It’s not a Rubik’s cube at all. It’s nothing more than a salaries and wages budget that anybody who’s been a senior manager can understand.
There is very little if any similarity, we have a "business" that can afford (in non Covid times) much more than the salary cap that we are artificially limited to. There's a 3rd party (the NRL) telling us what we can pay our employees and how many employees we have to have (we can't have more, we can't have less, must be exactly 30). Plus we have to spend no less than 95% of the cap every year.
To add a layer of complexity, the cap is annual but the player contracts aren't, most are multiple years. How many employment contracts have you had that have a fixed pay rate for their full duration, no CPI, no pay rises for 2, 3, 4, 5 years or the in the case of Taumalolo for 10 years? In that time frame it is a guess as to whether the player will improve (and be worth more) or regress (and be worth less) or stay the same (and get paid effectively less due to CPI). If it was "nothing more than a salaries and wages budget" then every team would be equal, which plainly they aren't as a result of some teams managing their Cap way better than others.
The fact is we have recruited duds that haven’t improved the team.
If the Cap limits you to the same level of player then how does that "improve" the team. In fact we were forced to replace players on, say, $500k with players on, say, $200k just to get Cap compliant. It's no wonder that we regressed.
We may or may not have players on backend we deals, unlike other sports you can’t see a player’s cap number.
FWIW the NRL haven't registered contracts that are notably back ended since 2018, obviously contracts registered prior to that can still be in force. Our big back enders appear to run out this year. Whether or not that is the case no really knows but it's an NRL requirement and they have all player contracts to audit.
I’ll ask you a simple question. Do you think we are paying Doorey and Topine the same as we are paying Britt? Who do you think is getting paid more between Meaney and Tass?
I'm pretty sure that my post answered that exact question, with the NRL average contract at $330k we have to have some players on below the average to offset those players who are on above the average. Not in any way suggesting that Britt or Meaney are on above the average.
The fact is since 2018 we been forced to let go a number of "above average" players then we were forced to replace with "below average" players. Maintaining relevancy, I could ask ask a simple question, do you think Ogden (who we signed) is as good a player as Graham (who we let go to fit in Woods, who we then let go to get Cap compliant)? Or is Lewis (who we signed) as good as Reynolds (who we let go)? Or is Holland (who we signed) good as JMoz (who we let go)? etc etc.
With any player signings of course there are "duds", just look around the league there are far higher paid "duds" than what we have. When you are forced to gamble on untested players to get Cap compliant of course there are going to "duds" but there really is no other option as we have to register 30 players and we have to spend 95% of the Cap, every year.
Go Dogs