Washington Commanders Cap Situation

The War Room
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The Commanders are retooling after bringing Rivera in 2020 and Mayhew in in 2021. Comparing the Lions to the Commanders is probably a good comparison as we are in very similar situations.

Lions Commanders
Position APY Position APY Difference
QB 34,812,200 QB 35,380,400 (568,200)
WR 22,245,586 WR 43,949,605 (21,704,019)
RB 7,476,863 RB 7,256,386 220,477
FB 2,050,000 2,050,000
TE 7,868,946 TE 12,497,825 (4,628,879)
LT 15,326,500 LT 16,980,592 (1,654,092)
RT 6,919,767 RT 2,481,392 4,438,375
LG 3,693,697 LG 5,598,911 (1,905,214)
RG 9,000,000 RG 8,648,112 351,888
C 15,732,000 C 11,519,500 4,212,500
IDL 14,068,617 IDL 25,452,852 (11,384,235)
EDGE 32,807,421 EDGE 15,533,886 17,273,535
LB 8,410,617 LB 8,472,098 (61,481)
CB 15,573,844 CB 28,120,563 (12,546,719)
S 12,520,533 S 9,177,806 3,342,727
K 1,179,314 K 2,100,000 (920,686)
P 895,000 P 3,312,500 (2,417,500)
LS 825,000 LS 902,676 (77,676)
211,405,905 237,385,104 (25,979,199)

The Commanders are spending about twice as much at WR ($22M) and CB ($12M) than the Lions, where the Lions are spending about $11M more combined on the offensive and defensive lines.

The Lions and Commanders estimated cap space for the next three years is as follows (adjusted for void years):

Lions Commanders Difference
2022 2,978,099 2022 3,616,618 (638,519)
2023 9,229,946 2023 3,152,417 6,077,529
2024 104,339,315 2024 81,197,054 23,142,261
Void yrs (3,900,000) Void yrs (5,600,000) 1,700,000
112,647,360 82,366,089 30,281,271

The Lions have $30M more of cap space to use over the next three years than the Commanders. Chark is the only higher end pending 2023 UFA to be leaving on either team, but as a whole, the Lions and Commanders have similar losses for next year.

Lions Commanders
D.J. Chark WR 10,000,000 Wes Schweitzer RG 4,500,000
Jamaal Williams RB 3,000,000 Da’Ron Payne IDL 3,604,590
Mike Hughes CB 2,250,000 Trai Turner RG 3,000,000
Alex Anzalone LB 2,250,000 Cam Sims WR 2,590,000
Evan Brown C 2,025,000 Taylor Heinicke QB 2,375,000
Chris Board LB 2,000,000 Efe Obada EDGE 1,187,500
Josh Woods LB 1,550,000 Tyler Larsen C 1,187,500
DeShon Elliott S 1,100,000 Jon Bostic LB 1,120,000
Nate Sudfeld QB 1,035,000 David Mayo LB 1,120,000
Justin Jackson RB 1,035,000 Jonathan Williams RB 1,055,000
Isaiah Buggs IDL 965,000 Nick Martin C 1,035,000
Will Harris S 930,974 Jeremy Reaves S 907,500
Juju Hughes S 895,000 Milo Eifler LB 825,000
Daniel Wise IDL 825,000
Willie Beavers RT 825,000
Rachad Wildgoose CB 742,500
Eli Wolf TE 705,000
Cole Holcomb LB 688,721
2023 UFA’s 29,035,974 28,293,311
Romeo Okwara EDGE 12,333,333 William Jackson III CB 13,500,000
Jeff Okudah CB 8,382,132 Curtis Samuel WR 11,500,000
Michael Brockers IDL 8,000,000 Montez Sweat EDGE 11,500,000
Charles Harris EDGE 6,500,000 Kendall Fuller CB 10,000,000
T.J. Hockenson TE 4,955,307 Chase Young EDGE 8,640,900
Josh Reynolds WR 3,000,000 Bobby McCain S 5,000,000
Kalif Raymond WR 2,500,000 Andrew Norwell LG 5,000,000
D’Andre Swift RB 2,134,730 J.D. McKissic RB 3,500,000
Jason Cabinda FB 2,050,000 Cornelius Lucas LT 3,250,000
Julian Okwara EDGE 1,232,835 Joey Slye K 2,100,000
Jonah Jackson LG 1,187,202 Antonio Gibson RB 1,233,160
Logan Stenberg LG 1,009,161 Saahdiq Charles LT 1,023,592
Quintez Cephus WR 899,823 Kamren Curl S 852,082
James Smith-Williams EDGE 848,175
Casey Toohill EDGE 846,758
2024 UFA’s 54,184,523 78,794,667
2023 & 2024 UFA’s 83,220,497 107,087,978
2024 Projected Cap Space 390,889 (53,015,200)

The 2024 Projected cap space is using current cap hits and adjusting it for re-signing 2023 UFA’s for 2 years and 2024 UFA’s for 2024.

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Numbers Calculating GIF by netflixlat
@DeadStroke preparing a post

We’d be lost in a sea of numbers without you, brother.

We must protect this man at all cost.

