Russell Street Report Salary Cap Your COMPLETE 2015 Ravens Cap Projection

Current Cap Picture Isn’t Pretty!

Last month we laid our Ravens’ offseason preview and pointed out that the Ravens were going to have a very tight Cap and have a lot of work to do to create the space needed to address their roster needs. A month later, not much has changed.

With that in mind, here is Russell Street Report’s Ravens’ 2015 Salary Cap projection:

PLAYERS UNDER CONTRACT

The Ravens presently have 51 players under contract for a 2015 Salary Cap commitment of $144,372,517. This amount includes the 10 free agents the Ravens have signed since the end of last season and also includes in $9,872,504 in dead money carried over from 2014. This number will be offset by the $5,791,927 in excess 2014 Cap space that the Ravens were able to carry over into 2015. Once the carryover is factored in, the Ravens have a present Cap commitment of $138,580,590.

OTHER SALARY CAP ADJUSTMENTS

This is where other projections fail to accurately measure where the Ravens’ Salary Cap will end up. Most projections are going to fail to include:

WORKOUT BONUS ADJUSTMENT: All teams will have an adjustment of $561,600 added to their Cap for team workout bonuses. This number is essentially the total amount of CBA mandated workout bonuses that could be earned by the players in the offseason. This amount is a debit from the Cap. Once training camp begins, this debit will be removed and the actual amount of workout bonuses earned by the players will be added onto the Cap.

INCENTIVE ADJUSTMENTS: The Ravens’ 2015 Cap will also see adjustments for incentives earned that didn’t count against the 2014 Cap (“Not Likely To Be Earned” incentives) that were actually earned and incentives that did count against the 2014 Cap (“Likely To Be Earned” incentives) but weren’t earned. When a player earns Not Likely To Be Earned incentive, it must be counted against the following year’s Cap. At this time, it is known that 5 Ravens (Elvis Dumervil, Daryl Smith, Steve Smith, Owen Daniels and Darian Stewart) earned NLTBE incentives in 2014.

These incentives, totaling $4.055M, will count against the Ravens’ Cap in 2015 and will reduce the team’s available Cap space.

There are likely other incentives – earned and unearned – that haven’t yet been disclosed.

RICE GRIEVANCE SETTLEMENT: When Ray Rice filed his grievance against the Ravens, the CBA dictated that 40% of the amount claimed in the grievance was to be charged against the 2014 Cap. So, the Ravens were forced to carry $1,411,765 against the 2014 Cap for the grievance. Now that the grievance has settled, any settlement amount over that figure will count against the 2015 Cap. On the other hand, if the settlement amount was for less, the Ravens would receive a bump in their Cap based on that difference.

At this time, the settlement amount has not be disclosed.

The Ravens also have 2 remaining injury settlements to be resolved. While much more minor in impact, those will likely also affect the team’s 2015 Cap.

2011/2012 CAP ADJUSTMENT REPAYMENT: When the new CBA was agreed upon in 2011, the Salary Cap saw a reduction and, for a few years, stagnation. Foreseeing this, the terms of the CBA allowed for teams to borrow ($3M in 2011; $1.5M in 2012) against future Caps, but forced teams to repay that amount during the 2014 through 2017 league years. The CBA leaves it up to the team to decide when to repay those amounts. In 2014, the Ravens repaid $1.125M of that amount. This amount, 1/4th of the $4.5M due to be repaid, would seem to indicate that the team intends to repay that amount each year from 2014 to 2017. So, if they follow that pattern, the team will have a negative adjustment to the 2015 Cap of $1.125M.

On the other hand, given how tight against the Cap it appears that the Ravens will be, the team could opt to not take that hit for this year. So, this is a “to be determined” adjustment and, for the time being, will not be included in the project.

EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS FREE AGENTS (ERFAs)

The Ravens have 12 players who are Exclusive Rights Free Agents (ERFAs), with tender amounts based on service time:

WR – Kamar Aiken ($585K)

S – Anthony Levine ($585K)

S – Brynden Trawick ($585K)

LS – Kevin McDermott ($585K)

CB – Rashaan Melvin ($585K)

CB – Tramain Jacobs ($510K)

G – Ryan Jensen ($510K)

DT – Steven Means ($510K)

TE – Philip Supernaw ($510K)

RB – Fitz Toussaint ($510K)

DT – Casey Walker ($510K)

LS – Patrick Scales ($435K)

In the past, the Ravens have usually always tendered all of their ERFAs.

RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS (RFAs)

The Ravens have 3 players who are Restricted Free Agents (RFAs) – with original draft round indicated:

DT – Christo Bilukidi (6th round)

S – Will Hill (undrafted)

PK – Justin Tucker (undrafted)

Given his undrafted status, it would be a huge surprise if PK Justin Tucker didn’t get the 2nd round RFA tender (est. to be $2.434M).

The Ravens decision on S Will Hill will be interesting. Prior to the disclosure of his latest brush with the legal system, it would have been expected that Hill would also get the 2nd round RFA tender. Now, though, it would not be surprising to see the team use the low RFA tender ($1.526M) on Hill.

