Borrowing from the future doesnt change much. We could always just give signing bonuses which get prorated over the life of the contract so it doesnt make much of a difference. The vet incentives sounds nice (though I have no idea how it works). Plus there are many many things we can do to maniuplate our numbers. Were sitting pretty comfortably, ill definitely take our cap situation over at least half the teams in the league. Although getting out of Scott/Pace/Hunter clean would make life better
Should/could are nice, but they are not the current situation. There is no way of telling if we will actually take the steps needed to get this space and I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch. In order to get a restructure you have to give up somethign to the player. It could be more up fornt money, more years, a guarenteed salary, but they are going to get somethign out of it. With Cro and Holmes the front office may have the wiggle room, but may not choose to use it. Untill they do I'm not making any plans for getting cap relief over what we already have.
Not a bad guess but it looks like Dalton made most of his money in his rookie year based on the rotoworld info: 7/29/2011: Signed a four-year, $5.23 million contract. 2012: $612,009, 2013: $749,018, 2014: $986,027, 2015: Free Agent It may be true this year for him though. That new rookie salary cap is nice, eh?
The exceptions are I belive up to 4.5M, however it is not free, it is borrowed against 2014-2017. Borrowing against next year seems a poor idea since we are already likely to be right up on the cap next year as well (unless it goes up significantly) I would expect it to stay in the 14-15M range, maybe a few cuts for cap space.
I definitely hear you on that man. But you do have to acknowledge that if the right guy/guys come available and Tanny just needs that extra few M tucked away some where to make it work somehow...it's gonna be there. Doesn't mean we should automatically exercise it. Or even automatically assume that would be the best course of action. As you point out, you always give up something when you restructure so it's the type of deal that Tanny won't make unless he feels he needs to. I think it was clear the Jets want to keep making their bed with Sanchez and Brick in it. They were also the two biggest contracts so it was an easy decision to do those two first. If he needs to go commit some more to the two bozos he will. Flawed as they both may be, they're still both good solid NFL players at their roles and will be for years, (well maybe solid was the wrong word).
Does that include the minimum salaries that get replaced when you lose your bottom X guys and replace them with draft picks? Or is it really more like 1-2 Mil?
Im not 100% sure but I believe its the more picks the more cap space needed. Every contract is counted towards the cap, although you can fit in minimums and get away with it when strapped for cash. Usually those top 2 picks cost about (where we're picking) 2 mil for the first rounders and 1 mil for 2nd rounders, which is really the bulk of that total money. For example you could look for contracts like these for whoever we pick at #16 and #47, In 2011 the #16 pick Ryan Kerrigan signed a signed a four-year, $8.72 million contract and at #47 Lance Kendricks signed a four-year, $4.225 million contract.
Going off last year id say not including udfa and garbage picks. Since they will replace guys well cut (ie 4th/5th string guys) First rounders gonna be close to 2m a year, around 1m for 2nd, and so on. Should come out to about 4-5 m for the guys from the first 5 rounds
The cap could look real nice with a couple more moves. 1. Cut the worst coverage safety in the NFL. 2. Restructure either Holmes or Cro. 3. Borrow a little bit from next year. I really don't care if we borrow some from next year. This year will be the best chance we have had in a while with a few more key additions. We have our Sanchise going into his fourth year, a defense that only needs a pass rusher and a safety. On offense we need a receiver and a tackle. Four additions and this team will be looking real nice.
I feel that the next move is not going to be a splashy free agent move, but probably bringing in Keller for a long term deal. He's at the end of his rookie deal and should be looking for a nice long term pay day. He led us in receiving last year and should see a bit of a bump in action in the new offense. I don't see us using Cro for space simply becasue his personal life is a bit on the loose cannon side. Offering up more guarteened money to a player like that could very well be detrimental to the team in the long run. Plus if Wilson continues to step up his play and challenges for the role of #2 it would be harder to move on from Cro's mega contract. As of right now we could cut Cro in 2014 and save 9.1 mill. That happens to also be the last year of Wilsons deal. I do not belive this is a coincidence. Same goes for Holems and his drug policy situation. We gave him the big contract already. The think adding more guarntees to it is a bit too high of a risk. After this year we hit the point where there would be Cap saving is he was cut, and in 2014 or 2015 the savings would be over 8 mill. This is a situation that could be risky to change. So the money is there, but the risk wit hthe players left to squeeze it out of is much higher. I belive that Mike T will roll forward with some low end signings for depth and head to the draft. Its in the best interest of our long term helth as a team.
