Life after 89

I think the acceleration rules are the same for a trade as they are for release. What I'm not clear on is how much of his cap hit original signing bonus proration vs salary guarantees. I'm pretty sure a trading partner assumes the salary guarantees while the Panthers are stuck with the signing bonus acceleration. Fwiw, here's an old analysis of Smith's "two year contract"

 

Maybe we can bring him back next year to beat on the Keep Pounding drum...

 

They are, but we're before June 1st. A trade or release right now puts everything against the 2014 cap, except that some releases can be designated June 1st cuts as if they happened after June 1st, which divides the cap hit between 2014 and 2015. You can't do that with trades.

 

Striker. S.T.F.U.

 

It's now official. He's gone.

 

Sad sad day in Panther history.

 

My first thought when the possibility of Smitty finishing his career elsewhere was this: how will Cam respond to losing his 'big brother'? I think its pretty obvious both Cam and Steve saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and Smitty is rather tough to impress when it comes to work ethic, so from the outside looking in, the Smitty/Cam relationship looked pretty healthy to me. Plus, Cam is certainly no stranger to distractions, now is he? The NCAA scandal, the 'toxic NFL locker room' personality smear right before the draft, the 'sophomore slump', the firing of his GM mid-year, the CBA holdout ... was Smitty really that much more of a distraction than any of those?

I sure as hell hope Gettleman knows what he is doing, because for a team that surpassed everyone's expectations last year, this is a bold and poorly handled decision. The biggest question I have at this point would be this: given the choice, would Smitty rather play for a contender or Tampa Bay?

 

Tampa isn't far from the playoffs, and all you gotta do is make the tourney as they say.