Outscored by a whopping 112-16 margin in three defeats to start the season and hampered by a simmering internal unrest, the Washington Redskins have one bit of relatively good news to cherish.

	2001 NFL payrolls
	Team	Payroll
	Denver	$85,425,252
	Miami	$75,714,540
	Green Bay	$73,866,311
	Pittsburgh	$72,441,128
	Tennessee	$72,440,394
	Atlanta	$71,947,330
	Cleveland	$69,837,330
	San Diego	$69,408,552
	N.Y. Jets	$67,689,072
	Oakland	$67,533,341
	Tampa Bay	$67,270,674
	St. Louis	$66,577,286
	N.Y. Giants	$66,423,704
	Baltimore	$64,189,824
	Cincinnati	$63,726,061
	Seattle	$62,661,160
	Jacksonville	$62,488,789
	Arizona	$61,593,585
	Detroit	$60,758,070
	Carolina	$60,698,726
	New Orleans	$58,913,943
	Kansas City	$58,850,660
	Philadelphia	$58,691,256
	Minnesota	$57,196,438
	Chicago	$56,892,224
	Buffalo	$56,227,769
	San Francisco	$55,574,994
	Indianapolis	$54,006,623
	Washington	$51,493,931
	New England	$49,620,755
	Dallas	$44,167,604
	Total	$1,964,327,326

The early season ineptitude of 2001 isn't costing owner Daniel Snyder nearly as much as the Redskins' late-season collapse last year.

Just a year after a free-agent spending spree that attracted a bevy of high-profile veterans and pushed Washington's payroll to nearly $100 million, the franchise is doing things on the cheap these days. Free spending has been replaced by frugality, and the league-record amount parceled out by the Redskins in 2000 has been pared nearly in half during the first year of coach Marty Schottenheimer's stewardship.

A series of NFL Players Association salary documents obtained by ESPN.com show the Redskins with a payroll of just $51.493 million. That ranks as the third lowest in the league, behind only New England ($49.62 million) and Dallas ($44.167 million). None of the figures on the documents, dated Sept. 21, reflect salaries of players signed to the teams' practice squads.

In a city noted for its imprudent spending, the Redskins have raised fiscal responsibility to new heights, it seems, even as their on-field performance sinks to new lows.

Purged from the roster of a year ago are veterans Deion Sanders, Dana Stubblefield, Mark Carrier, Brad Johnson, Larry Centers and, most recently, Jeff George. Gone with them, apparently, is the ill-conceived notion it's possible to buy a Super Bowl title.

This year, in fact, the Redskins are approximately 20 percent below the average NFL payroll of $63.365 million. And the team's payroll is 40 percent below the league-high $85.425 million of the Denver Broncos.

"(Schottenheimer) came in and decided he was going to clean up the salary cap as fast as he could, and that's exactly what he did," said one Redskins source. "He trimmed the fat. But then he kept going and trimmed it right down to the bone."

A year ago, the Redskins handed Sanders a signing bonus of $8 million, most of which he kept upon his retirement this spring. This year, the largest signing bonus awarded by Washington to a free agent was $623,000 to offensive lineman Ben Coleman.

But the Redskins weren't the only franchise whittling payroll costs, as indicated by the fact the league-wide total for player compensation dipped slightly below $2 billion this season, to $1.964 billion. The Baltimore Ravens, whose payroll topped $90 million in 2000 but who didn't catch nearly the flak that Snyder did because they won the Super Bowl reduced their player-related costs to $64.189 million for 2001.

The Ravens weren't nearly as active in the free-agent market this spring and didn't have any whopping signing bonuses to pay out, like the $16 million in upfront money that the franchise awarded offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden last spring. Personnel chief Ozzie Newsome concentrated far more on holding together his championship club, he allowed, than in adding new pieces to it. And the club, which had to pay for a pair of top-10 selections in the 2000 draft, owned just the last pick in the opening round in 2001.

"A year ago, we were still in the building process, but this season we were maintaining," Newsome said at a league meeting early this summer.

There were several factors that blunted total compensation this year: Because of a quirk in the collective bargaining agreement, teams were able to prorate signing bonuses out over six years instead of the standard seven seasons. That reduced the size of the bonuses paid to draft choices, particularly first-round picks, and held costs down. And nearly as critical was that a preponderance of teams entered the spring so far over the salary cap and had to make far-reaching adjustments.

The Jacksonville Jaguars, for instance, went into the spring about $40 million over the spending limit. Jacksonville was forced to release some players and restructure contracts with 16 other veterans. That explains why the Jaguars spent seven times as much on the signing bonuses for renegotiated contracts (a league-high $36.038 million), as they did on signing bonuses for new players (a league-low $4.897 million).

It also explains why the Jaguars have the lowest average base salary, of $362,861, in the league. That is one-third below the NFL average ($547,952) and more than 50 percent below that of the league-high Atlanta Falcons ($772,125).

But the Jaguars weren't the only team scrambling to restructure enough contracts to fit under the salary cap. The Green Bay Packers and Tennessee Titans also invested more than $30 million in signing bonuses for reworked deals or extensions. In fact, 12 teams spent more on signing bonuses paid out for restructured contracts than for new ones. League-wide there were 196 reworked contracts with an average signing bonus of $2.179 million.

By comparison, the average signing bonus for a new contract was $513,831.

The Arizona Cardinals, who rarely encounter salary cap problems, were the only team in the NFL that was not forced to restructure a single contract, the payroll documents indicate.

Whether it was a new contract or an old deal being restructured, however, didn't seem to matter much to the Broncos. The team paid out a total of $52.7 million in signing-bonus money, including big bonuses for quarterback Brian Griese ($12.6 million, which helped make him the NFL's highest paid player for this year), defensive tackle Trevor Pryce ($10.6 million), linebacker John Mobley ($7.5 million), offensive linemen Matt Lepsis ($6.6 million) and Dan Neil ($4.92 million) and cornerbacks Denard Walker ($4 million) and Willie Middlebrooks ($3 million).

Similarly the Miami Dolphins, who rank second on the payroll hit parade ($75.7 million), laid out a significant amount of signing-bonus money. Between restructured contracts and new ones, Miami paid $40 million in upfront money. The Dolphins invested nearly $19 million to either retain or extend a trio of defenders, end Jason Taylor, cornerback Patrick Surtain and linebacker Derrick Rodgers.

"We knew this was the year we hit the big bell curve, and that we would have those kind of expenses," said vice president Rick Spielman. "I'm a little surprised we have the second-highest payroll in the league but, given our situation in a pretty unique year for us, it makes sense that we do."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.