Stewart extended 36.5 million over 5 years

1. Thomas Davis - why on earth would you pay a guy coming off two knee surgeries with another year left on his contract
2. Jon Beason - Also could've used his recent injury to the Panthers advantage. Players might not like it, but if they get injured, they get paid less. Its how the game goes.
3. Olindo Mare - paid more than David Akers when they both were free agents
4. Charles Johnson - paid like a top 5 DE
5. Deangelo Williams - should've used his injuries against him as well
6. Jonathan Stewart - a luxury they couldn't afford and more guaranteed than McCoy, Foster or Forte? For real? That would be bad enough if it was in a subsequent year, but all these contracts were negotiated in the same year! The market was set!


That is six guys that have been paid WAY over market to stay and or come here in the last 2 years. I'm not even a panther's fan and this sucks to watch. From most cap space to the bottom of the barrel as far as financial flexibility while not adding any significant talent is absolutely astonishing.

 

Just because Hurney has decided not to sign quality players in free agency doesn't mean the team wouldn't be drastically better off if he would. There have been so many missed opportunities to improve the roster between this past off-season and the one prior. With a competent GM the Panthers would be in immediate playoff contention.

It's going to get really ugly. Cam won't be a free agent until 2015 and I'm guessing they won't complete an extension before that off-season. Here are some ballpark figures for cap costs of other players in 2015:

Charles Johnson - $16 million (could be cut and only count $6.5 mil)
Jordan Gross - free agent
Chris Gamble - free agent
Jon Beason - $11.75 million ($4.5 mil if cut)
Ryan Kalil - $10.466 million ($6.6 mil if cut)
DeAngelo Williams - $10.2 million ($3.45 if cut, which is likely)
Steve Smith - $11 million ($4 mil if cut, which is likely at age 36 if he doesn't restructure)
Thomas Davis - $11.566 million (he'll probably be cut after this season and cause a cap hit of $6.7 million against the 2013 cap)
Charles Godfrey - $7.1 million ($3.2 mil if cut)
Greg Olsen - $7.825 million ($2.575 if cut)
James Anderson - $5.4 million ($1.5 mil if cut, which seems likely)
Mike Tolbert - $3.325 million ($925k if cut, which seems likely)

Stewart's annual salary has yet to be released, so I can't know his cap charge in 2015. What we do know is that it will be that salary + $3.75 million in bonuses, and would cost at least $11.25 million to cut him prior to that season. Hurney will probably manage to keep Cam's 2015 cap hit fairly low (somewhere between 5 and 10 million) even though Newton will most likely get around $25 million per year with $60+ million in guarantees.

 

CHRIST ON A PONY

Thanks for the work Collin.

 

Eliminating Thomas Davis since he's guaranteed to be cut before then, the other nine combine to count $83 million against the 2015 cap, and that's without including Stewart's number or whatever Cam's will be or re-signing Gross/Gamble. If we assume that the 2015 cap increases to $125 million, that leaves $42 million for Stewart + Cam + the next 40 highest paid players on the roster. So yeah, it's a looming disaster, which means several of those nine will have to be cut and left to join other teams for nothing in return.


edit:
Also worth noting that not having the salary cap flexibility to use the franchise tag will mean that Cam's agent can buttfuck the hell out of the Panthers in negotiations. They'd have to gut the roster to the bone to create enough space to tag Newton. That combined with Hurney's history suggests that Cam will not only be the highest paid player in the NFL at that point, but achieve that by a pretty large margin over anyone else.

 

the option bonus can be in whichever year, but the signing bonus - I believe - can be started this year. The next two years are guaranteed, they're going to be paid anyway. Guaranteed money isn't the same as it was pre-CBA.

They overpaid. They just overpaid less than I worried they would. I'm not much on any 2nd contract for RBs, I'd have traded Stewart, and so on.

 

NFL Breaking down Jonathan Stewart's deal - ESPN

 

>>>Stewart's deal is worth $37.811 million and includes $23 million in guaranteed money. Stewart received a $9 million signing bonus and his salary-cap figure for 2012 jumped $1 million to $4.78 million. In 2013, Stewart will make $1 million in base salary and his cap figure will be $2.8 million.

In 2014, Stewart can pick up a $9 million option bonus, his base salary will be $1.5 million and his cap figure rises to $5.5 million. In 2015, Stewart’s base salary will be $4.25 million and his cap figure increases to $8.55 million.

In 2016, Stewart has a $5 million base salary and a $9.8 million cap figure. In the final year of the deal, the base salary is $5.5 million and the cap figure drops a bit to $8.5 million.

I think signing Stewart was a good move by the Panthers. It means he’ll stay in a backfield with DeAngelo Williams and Mike Tolbert. But the move comes with a downside.

Carolina already was looking at salary-cap trouble in future seasons. With Stewart’s deal, the Panthers now have $134 million committed toward the 2013 salary cap. The exact cap figure won’t be determined until next spring, but it’s safe to say the Panthers are at least $10 million over where the limit will be. They’re getting up there with the Philadelphia Eagles, who have a league-high $140 million committed toward next year’s cap.

It gets even worse as you look ahead to 2014, when the Panthers have $144 million committed toward the cap. Only the Eagles ($145 million) already have more cap space committed. <<<<




I know some guys will get restructured by then and guys will be let go (probably for absolutely nothing) but not to the point where this club will be able to afford keeping newton long term. Bus Cook is going to be expecting the largest contract in sports history (if cam keeps being cam-like, and he will). I would bet that none of us could even come close to imagining how huge that tab is going to be.

 

My guess: