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When dealing with what is counted towards the Team Salary amount, we all know it is possible to lose your Exceptions if you drop far enough under the Cap. My question is on mechanics of it, as it relates to compiling the Exceptions against the Team Salary line. Are Exceptions only added in totality against the Cap? Or, are they taken on an individual basis?

Meaning, if a team has a TPE of 5 million and another TPE of 1 million and drops more than 6 million under the cap, they lose both TPEs. That part I am confident on.

Now, same example, but the team drops 5 million under the Cap. Do they lose the 1 million TPE, but retain the 5 million TPE? Or do they retain both because the total is still putting them over?

Just trying to make sure I understand the mechanics. Everything I have read leads me to think that it is the Exceptions in totality. But I saw someone state on Twitter, and now I can't find it, that they would lose them piece by piece. And yes, I know Twitter isn't the greatest source for this information, but bare with me.

Thanks in advance!

They retain both as they are not under the cap yet.

5 mil under the cap in salaries plus 6 mil in exceptions means they are 1 mil over the cap.

Twitter 0-1

oh and if you did go piece by piece you would piece by piece lose all your exceptions once you are under the cap by the amount equal to your largest exception. In this example you would lose the 1 mil exception, then right after lose the 5 mil exception.

"if a team ... drops more than 6 million under the cap...,"

FWIW, teams rarely if ever simply "drop" under the cap as a happenstance. Instead, they usually have to renounce (many) exceptions to get there, so they tend to maneuver in order to avoid being under the cap for as long as possible in free agency. Point being, there is not a danger they wake up one morning and think, "Whoops, my exceptions are gone. What happened?" So rather than a team "dropping" under the cap line, what will happen is they at some point may DECIDE they want cap room, and renounce various exceptions as needed to create it.

There was one summer recently where Dallas, on paper, was going to have maybe 10-15M in cap room. But as they played it out, their actual cap was in excess of 90M for quite a while (as I recall, it started at about 102M) even though on paper their salary commitments were only maybe about half of that.

Your cap hold players signing with other teams is basically the only way to unintentionally lose your exceptions.

nodeal wrote:Your cap hold players signing with other teams is basically the only way to unintentionally lose your exceptions.

Yes. This is the situation I am mostly referencing. I fully realize teams won't let it happen by accident. That said, this summer several teams will be in interesting situations, that could put the scenario I listed in to play. Same next summer, but to a larger extent. Especially if the Cap jumps as so many are predicting. That makes me wonder what decisions we will see over the next year or so, simply because of the rising Cap. Should be fun!

Thanks as always for the answers. I was 99% there, but wanted to be fully sure.