 51 rule, proration, P5 salary. Again, more knowledgeable readers may choose to skip this section. I didn’t

Calculating Player Costs and the Salary Cap

This explains the calculation behind the cap each year. It explores the different category of revenue and its allocation between the owners and players. Of interest is the split, for example of Thursday night games, which is 55% owners: 45% players. This is a reverse of Sunday game split and perhaps explains why they are so popular with the owners and less so with the players! It also sets out the inflationary effect each year and details the minimum spending requirements over a 4 year period, among many other subjects.

Components of an NFL Contract

This describes itself as the meat and potatoes of the book. True, and worth the price of the book itself. Among the subjects treated are split salary, vet minimum contract requirements (designed to enable vets to remain in the NFL with limited salary cap impact) Roster/reporting bonuses, incentives (LTBE and NLTBE) and it goes into more detail of proration. There is also an exploration of the 50% rule. It includes worked examples of all calculations.

Guaranteed Salary

Here we discover the various types of guarantee including Injury, Cap and Skill. Of course, many guarantees are not worth the paper they are written on. The subject of vesting guarantees and Termination Pay is also explored.

Dead Money

The bane of the Raiders in years gone by. Again, with worked examples, this deals with the impact of terminated players and highlights the legerdemain of the Pre- and Post- June 1st Termination, which is a slight kicking-the-can-down-the-road exercise.

Rookie Contracts

With slotted salaries there is of course less room to manoeuvre these days. However, there remain some points of negotiation such as guarantees, offset language, the timing of payments, and split salaries.

Of particular interest are the differences between the first 10 draft picks and numbers 11 to 32. Also the potential for high impact second round picks to paradoxically earn more due to reaching free agency earlier than their first round colleagues. Other subjects include the Proven Performance Escalator.

Free Agency

The different types of free agent are explored in detail ERFA, RFA AND UFA, TAGS, Poison Pill contracts, the ‘manipulation’ of the compensatory picks ( Ravens and Bengals) and the implications of early extensions.

Franchise and Transition Tags

This chapter differentiates between exclusive and non-exclusive Franchise tags and the transition tag, in terms of negotiation strategy and quantum.

Trades

This quotes the example of Colin Kaepernick and details how is contract was structured with guaranteed salary and bonuses and the implications for a trade/release. There are also some fiendishly complicated, worked calculations on salary cap accounting for each team involved. My eyes were starting to bleed and steam was pouring from my ears at this point.

Grievances.

Here the various types of injury and non-injury grievance are explored. There is also the tactical discussion of an injury settlement and its benefits for both players and teams.

Roster designations

Among the categories discussed are Active/Inactive, PUP, NFI, Injured Reserve, suspended and their various implications for the salary cap.

Fines and Forfeitures

Self-explanatory

Final League Year

Of increasing relevance as 2020 will have implications for contract negotiations. There are complicated provisions such as the 30% Rule, Deion Rule, the re-allocation of Guaranteed Salary Incentive Calculations. Of interest is the fact that in the Final League year teams can allocate one transition and one franchise tag.

People behind the numbers

A bit tedious to be fair. I skipped it apart from the Tom Delaney bio.

Salary Cap Philosophies

This highlights the different approaches such as All Cash Philosophy (Raiders);Multiple Year Proration and Voidable Contract Approach; Early Extension Plus Incentives Strategy, etc etc. More interesting than the previous chapter.

Negotiations

This chapter includes a discussion of legal tampering, one year prove-it deals, restructuring, the negotiating calendar and the role of taxes. (Nevada here we come). Of course, this only works for homes games. You pay tax in the state you earn it for road games. Apparently, the AFC South is the most fiscal-friendly: FLA, TN and TX are no state income tax venues and Indiana is 3%

Not all contracts are created equal

This explores the illusive nature of some guarantees and how an apparently high APY can actually be worth less in the long term.

Multiple sequential contracts with different teams are also examined

Metrics used to value and devalue contracts

Sleight of hand approaches by agents and teams with spurious comparators etc.

Cap Space

Here we discover how cap creativity is an important tactic and the example of our old friend Aldon Smith is provided.

What we may have missed

A sort of splice-the-threads chapter with suggestions for the future.

Also discussed are agents who can earn a maximum of 3%. Not bad money you may agree with some of the astronomical contracts on offer

Glossary

Useful and comprehensive

Index

Lazy bastards have not included one. I use either the searchable feature on amazon or google books to find a relevant passage.

So, there you have it. If anyone has any other recommendations on this subject please share in the comments. We are all here to learn. As Socrates would say, "I only know one thing and that is that I know fuck all."

So, in the final analysis, we are faced with the question posed by E-40. "Wanna see a player get paper?"

The answer would be a cautious yes, provided that there is not too grave an impact on the Salary Cap.