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View Full Version : Art Rooney II wants Troy Polamalu to retire a Steeler



Shoes
01-15-2014, 08:22 PM
The future of safety Troy Polamalu (http://www.nfl.com/player/troypolamalu/2505621/profile) is one of the biggest questions facing the Pittsburgh Steelers (http://www.nfl.com/teams/pittsburghsteelers/profile?team=PIT) this offseason. Many observers expect Polamalu to be released, but team president Art Rooney IIexpects Polamalu to stay (http://triblive.com/sports/steelers/5422821-74/season-games-price#axzz2qVx6x4Z3).
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000313977/article/art-rooney-ii-wants-troy-polamalu-to-retire-a-steeler

Psycho Ward 86
01-15-2014, 08:43 PM
"How we structure or restructure (Polamalu's contract) is something we will look at in the next few months," Rooney said Wednesday






NO. DEAR GOD NO. NOT THAT WORD AGAIN.

fansince'76
01-15-2014, 08:46 PM
"How we structure or restructure (Polamalu's contract) is something we will look at in the next few months," Rooney said Wednesday


NO. DEAR GOD NO. NOT THAT WORD AGAIN.

Agreed. He's going to have to take a healthy pay cut to stay at this point, IMO.

However, if there is one guy in the league who could say that money really isn't that important to him and would be willing to play for a lot less without me strongly questioning his sincerity about it, it's Troy. We'll see.

salamander
01-15-2014, 10:12 PM
Please, Steelers. No more restructured contracts!

NCSteeler
01-16-2014, 08:42 AM
Agreed. He's going to have to take a healthy pay cut to stay at this point, IMO.

However, if there is one guy in the league who could say that money really isn't that important to him and would be willing to play for a lot less without me strongly questioning his sincerity about it, it's Troy. We'll see.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9357761/how-pittsburgh-steelers-troy-polamalu-achieved-financial-success-espn-magazine

Interesting read

And of course they want him to retire as a Steeler, but making that happen could be hard to swallow for either party involved.

Here's a ? What is Troys value on the open market? Sure he's awesome we know that, but which Defensive coordinator is willing to redo his D for Troy. I don't think Troy is nearly as effective playing straight up Safety

Mojouw
01-16-2014, 09:03 AM
Agree with all the points raised here. Troy P is a HOF player due to a combination of his off-the charts natural abilities and football IQ paired with a defensive scheme that allows him to largely do whatever he feels like (well not so much this past season...). Would a new team be able to adapt quickly enough to make his last couple of seasons as effective? Doubtful.

Also, a thought on the restructure. I know. I know. This is the tool that caused the current "crisis". However, don't most of the big dollar deals on the Steelers books run out in like another season or so? If that is the case, stack Troy's restructure in a way that the big money goes down when other large contracts have come off the books and the complex house of cards still stands. I really think that if the the team can get Troy, Ben, Ike, Worilds, and Woodley sorted in terms of contracts -- this whole cap thing may work out much quicker than expected. The key is to wrangle the math so that these big $ vet deals are out of the way by the time any younger players need big $ contracts.

Dwinsgames
01-16-2014, 10:52 AM
Troy having what everyone and their brother though he was done having this past year ( a healthy 16 game season ) was great , and he showed flashes of what he can be in the process ....

My question is can he ever be the Troy of old again at his age ? we did not see this past season enough evidence that he could be ( we seen flashes )

the reason we did not see more of those flashes is he was so busy helping out at LB to mask the deficiencies of Vince Williams ....

however at his age that may also have masked his inability to cover ground play in and play out , its far easier to run 5 yards 10 times in a row and then run 25 yard than it is to run 25 yards several plays in a row ...

so other than staying healthy for a 16 game season I am not SURE of what we witnessed in terms of Troy playing S at a high level moving forward , are you ??

now I would never be one to " count him out " as being capable ( that would be a dire mistake IMO )

that being said I am not certain he is an every down player for 16 weeks if asked to cover a bunch of ground play in play out at his age ...

just kind of thinking out loud

BnG_Hevn
01-16-2014, 11:23 AM
With the conditioning of these players, I don't think running 25 yards in several plays in a row matters much. Age may take away natural speed / explosiveness, but conditioning wise, I'm sure he can handle the duties.

My concern is that he has been injury plagued and on a "contract year" he makes it through the season.

Dwinsgames
01-16-2014, 12:11 PM
With the conditioning of these players, I don't think running 25 yards in several plays in a row matters much. Age may take away natural speed / explosiveness, but conditioning wise, I'm sure he can handle the duties.

