They're OK, but they're not seven or eight million bucks a year good. Ray Lewis' contract is worth $44M over seven years; the 2010 franchise value for a linebacker is $8.3M, which is coincidentally what Bart Scott is getting. We are overpaying significantly.
If Jenkins makes the final 53 next year it will be at a discounted rate. I think Woody and Ellis may retire. They both are always fighting some kind of nagging injury. Hopefully Vlad can take over at right tackle after a full year of practice. I'm confident that Rex will be able to replace Ellis only because what he asks defensive lineman to do is so different then almost every other team. He's made Devito and Pouha into great players within his system. To really improve the defense they need a safety and a tweener pass rusher. They need a guy that can actually beat a lineman to the QB and they need a safety that can play the deep zone or cover a tight end. I'm worried about Eric and Brad Smith. Even though neither player brings much to the table from scrimmage they both are top of the line special team players and they both have roles on offense and defense. I think both will get offered more money then we expect. Of course without a CBA it's impossible to predict what's going to happen.
Agreed but (assuming there's a cap that works more or less like the current one) cutting or trading them won't free up huge amounts of money either due to bonus acceleration and all. The problem with getting big name free agents (and using big signing bonuses to get them) is that you have to pay the piper eventually. I could certainly see some restructuring of their contracts. I'm not enough of a capologist to know how much they could free up by doing that.
