Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays Yesterday

was one of the most amazing NFL Sundays I can remember. Not only did the Redskins escape the day without a loss Landon Collins Jersey , but every single team in the NFC East took a beating. It feels like every team in our division has played three or four times since the last time the Redskins took the field. The manner in which our divisional brethren took their losses was also inspiring. Whether it be a record-setting kick off the foot of...Graham freaking Gano...or a loss to Kirk Cousins or even, well, any Dallas loss is inspiring—it was a very happy day in the Meringolo household yesterday. Coming off the bye week and watching the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys all lose before we take the field again is something that should be bottled up and sold as a magic elixir. The Redskins, at 2-1, have a little juice going into tonight’s tilt in New Orleans. The story is still going to be all about Drew Brees, but I love that. Nobody thinks the Redskins are coming. At all. Hell, maybe they’re right, but not because they know something we don’t. If people are doubting on the Redskins today, it is because the Redskins have inspired doubt over the years among the national audience. The coronation of Drew Brees as the all-time passing leader is an easy thing for fans around the country to glom onto, and the glomming will be in full force on national television. I can’t be the only Redskins fan excited about this.The most common question I get is what makes the Redskins think they have a chance at all against the Saints offense. Easy, I say: our defense. If there is a face of this Redskins team after just three games, it has to be the defense. That’s not because Adrian Peterson hasn’t been a great story, or because Alex Smith has failed to capture our hearts and minds. It is because the extremely brief and early success this Washington team has achieved thus far is due to the men on the defensive side of the ball. It is also true because for this team to have any chance at all against Drew Brees, Micheal Thomas, Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, it has to be the defense that makes it happen. A straight offensive battle is simply going to favor the league’s—say it with me—all-time passing leader.I was trying to think of a guy that we will need to play above his level for the Skins to emerge victorious, and I keep coming back to Quinton Dunbar. That seems pretty unfair, given he has been one the highest rated corners in the league so far. The mountains up front are going to have to do what they do, but Dunbar is going to be tested by Drew Brees and we are going to learn even more about the former wide receiver than we already knew. I think we need at least one turnover from #23 and if I’m being honest, we might need to see him take it to the house. Is it cool to make a defensive touchdown one of the keys to winning tonight? Because I think I just did...and I think it is true.Let’s do two more keys to victory and then we can see how we did on tomorrow night’s podcast. First up is the run game. It would be too easy to tie too much to Adrian Peterson. No...for the Redskins to be successful tonight www.authenticswashingtonredskins.com , they will need two running backs perform at a high level—because the New Orleans Saints will. Chris Thompson has to have over 100 yards from scrimmage and at least one score. I don’t care how he gets it, but he needs to be productive. Let’s set the target level to 20—a total of 20 total touches for CT25 will give us at least a fighting chance.The last time we played the New Orleans Saints (you remember...our quarterback and dynamic running back got injured on the same play and we couldn’t get one yard in two chances) the Redskins had a chance to make a play to seal the win. They failed to do so and Drew Brees showed the world why he is...you guessed it...the league’s all-time passing king. The last key is this: Redskins need to sneak under the pomp and pageantry of tonight’s party in the French Quarter and make a game-winning play in the fourth quarter. It can be as simple as the quarterback sneak we failed to call and execute last year, or it can be a play made on the defensive side of the ball that results in the announcer saying, “Wow...that should just about do it tonight to lock up a victory for the Washington Redskins.” Nobody sees Washington coming, but that means absolutely nothing for a group led by what is already proving to be one of the league’s meanest defenses. You can’t win without making that last play. We have seen this team make that play already this season, but tonight, the entire country is watching. In order for folks to wake up to what kind of team Washington can be in 2018, now is the time and tonight is the stage for that play. This is a re-print of an article i published around this time each of the past two years.It's a bit 'technical' and didn't generate much interest then.It's no more interesting now than it was then, but if anyone wants to understand salary cap more fully,it attempts to explain some reasons why reported contact numbers can be hard to track and understand. I thought it’d be worth looking at how three of the metrics get calculated, and just how hard it can be for a fan (or a journalist, for that matter) to unravel the details of a contract.I think that this article will help readers understand the value that websites like Sportrac and OverTheCap bring to us; without them, we’d likely all be a lot less well-informed about the salary situation of our favorite franchise.I’m gonna treat this like a mailbag article.Here’s the mailbag question:Well, I don’t know if I’m ready to give a couple of real contracts, but how about we take a look at just one: Desean Jackson’s contract with the Redskins from 2014-2016.Let’s start by looking at the OverTheCap OTC breakdown of his contract:If you take out your calculator and start adding, you get:base salary: $8.5msign bonus: $3.75mRoster bonus: $9.0mWorkout: $1.5mTotal Contract Value: $22.75mBut the contract was widely reported to be 3 years, $24m!!Why is there a $1.25m difference?In this case, the cause is a "dummy" 4th year on the contract that automatically voids.This is a tool used by teams to lower cap hits from signing bonus by writing a voidable year into the contract.The final contract year (in Jackson’s case, year 4), is never going to happen, but it carries 1 year of pro-rated signing bonus until the contract voids.At that point Washington Redskins T-Shirt , the signing bonus that has always been charged to Year 4 on paper is brought forward and charged to Year 3.For cap purposes, the 4th year lowers the cap hit in years 1 & 2 by spreading the $5m signing bonus over 4 years instead of 3, resulting in lower cap hits in the first two years of Jackson’s contract.When the contract voids, the $1.25m in bonus money gets charged to the team, but it doesn't show up in the OTC chart, because OTC is only reporting the 3 "real" years.That’s why the numbers don’t add up, and seem to be out of balance by $1.25m.So, the formula for total value is:Total signing bonus + Base salary for every year + "other" bonuses (roster, workout, injury, etc) = Total Contract ValueA reader may have trouble reconciling numbers because the source (OTC orSportrac) may not display all the information in their charts. Jackson's deal SHOULD be easy to figure out, because it was a totally new deal and not an extension, but the voided year makes it tricky.Here are the OTC notes on DJax:DeSean Jackson signed a three year, $24 million contract with theWashington Redskins on April 2, 2014. Jackson received a $5 millionsigning bonus and his 2014 and 2015 base salaries and workout bonusesare guaranteed. In addition, Jackson can earn up to $1.5 million in 2014and $3.75 million in roster bonuses in 2015 that are paid out as longas he is on any of the roster lists besides suspended or non-footballinjury. These bonuses are also protected bringing the full guarantee to$16 million. In 2016 he can earn up to $3.75 million in roster bonuseswhich are not guaranteed.The 2017 season is a “dummy year” that isstrictly in place to reduce the salary cap charges in the contract. Thatseason automatically voids following the Super Bowl that year. Basesalaries of the contract are $1,000,000(2014), $3,750,000(2015) Washington Redskins Hats , and$3,750,000(2016). In the case of DJax, OTC accurately reports the deal as $24m total value, and is careful to detail the 2017 "dummy year" in their explanatory notes,however, you can't reconcile the $1.25m variance unless you areintuitive enough (or well-informed enough) to figure out where it'shidden.As a Redskins fan, I know this detail without reading it, but for contracts you might be less familiar with, they might contain sand traps that are hard to play through.Let’s look at the Average Per Year metricAPY = TOTAL VALUE / #yearsAgain, this sounds simple, but looking at DJax, the fairly straightforward calculation of:$24m / 3 = $8m APYisn't really that straightforward.Thecontract has a 4th year in it (the dummy year) and if you try to gettotal value by adding up the numbers in the chart, you only get$22.75m.It wouldn't be hard to do something like:$22.75 / 4 years = $5.68m APY(but it would be wrong).When all the numbers add up easily, the APY is a simple calculation; but, as we’ve seen, sometimes the Total Value number can be hard to arrive at without help or specific knowledge of the contract.Heck, even deciding whether to count the contract as a 3-year or 4-year deal may require a few moments’ reflection.Total guaranteed moneyTotal guaranteed money is generally reported in aggregate, but we've seen from Andrew Luck's contract that -- if you aren't Mike Florio, with thecontract in front of you -- it can be hard to work out from simple mediareports.Let's look at DJax:The notes from OverTheCap say that DJax has fully guaranteed money of $16m, which his notes give us as:signing bonus: $5m'14 & '15 base salaries: $4.75m'14 & '15 workout bonuses: 1.0m"protected" roster bonuses in '14 & '15 (1.5 + 3.75): $5.25mTotal guaranteed: $16mLet's see if we can reconcile to the same number by using the chart:Column 1: Base salary2014 = 2.5 (base salary + "protected" roster bonus)2015 = 7.5 (base salary + "protected" roster bonus)Total Column 1: $10mThe problems start here:a. Without the notes Washington Redskins Hoodie , we don't know what components make up the guaranteeb. Without the notes, we don't know that Jackson has 2 years of workout bonuses guaranteedc. Without the notes, we don't know that there is a dummy 4th year and that the signing bonus is $5m, rather than the $3.75m shown in the chart.Basically,the only way we can identify the total guarantee is from (a) mediareports; or (b) reading detail notes that accompany the charts on siteslike OTC.IfI had relied on the chart numbers alone, I could never have calculatedthe $16m total guarantee, because the chart does not include all theinformation I need.I have to read the notes.And this is why websites like Sportrac and OverTheCap (and, at times, jounalists like Mike Florio or others) can be so damned useful.They provide the easy-to-digest numbers like Total Contract Value and APY, but also provide the detailed explanations needed to understand the structure of the contract, and to see why sometimes — like the DeSean Jackson example given above — the numbers simply don’t seem to add up.Anyway, that does it for this edition of the mailbag.I hope that helped answer your question.The next ten days or so will be critical for NFL free agency, and I realize fans want to be as knowledgeable as they can.NFL contracts are complex documents designed to accommodate arcane rules, and often contain ‘hidden’ details that make them difficult to unravel.To paraphrase a saying many people are familiar with, an NFL contract can be like a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. 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