It's allowed. The Bears would have to pre-pay part of Cutler's 2015 salary before the trade was executed. They could pay him $8M of his 2015 salary as a lump sum and then trade him to the Jets, making the Jets liable for the other $7.5M of the guarantee and $10M of the 2016 guarantee. They might even be able to pre-pay Cutler part of the 2016 guarantee, assuming he was amenable to that, but I think the amount paid would come off of the 2015 cap not 2016. The Jets cap space could even be used as compensation to the Bears in the trade. The Bears could give Cutler to the Jets for a conditional pick unlikely to be met in return for the Jets picking up more of Cutler's guaranteed money. Make the conditional pick a 1st round in 2017 if the Jets win the Super Bowl in 2015 and 2016 with Cutler at QB. Hell, make it a 1st round in 2017 if the Jets win the Super Bowl in 2015 and 2016 with Cutler sitting in his living room rubbing his lucky rabbit's foot. I don't think anybody would be complaining about the trade if that happened.
Wrong. Having a grossly overpaid quarterback is not necessarily better than not having one at all. Why? Because accomplishing rather crucial tasks such as "fixing their leaky defense" costs money. Cutler's contract has them locked into a prohibitively bad financial situation. Add to that the simple fact that they are probably very unhappy with him, and it's pretty silly to pretend that looking to move Cutler is somehow illogical.
The issue came up with Adrian Peterson trade scenarios this year since the Vikings were going to be liable for his entire guarantee if he was released. One of the scenarios involved them pre-paying most of his salary for 2014 in order to reduce the burden on whatever team might acquire him. That's because he was going to be very hard to trade against the cap given the timing of his suspension and potential return.
But the cap hit of the guaranteed money is assumed by the team trading for him in total, not split between the two, correct?
Maybe. I would say that the idea isn't to hang on to serviceable, though entirely mediocre and ridiculously overpaid, quarterbacks at all costs, it's to find good ones. Although, I admit, the Cutler situation is a debatable one. If it were me, I'd be looking to get out of that contract, but I understand those who think that point of view is reactionary.
Whoever pays the money takes the hit. I don't know what hoops they have to jump through for the Bears to pay the money but there are definitely hoops there to be jumped through. The simplest hoop is the contract is re-done before the trade. After that you're probably talking about riders and amendments added to it that specify payments on specific dates and then the effect on the cap is based on what the teams actually pay. Obviously the NFL has a few anti-mischief clauses put in to prevent a consortium of owners from cyclically circumventing the cap, however one team trying to get out of a bad contract with another team's assistance probably floats over those provisions, at long as the effort is in good faith.
then what's your solution? Trade up? Bradford or Cutler on the cheap and drafting Cooper and re signing Harvin makes the offense immediately much better
You say having a grossly overpaid quarterback is not better than not having one at all. Yet Jets fans are salivating at the thought of acquiring some other team's grossly overpaid quarterback. In no specific order Cutler, Ryan, both Mannings, Bradford, Rivers, Big Ben, Breese, Palmer are among the highest paid QBs in the league. Their respective teams' records range from some of the worst to some of the best teams in football. So that pretty much dispels the idea that a QB's contract prohibits a GM fielding a competitive team. They can fix the defense with a new coaching staff and continuing to purge out the old players with the draft. They started the latter this past draft with Fuller, Ferguson, Sutton, Vereen and company. What I find illogical is the thought of the Bears moving him w/o having a replacement. Now if they were pick up a FA and/or rookie that they feel good about then that would be a different story. To trade him just because his contract is STUPID when that it can be restructured. The guy is completing over 65% of his passes and has close to 30 TDs while his team gives up a hair under 30 points a game, the WORST ppg avg in the NFL; yet, it seems that the prevailing narrative is that getting rid of him and his contract is the cure to their woes? LOL. You guys can continue with the make believe; I'll continue to give the Bears FO more credit than that.
why trade for cutler? really when the bears may be forced to cut him before the 10 million bonus is paid out in may i believe. Sorry he is a good hold the fort guy but for that money the bears would be lucky to get a 6-7th round pick for him
I vehemently disagree with this in principle. If you don't think the guy is a winning player, there's nothing inherently wrong with moving on.
Cutler isn't as good as some of those guys, and the ones he is on par with are also grossly overpaid - LOL. Cutler's contract only doesn't hurt the Bears if he somewhat plays up to his potential. The general feeling is that he hasn't.
The guy has thrown 28 TD passes this to 18 interceptions and he's been behind all season, often by big numbers. The Bears lost @The Pats 51-23 and then next week at the Packers 55-14. When your defense is getting torched like that and the other team can lay back in a deep zone most of the game you're going to throw a bunch of intermediate range passes and you're going to get picked off some. You want to now why the Bears got mauled by the Patriots? Tom Brady went 33 for 38 for 376 yards and 5 TD's, no picks. What happened against the Packers? Rodgers went 19 for 32 for 319 yards and 6 TD's, no picks.
Winston or Mariota is out the window because this team as usual had to win meaningless games...Connor Cook isn't coming out. The current QBs we have are atrocious. Signing a FA seems to be the only option
We might get our chance to trade up for Winston. According to a few websites, Tennessee is in the act of working out details for a trade for Cutler.
I did want Cutler but at second thought I'd pass. We're better off with a guy like Hoyer who'll give us the same production but for a fraction of the cost. Get Hoyer, draft a qb like Petty or Cook and have a competition between Geno and Hoyer and may the best man win.
The Jets aren't trading up; not happening . And if Tennessee trades for Cutler , either Winston or Mariota will fall to us. So why would we need to trade up? It doesn't make sense, and I'm not convinced that Tampa or Tennessee will take a QB in the first round.
I want Winston as much as I want someone to slit my throat. What part of "NY will chew this kid and spit him out" do none of you understand? He is a walking potential felon who has proven he has almost no clue what a "good choice" is...