My concern is that he has been injury plagued and on a "contract year" he makes it through the season.


contract year ?

he is signed through 2014 so is under contract for next season .... this coming year is the " contract year "

I hope they extend him ripping up his current deal and give him basically the same money over a 2 year deal or and extra 3 or 4 mill and spread it over a 3 year deal that should assure he retires a Steeler and make him much more affordable in the process ( he probably would not see the last year of a 3 year deal making his cap hit far less if each year is roughly the same payout )

NCSteeler
01-17-2014, 10:19 AM
contract year ?

he is signed through 2014 so is under contract for next season .... this coming year is the " contract year "

I hope they extend him ripping up his current deal and give him basically the same money over a 2 year deal or and extra 3 or 4 mill and spread it over a 3 year deal that should assure he retires a Steeler and make him much more affordable in the process ( he probably would not see the last year of a 3 year deal making his cap hit far less if each year is roughly the same payout )

The new NFL reality is that one year remaining is a "contract year" now. Very few huge stars play out the last year of a contract without at least an offer from their current team.

st33lersguy
01-17-2014, 10:36 AM
He needs to take a pay cut. That is just reality right now

SteelerFanInStl
01-17-2014, 05:54 PM
He needs to take a pay cut. That is just reality right now

Yep. I think that we all want him to stay but at what cost is the real question.

Dwinsgames
01-17-2014, 06:23 PM
Yep. I think that we all want him to stay but at what cost is the real question.



add 4-5 mill to his current deal an 2 years time .... bringing his salary down to around 5 mill a year over 3 years and you can then cut him at any time without a big cap hit

TMC
01-20-2014, 01:00 PM
This is something I have talked about several times with other people. Troy Polamalu cannot "restructure" his contract. Even thought Mr. Rooney said it, it cannot happen. A restructure is where you take salary and convert it to signing bonus. It does not change the basics of the contract, it just means you pay them money up front instead of over the season. Same money. The money does not change. But, it allows you to change how it hits the cap. The salary that is converted to bonus money is then spread over the remaining years of the deal. Since Troy is entering his final season, he has no future years to spread the money. It is the same with Ike Taylor and Heath Miller. None of them can be restructured.

They will likely treat all three of these players the same way they treated James Farrior. Farrior was entering his final year of his deal. He was scheduled to make $3.24M in salary. They wanted to keep him. So, they extended his deal by 4 seasons, giving him $5M to sign, paying him $1M in the first season, and basically $3M a season after that in salary. The cap hits broke down like this:
1st year=$5M signing bonus prorated at $1M per season+$1M salary=$2M cap hit (saved $1.24M).
2nd year=$1M prorated SB+$3M salary=$4M cap hit
3rd year=$1M prorated SB+$3M salary=$4M cap hit
4th year=$1M prorated SB+$3M salary=$4M cap hit
5th year=$1M prorated SB+$3M salary=$4M cap hit

That was 5 years, $18M as reported. It paid him $12M in the first three years and was touted as really being a 3-year deal because of his age. He was cut early in 2012 leaving only $2M in cap damage.

With Troy, who is scheduled to earn $8.25M in salary, you have the ability to recover a ton of cap space by doing something similar. The Steelers could offer Troy a 4 year extension (5-year deal) and pay him $8M to sign. They could put his first year salary at $1M for cap purposes. They could then pay him, say $6.5M a season in salary over the final 4 seasons. That is 5 years, $35M. The thing is, it is really 3 years, $21M unless he continues to play at a very high level. The cap hits would be:
2014=$2.6375 (dead money, cannot be changed)+$8M signing bonus prorated to $1.6M per season+$1M salary=$5.2375 cap hit, saves $5.65M in cap space in 2014.
2015=$1.6M signing bonus+6.5M salary=$8.1M cap hit-If released after this season, he has $4.8M in dead money
2016=$1.6M signing bonus+6.5M salary=$8.1M cap hit-If released after this season, he has $3.2M in dead money.
2017=$1.6M signing bonus+6.5M salary=$8.1M cap hit
2018=$1.6M signing bonus+6.5M salary=$8.1M cap hit

The key is to keep the signing bonuses low to make any type of future release much more palatable. The same could/will likely be done with Miller and Ike, although I expect Troy and Miller to receive more money than Ike would.

steelreserve
01-20-2014, 01:32 PM
I want to keep him around too, but I don't see the big hurry to ask him to take a pay cut this year, or sign a new contract extension that would take part of what he would earn this year and pushing it into next year, so essentially he would be playing two years for the price of one - in other words, a pay cut with a different name.

The way I see it, if he were a free agent, the market value for a guy of his age and ability (which is still significant) would be in the $5M range, probably anywhere from $3M-$6M depending on what happened this upcoming season. Just take what he's making this year, which is on the high side but not unfair, and use that plus market value for whatever additional years you want to give.

We probably don't need to worry too much about signing bonuses and such; players at this stage of their careers are probably pretty used to the idea that they're playing year-to-year and the only thing that "guarantees" your salary is if you manage to keep your abilities intact. What we don't want is a situation where we're on the hook for $8M in dead money if he has a career-ending injury or decides to retire, which at this age could essentially be at any time.