USA TODAY SALARY STUDY IS AMBITIOUS, BUT MISLEADING

We were impressed by the extent of the effort expended by the folks at USA Today in compiling the 2008 salaries of every NFL player. It’s not an easy task. The NFLPA web site makes only base salary information available to the media. Getting the numbers regarding bonuses and other non-salary payments takes a ton of elbow grease, and Jodi Upton, Scott Boeck, and Larry Weisman did a great job of pulling it all together. The full list of 2008 salaries appeared in Thursday’s edition. The USA Today web site has an excellent sortable database covering nine seasons of player salaries. That said, the presentation of the information can be a bit misleading. Though the Section C cover item from Weisman and the paragraph at the top of the first page listing the numbers attempt to clarify that the term “salaries” includes every bit of compensation, folks who don’t follow football as closely as the those who frequent this site might come away thinking, for example, that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of the Steelers makes $27.7 million ever year. He doesn’t. His “salary” for 2008 includes the up-front money he received when he signed his long-term deal. Weisman’s article on page 1 of Section C mentions this dynamic, but plenty of people flip through the newspaper without reading every article, and some could end up perusing page 5C and thinking, “Holy crap . . . that dude who crashed his motorcycle into a car without a helmet makes $27 million a year.” One league insider said that using this approach “does a huge disservice” to all parties concerned, including players who aren’t making each and every year nearly as much as their friends and family might conclude. “There’s no relevance to this method,” the source said. “The most important number is average pay over the first three years of a contract.” Also, those who follow the sport more closely than the average casual fan might be confused by total payrolls that exceed the $116 million per-team salary cap for 2008. The Cardinals and Jaguars will spend $122 million each, the Bears will spend $120 million. The Browns and Saints will spend $131 million each; the Vikings are at $133 million. The oft-frugal Steelers will spend $128 million. The Cowboys will spend a whopping $146 million. But the “champs” are the Raiders, who have gotten two wins to date in return for an investment of $152 million. Teams can spend more money in a given year that the cap contemplates for two reasons. First, teams use devices like a practically unachievable “Likely to Be Earned” incentives to carry excess cap space from year to year. Second, the concept of “cash over cap” results in teams shelling out more money than the cap permits this year, with a portion of that cash hitting the books for cap purposes in future years. Finally, there’s a glitch regarding the handling of certain LTBE incentives. FB/DT/FB/DT/FB Dan Klecko of the Eagles is listed as having a total salary of more than $10 million. The sortable database points out that this consists of a base salary of $605,000 -- and an “other bonus” of $10,036,720. Apparently, the Eagles have attached to Klecko’s contract an LTBE incentive, which will allow them to push $10 million of cap space into 2009. But Klecko will never see a dime of that money. (Good luck explaining that to Uncle Frank who wants to borrow a couple hundred bucks because his stepdaughter needs braces.) We base our belief in this regard the entry for Vikings defensive tackle Pat Williams. His 2007 contract extension contained a phony $13.2 million LTBE based on special-teams tackles. The maneuver was aimed at carrying cap space into 2008; Williams never received that payment. But the USA Today database shows that Williams received $13.55 million in “other bonuses” last year. The problem with the inclusion of these amounts is that it’s now impossible to know which players’ reported salaries are overstated. (Another guy who isn’t making as much as the report indicates is 49ers cornerback Donald Strickland, whose unattainable LTBE is reflected as an “other bonus” of $7 million.) Next year, the project should include an attempt to sort out the “real” LTBE’s from the phony ones. Then again, it won’t matter if there’s no extension to the CBA. In 2009, teams won’t use phantom LTBE’s to push money into the 2010 salary cap, because there won’t be a salary cap in 2010.