DT Christo Bilukidi is likely to be non-tendered and, perhaps, re-signed for the veteran minimum ($660K).

PROJECTED ADJUSTED TEAM CAP AND RULE OF 51 SALARY CAP COMMITMENT

Using the NFL’s projected Salary Cap of $141.8M (and praying that it’s higher), this would give the Ravens an adjusted Salary Cap of $142,975,327 ($141.8M + $5,791, 927 carryover – $4.055M in adjustments – $561,600 workout bonus adjustment). Based on all of the above, the Ravens’ Rule of 51 Cap commitment (top 51 cap numbers for players under contract, RFA/ERFA tenders and dead money) would be $148,137,517.

This will put the Ravens $5,162,190 OVER the projected Salary Cap of $141.8M, before making any other roster moves.

Again, this is based on the only official present projection of the Salary Cap. The NFL’s projection is an $8.8M increase over last year’s Cap. Many, including the NFLPA, think that it will be higher. The Ravens will certainly hope so.

In the event that the Cap goes up higher than the NFL has projected (*fingers crossed*), this Cap overage will be reduced.

For a full breakdown of these numbers, go HERE and hit the “2015 Projected” tab.

CAP MOVES TO BE MADE

Teams must be under the Salary Cap by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10th. So, between now and then, the Ravens are going to have to create a sizeable amount of Cap space. This will be accomplished via a mix of cuts, restructures and/or contract extensions.

One move would appear to be pretty easy. First, due to the Proven Performance escalator, C/G Gino Gradkowski’s base salary increased from $660K to $1.574M. In other years, the Ravens may have been willing to carry a back-up at that salary, but with Gradkowski being banished to the bottom of the depth chart and with the team having an acute need for Cap space, it seems very likely that Gradkowski will be released in the next couple of weeks.

One thing that is important to remember when calculating the actual Cap saving from a release/retirement is the ramifications of the Rule of 51. If a player who had been part of the top 51 is released/retires, he is replaced in the Rule of 51 by the player who had previously been the 52nd top Cap number. So, any Cap savings is offset by the cost of adding the new 51st player.

So, while the release of Gradkowski removes his $1.574M from the team’s Cap, this “savings” will be offset by $435K for the new 51st player. So, the actual impact on the team’s Cap will be $1.139M in Cap savings.

The below chart lays out the Salary Cap implications of the release/trade/retirement (all basically treated the same for Cap purposes) of some Ravens players:

POSSIBLE/LIKELY MOVES

CANTY: Release or retirement – $2.66M savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

NGATA:

Release – $8.5M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

Extension – likely around $5M in Cap relief.

KOCH:

Release – $2.5M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

Extension – could create approx. $1M in Cap relief.

YANDA: Extension – could create approx. $2-2.5M in Cap relief.

JIMMY SMITH: Extension – could create approx. $2-3.5M in Cap relief.

JACOBY JONES: Post-June 1 release – $2.5M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

McCLELLAN: Release – $1M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

WEBB:

Pay Cut – with incentives to allow Webb to earn reduction back – could create approx. $3-4M in Cap relief.

Post-June 1 release – $8M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

PITTA:

Pre-June 1 release – Too expensive (because of his guaranteed 2015 base salary of $4M).

Retirement (processed post-June 1) – $4M in Cap savings (less Rule of 51 offset).

One note on post-June 1 releases: Teams can designate up to 2 players as post-June 1 releases and release those players in Feb/March, but there is no Cap impact at time of the release. The player’s Cap number remains on the team’s Cap until June 2nd, at which time the team finally realizes the Cap relief.

So, if you hear anyone say that the Ravens can, for example, release Lardarius Webb and create $8M to sign Brandon Marshall (for example), that isn’t realistic or the way the Cap works. Since Cap relief isn’t realized until June 1, it is of no use to the team in March when they would be looking to sign Marshall (or anyother fan crush).

CAP OUTLOOK

One word – Ugly. Or, at least, as ugly as it’s been in years.

Over the next couple of weeks, there will be many reports on the Ravens’ Cap status, most of which will not include many of the above factors that provide a full, realistic picture of their Cap situation. Those reports will likely make it look like the Ravens are tight against the Cap, but nowhere near as tight as they actually are. Unfortunately, as the above information shows, the team has a lot of work to do.

Not since 2011, when the Salary Cap took a major step backwards with the advent of the new CBA, have the Ravens been in this sort of Cap shape. That year, fans were surprised to see favorites like TE Todd Heap, WR Derrick Mason and NT Kelly Gregg released.

This year could very well be the same.

The team really has to hope that the Cap goes up more than the NFL has said – and last year, they were off by $7M or so – and they need to find a way to balance a lot of the above factors to create the needed Cap space.

Now, to be clear, the Ravens will make moves to get themselves under the Cap and have some Cap room to work with, so it’s going to be interesting over the next couple of week as to which moves they actually make. But, it also seems pretty clear that unless the Ravens make some really unexpected moves, they aren’t likely to be big spenders in the free agent market.