00:00You know how I feel about the salary cap.
00:02It's one of the great myths and lies that has been foisted upon the sporting public.
00:09And the only thing worse than the lies told by the league and the owners are the media that goes
00:15along with it.
00:16And so this is starting to crawl up my ass right now.
00:19And I'll just do this once so we don't have to go back to it.
00:22And it's familiar territory, but I do feel that I have to reset it.
00:26And that is the way the Steph Diggs thing is being reported.
00:32So, like, for example, MassLive.
00:34I've got a lot of respect for Karen Garishan and Mark Daniels, and they do a great job, and they
00:38had great insight in all this.
00:39But they're falling into the trap that everybody else seems to fall into.
00:44One source said that if Diggs wants to remain in New England, he must restructure his contract to lower the
00:49cap hit.
00:51Restructure to lower the cap hit.
00:56Sports Illustrated, in its aggregation, said, according to Chad Graff of The Athletic,
01:02one league source believes the Patriots will cut Diggs if they are unable to restructure his deal to significantly lower
01:08his cap hit.
01:12I'm chuckling because I know where this is going.
01:14Keep going.
01:15It's got nothing to do with the cap.
01:17It's the real money.
01:18And you guys who cover the league, you know this.
01:22You know this.
01:24You want to restructure a deal to lower a cap hit?
01:29It's the easiest thing.
01:31Give me a napkin.
01:32But I don't even need it.
01:34It's the easiest thing in the world, and you know it.
01:38And you know if you just want to lower a cap hit,
01:41you guarantee upfront money, tack on years to a contract with non-guaranteed money, so you're not on the hook
01:50for it.
01:50Phony years.
01:51And spread out the proration over the life of the deal.
01:56Correct.
01:57So, you know, to lower a cap hit is the easiest bit of accounting you can do in sports.
02:05Yep.
02:06So, why do you let Kraft and the owners get away with that?
02:13Why?
02:13Why do you do that, guys?
02:14You know better.
02:16So, they're just sucking up to the team?
02:19No, what must Steph Diggs do to remain a Patriot?
02:24Take a pay cut.
02:25He has to give money back to the team.
02:28He has to accept a pay cut.
02:30That's what he's being asked to do.
02:33If you want to lower the cap hit, guys, do I have to walk you through?
02:37Do they not even bother, like, to actually think about it?
02:40Or, it doesn't even take research.
02:42You've been covering the league.
02:43You know what it takes to lower a cap hit.
02:47Steph Diggs is due a $20 million salary next year.
02:52Only 1.7 of it is guaranteed.
02:54So, you know what you do?
02:56You call that $20 million salary a signing bonus.
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