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I really think Chark was brought in to bridge the gap until Jamo can get ready. They may not have known who the specific person would be, but I feel it’s likely they knew they’d draft a blue chip WR and let him and Saint be their starters moving forward. Chark was brought in to be the bridge for that. I doubt the Lions are paying anyone eight figures to play WR next season.

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I guess I’m glad someone wants to dig through this shit.

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Interesting breakdown. Thanks for doing this.

That offseason between 2023 and 2024 is certainly going to be a big one for the Lions.

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The biggest challenge for Brad Holmes is gonna be 2nd contracts to some of these ‘homegrown’ players.

Great teams let good players walk into free agency when the cost becomes too high. New England, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh are franchises that come to mind.

If you are good at drafting, then you should also be good at re-filling and rebuilding holes created in the transition of talent.

For this franchise to remain consistently competitive, we must make some tough decisions on 2nd contracts to some (core) players.

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First challenge is Hock, next is AO, next is Harris, all this year or coming offseason…

Walker was a good compromise. If he can do that with AO and Hock, itll be a big win. Harris because hes a little older and really was a post hype post bust sleeper type of thing, may be looking at a deal more in the 2-3 range, which is fine.

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If Hock goes, I imagine a great comp pick will be in order

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Need to let Hockenson walk.

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I dont know about that. Did lions already know they were going to draft Williams?

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Well they wouldn’t have a Cap situation if they stopped talking negative stuff on Barnes now, would they?

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All I know is that the commanders felt every penny of our investment in the offensive and defensive lines on Sunday.

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It’s going to be a big one, but don’t necessarily expect a boom UFA signings.

Cap spending will be maybe $16M more from the 2023 rookies and $11 more from the 2024 rookies.

Plus our impending UFA in 2024 and will need to be replaced (some in the draft).

Plus we will need to cut some players and sign others to become cap compliant in 2023 (or restructure players, thus increasing 2024 cap hits).

Player Pos. Current APY
Romeo Okwara EDGE 12,333,333
Jeff Okudah CB 8,382,132
Michael Brockers IDL 8,000,000
Charles Harris EDGE 6,500,000
T.J. Hockenson TE 4,955,307
Josh Reynolds WR 3,000,000
Kalif Raymond WR 2,500,000
D’Andre Swift RB 2,134,730
Jason Cabinda FB 2,050,000
Julian Okwara EDGE 1,232,835
Jonah Jackson LG 1,187,202
Logan Stenberg LG 1,009,161
Quintez Cephus WR 899,823
Jerry Jacobs CB 809,500
Drew Forbes LG 672,334
55,666,357

So when accounting for the above, you’ve eaten up the bulk of our 2023 cap space. Not that we couldn’t create more by backloading/void years/etc…

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Those decisions don’t seem to be linked to me.

Lions signed Chark on March 15th.

Holmes talked about not even thinking about drafting Jamo until he “took him out of the box” and watched a bunch of film of him “2 or 3 Sundays before the draft”….

which means it wasn’t until sometime in April before Holmes really considered moving up to get Jamo…. and then he still had to get a willing trade partner to do it.

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His asking price is likely to be high, but we still got him for all of this year and next year on his 5th year option which we picked up. No rush IMO. He needs to play better to even consider an extension.

AO is an interesting one because he has no 5th year option and will be a free agent this offseason and now he’s having back problems so…who knows.

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Actually most of the real money makers weren’t even playing. Romeo, Ragnow, Big V all making big money. We sent out a bunch of min salary dudes on the O-line and still whooped them. Love to see it.

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Ugh I forgot Mayhew is with them now.
In retrospect I think Mayhew was better as gm than I gave him credit for

And if he’s continued to learn
Washington , and I dislike Snyder , could be a problem

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[quote=“Phunnypharm, post:14, topic:17420”]

This is a perfect example of why this board can be frustrating to post in. You cherry picked my comment about Chark being signed as bridge WR and then tried to prove that the decision on Jamo specifically wasn’t made until later. But you didn’t bold this statement/disclaimer immediately afterward: “They may not have known who the specific person would be, but I feel it’s likely they knew they’d draft a blue chip WR.”

The point was that Chark would be a 1 year starter signing while they’d use the draft to bring along a longer term starting WR. So why spend an entire response trying to show the Lions didn’t specifically make their decision on Jameson Williams individually? I literally made sure I put that disclaimer in there to try and prevent someone from finding something to argue about. It makes posting on this board exhausting.

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I’m very curious to see where his market would land in the offseason. Do teams view him as a legit starter? Fringe starter with good size and age? His market is going to be interesting to me.

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Why is it frustrating that I don’t share the same belief as you?

I think they signed Chark to keep options open….
while also providing a deep threat for 2022 that could become a Charles Harris type of signing that works out for the long term.

If Chark starts clicking… and wants to stay in Detroit for a reasonable salary… I can still see him signing on for
more years.

If the Lions hadn’t been able to work out a massive trade up… there wouldn’t have been a “blue chip” WR to add… so expecting that to be the master plan in mid-March is a bit far-fetched IMO.

I might be wrong… but I struggle to believe Holmes had concrete plans of trading up for a top WR.