So if I'm reading this correctly....wanna be sure...they move DC...Weigert and Payne are non starters 8.3 ... DC and dominick Williams are a eight point one million cap hit , that's 16 . 4 million this year off the 13. whatever ? Which leaves us in a 2.9 million cap dollar hole .... before we sign our draft choices.
I think we need to pair down the free agent's wish list just a tad.
Moving David Carr would cost us $4 million (the remaining unamortized portion of his signing bonus). If we cut him now or trade him anytime then that $4 million goes against our 2007 salary cap, which would save us $3.25 million against our cap since he is currently going to cost us $7.25 million if he stays. However, we have to pay someone to replace him, and Jake Plummer or someone of that caliber could easily want $3 million or more which would negate that freed cap room. If we cut him after June 1 then we can put however much of that we want on the 2007 cap (within some sort of limit) and the remaining part on the 2008 cap, which would save us cap space in 2007 but cost us cap space in 2008.
Similarly, moving Domanick Williams costs us $3.9 million against the cap, all of that in 2007 if we trade him or cut him before June 1. That would save us $740k against the cap in 2007 since he is currently going to cost us $4.64 million, although it would free us from any salary cap obligations to him in 2008 and beyond. If we cut him after June 1 (the most likely option if they are going to move him) then we can put however much of that we want against the 2007 cap, the rest against the 2008 cap. If we cut him somewhere in the training camp area, we'd already know if his knee is going to hold up (remove the guessing on that) plus we should have already signed our draft prospects and free agents so we'd know how much cap room we'd still have and need to leave for the 2007 year. Then we can put as much as possible on the 2007 cap to get it out of the way since we already have our roster in place (leaving a little room for emergency signings when people get injured) and leave as much room as possible on the 2008 cap.
As for Seth Payne, moving him costs us $2.5 million against this year's cap vs. the $4.325 he's scheduled to cost, thus saving us $1.8 million. If we cut him after June 1 we can delay some of that cap hit to the 2008 season, saving us cap space this year but costing us cap space next year.
Moving Zach Wiegert costs us $2.5 million vs. $3.125 million to keep him, so that saves us $625k this year.
Moving Kailee Wong (also a possibility) would cost us $4.95 mllion vs. $3.59 to keep him, so that would cost us $1.36 million extra against the cap to trade him or cut him before June 1. Cutting him after June 1 we can move some of that cap hit to 2008 to free up room against the 2007 cap, but again that hurts our 2008 cap room.
For those who might be wondering, moving Greenwood costs us $4.2 million against the cap vs. $4.664 million to keep him, so that would save us $466k against this year's cap. At this point I am quite sure he'll be here next year though.
Moving Kris Brown costs us $1.14 million against the cap vs. $1.73 million to keep him, unfortunately only saving us $590k against the cap which wouldn't be enough to sign a comparable replacement short of getting an undrafted rookie.
Moving Steve McKinney costs us $1.5 million against the cap vs. $1.55 million to keep him, saving us $50k against the cap unless we cut him after June 1, then it could potentially save us more than that against the 2007 cap but cost us something against the 2008 cap.
According to this report, moving Travis Johnson would cost us $5.1 million against the cap vs. $1.5 million to keep, costing us an extra $3.6 million against the cap this year, so it isn't economically feasible to move him this year. This may be incorrect though, as it implies that TJ was signed to a 7 year deal as a rookie which I know isn't allowed now under the new CBA, maybe it was some sort of 4-5 year deal with a team option that we already picked up like David Carr's rookie deal.
Moving Jason Babin costs us almost $2.1 million against the cap vs. $1.4 million to keep him, costing us an extra $700k against the cap unless we cut him after June 1.
As of right now it estimates we have $13.3 million left in cap room, although they can't know for sure as they don't know all the exact dollar figures on these things and don't know how much dead cap we still have from Walker, Wade, and Robaire.
Our rookies last year cost us approximately $7 million against the cap last year, and that's with the #1 overall pick, so this year's draft picks should likely cost us in the area of $5.5-6 million against our 2007 salary cap, which if everything else goes unchanged that leaves us with an estimated $8 million or so in cap room to resign our free agents and go after everyone else, which isn't a ton of room but with some smart negotiations and contract structurings (i.e. delayed roster bonuses, back-loading the contracts some, etc. that delay the bulk of the cap hits) we should be able to be pretty competitive for a decent amount of free agents, plus there are a few guys on our team that we can cut and open up a decent amount of cap room.
Hope that clears things up some.
