RAVENS CAP UPDATE: Money may force Baltimore to keep McGahee

FLACCO EARNS SOME ADDITIONAL CASH:  The early success of rookie QB, Joe Flacco has earned him some additional spending money for his
Holiday shopping.  Upon completing last Sunday night’s game, Flacco has officially played in 80% of this year’s offensive plays, entitling him to an additional $750,000 in pay.  He had already earned $500,000 of that when he completed 60% of the offensive snaps back in November.       

Obviously, this is money that the team probably figured they wouldn’t have to be paying, but the injuries to Kyle Boller and Troy Smith – coupled with Flacco’s inspired play – pretty much made it inevitable.

As a Not Likely To Be Earned (NLTBE) Incentive, this money will count against the Ravens’ 2009 Salary Cap.  

And, Flacco may not be done yet.  He also has another incentive that will earn him an additional $200,000 for each playoff win. 

Here’s hoping that he earns himself another $800,000!  I’m sure the team would gladly pay that out. 

BIG WILLIE CASHES IN TOO:  Willie Anderson’s contract calls for him to receive a $1M incentive if he plays in 40% of the offensive snaps during the season.  At this point in the season,

Anderson has already reached that figure.  Like Flacco’s incentive, this incentive was of the NLTBE variety, so it will also count against the 2009 Salary Cap.

PROBLEMED CHILD #1:  It’s looking more and more like Chris McAlister’s time in

Baltimore is coming to an end.  While the team would certainly be better with a healthy and motivated McAlister, neither of those qualities have been evident recently and the secondary has been playing very well in his absence.  With McAlister set to make $8M in base salary next year, it’s not too hard to see the writing on the wall.  It would appear that major relationship repairs – and a reduced salary – would be the only way that McAlister would return.  Given McAlister’s nature, it seems unlikely that either of those will happen.

Releasing McAlister would save the team $8M against next year’s Cap.  That money would go a long way toward signing a replacement for McAlister or acquiring players at other positions (WR?).

PROBLEMED CHILD #2:  Willis McGahee is a totally different story.  While releasing McAlister would actually create Cap room for the team, the release of McGahee will actually cost the Ravens Cap space – and a ton of it.  McGahee is presently set to count $3.12M against the 2009 Cap, however, if he is released (or traded), the team would get hit with the acceleration of the remaining unaccounted for portions of his bonuses and would have to carry an additional $8.13M against the Cap.  That’s a whopping $11.25M in dead money against the Cap.  The team is already carrying over $10M in dead money because of the retirements of Jonathan Ogden and Steve McNair, so adding more dead money for McGahee would mean that almost 20% of the team’s Cap would be tied up by players no longer on the roster. 

To make matters worse, when the NFL owners decided to opt out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement several months ago, 2009 season became “the last Capped year” which means a whole new set of rules applies.  Chief among those changes is that there will be no Salary Cap relief for post-June 1 releases.  So, with McGahee, the team would not even be able to push some of the Cap charges into 2010 as they would probably prefer to do.  If he is released, the entire $11.25M will count in 2009. 

It’s hard to believe that the Ravens would be willing to take that much of a hit, but if the relationship is beyond repair, then they may have little choice. 

As such, bottom line decision for the Ravens is – are they better off with McGahee counting $3.12M on the team or do they want him off the team so badly that they are willing to carry dead money of $11.25M for him? 

THE “LIST”:  A week or so ago, the Baltimore Sun’s Mike Preston, wrote a column in which he named several players who, for varying reasons, may not be back with the team next year.  Some of those players are listed below (with others who because of age or injury also may not be back) with the Salary Cap ramifications of the release of each. 

 * As with McGahee above, keep in mind that, unless there is a CBA extension over the next couple of months (which is doubtful), there will be no advantages to a post-June 1 release and any such releases will be treated just like a pre-June 1 release.

RAVENS’ 2009 CAP SPACE:  Presently, the Ravens have approximately $1.29 in remaining 2008 Salary Cap space.  As such, they are not likely to be able to carry much over into 2009 as they have been able to do in past years.  In addition, the above incentives for Flacco and Anderson will offset any amount that they are able to carry over.  It also appears that Samari Rolle has $2.8M in NLTBE incentives, but the exact criteria for earning those has never been reported.

Based on these updates, it appears that the Ravens will have approximately, $10M in Salary Cap space after tendering all of their EFAs and RFAs.  That figure will go up or down depending on how the team decides to handle McAlister, McGahee and others.