Salary cap question

[NYFan204]

As we near mid march when all teams must be at the cap I am wondering how escalators and incentives work. If, for arguments sake, Chris Chambers triggered an incentive for one million dollars by catching touchdown X in the last game, when does it go into effect?

[bsfins]

Actually,they have to be under the cap by like Thursday....it's not mid march...
I believe they take effect this comimg year....

[fyo]

I thought it was the third of march? Anyway, it's Real Soon Now.

Incentives count differently, depending on whether they are considered "Likely To Be Earned" (LTBE) or Not Likely To Be Earned (NLTBE).

LTBE incentives for last season were calculated as part of the base salary for that season. NLTBE incentives count for the next season (if they are earned, of course).

Some teams, the Eagles spring to mind, actually speculate in this by designating incentives LTBE even though they are clearly NOT likely to be earned. (You can't do it the other way around, as I recall, since there is an outside judgement as to whether something is NLTBE, but for some reason not for LTBE). This effectively allows a team to shuffle cap space from one year to the next. There are other ways of doing this, of course, but it's proven quite effective for a few teams.

Neither types of incentives are not guaranteed and thus cannot be prorated (i.e. spread out over the length of the contract).

[Sunstroke]

Lil_B is right on the timeframe... March 2nd is the compliance deadline (and also my brother Mark's birthday...must remember to call him this year).

The down side of the Dolphins closing out last season with 6 straight wins to end up at 9-7, if you can really call it a down side, is that I hear quite a few Dolphins had bonus clauses built into their contracts that triggered because Miami had a winning record.

[fyo]

The down side of the Dolphins closing out last season with 6 straight wins to end up at 9-7, if you can really call it a down side, is that I hear quite a few Dolphins had bonus clauses built into their contracts that triggered because Miami had a winning record.

Just to emphasize the point: Any such bonuses would be NLTBE due to the "Last Year" rule, which basically states that an incentive is NLTBE if the player/team did not reach it last year. Since we were 4-12 in 2004, any "winning 2005 season" incentives would automatically be considered NLTBE and thus count towards our 2006 salary cap.