2014 salary cap....and the money we have

I say keep Niles Paul, he's our best ST player.

that's not saying much

Nicks is terrible. He was in a contract year and basically checked out.

I thought Eli checked out.

I would say that much differently. The amount of cap space we'll have is near endless. The problem is there won't be enough impact players available who fit our system, so Bruce will do the smart thing and find stopgaps instead of overcomitting to players who don't fit.This is pretty much the whole idea behind free agency. You can count on one hand the amount of available talent that can:

1) improve the roster
2) do so without costing a contract that will look bad in the future

So the team may have 14 spots where improvement is needed, but if you can get five or six reasonably priced players (reasonable is relative, you can give big bucks for a great talent) to come in and plug holes, you've done well. And you still have 7-8 holes.

The good news is that there are zero teams who will enter next season with no holes (even Seattle is going to have some issues on the OL), so the goal of the offseason isn't to fill all the holes. It's to take a situation that's bad (we have too many weaknesses) and add players who can help. Level the playing field a bit, so that when you draft/develop your stars: Griffin/Williams/Morris/Orakpo etc, the veterans on the team are competent enough to handle their assignments.

I thought Eli checked out.

Naw, he's just color blind and has trouble telling what color jersey to throw the ball to.

Here are the seven players I would target:

- WR Hakeem Nicks OR WR James Jones (Not both)
- OT Anthony Collins
- G Chad Rinehart
- G Mike Pollak
- DE/DT Randy Starks
- LB Daryl Smith
- CB Brent Grimes

Id love Nicks. Three years ago. Seems to get hurt too much.

Nicks is going to Carolina

Despite his talent, they can have him IMO. Anyone who lollygags through a contract year is not someone you want in a championship locker room.

Yeah between Nicks and Maclin I'm on board signing Maclin to a incentive filled one or two year contract. My ideal choice is Decker, but I know the money difference between signing Maclin and Decker could allow the signing of one if not two offensive linemen or just in general two mid level contracts.

This is pretty much the whole idea behind free agency. You can count on one hand the amount of available talent that can:

1) improve the roster
2) do so without costing a contract that will look bad in the future

So the team may have 14 spots where improvement is needed, but if you can get five or six reasonably priced players (reasonable is relative, you can give big bucks for a great talent) to come in and plug holes, you've done well. And you still have 7-8 holes.

The good news is that there are zero teams who will enter next season with no holes (even Seattle is going to have some issues on the OL), so the goal of the offseason isn't to fill all the holes. It's to take a situation that's bad (we have too many weaknesses) and add players who can help. Level the playing field a bit, so that when you draft/develop your stars: Griffin/Williams/Morris/Orakpo etc, the veterans on the team are competent enough to handle their assignments.

I think what you wrote is a pretty darn good description of what we fans can expect FA to do for our team. Good job!

Hey guys I have been reading the salary cap info for years on this site and find it very informative. No other Redskins' fan forum gets this indepth and I am intrigued by the cap for whatever reason so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

These suggestions made about releases are pretty good but some would result in a lot of "dead" money. I have a spreadsheet I made that is heavily based on Spotrac but that includes a column of possible savings. I'd like to post it for you guys if you'd like but not sure how to add attachments.

According to the our $ carryover and potential 2014 cap of $126.3mill (from what I've read) our cap space will be just under $36mill. This is already great but we can get additional space with the following moves:

One of the biggest savings would be to cut Adam Carriker outright who is scheduled to earn $6.7mill. Although he would cost $3.5 mill in dead money his savings would be just over $3.2 mill.

Also another big savings would be getting rid of Chris Chester. He counts for $4.3mill against the cap and cutting him, even though it would cost $1.6mill in dead money, the savings would be $2.7mill.

Unfortunately Steven Bowen's $7mill cap figure and resulting cut would be over $5mill of dead money so only about $2mill in total savings. Maybe worth it still I'm not sure. They should definitely get him to take some sort of pay cut IMO.

Kedric Golston would be a good cut savings wise. His $1.1mill salary would only have $240k of dead money so about $900k of cap savings right there.

I don't want to step on anyone's toes but let me know if you guys want a copy and how I can post it then you can play around with it yourselves. :)

I'm glad you posted this. I can never figure how much you actually save when you cut guys because of the way the contracts are structured. I'm not sure how you could post aside from cut and paste (new to the site) but i would like to take a look at your spreadsheet.

According to my math cutting those 4 would free up just under 9 mill. To me that is more valuable to us than those 4 by a long shot IMO.

Chester was a bad signing and he played soft all of last season. He needs to be replaced and upgraded. I think a rookie could give us at least as much production out the gate with the potential to grow at a much lower price.

Carriker clearly has to be cut. There is no way to justify paying him that much. He has had 1 good year (2011) and even then he was ranked very low as a run defender.

Bowen was also good in 2011 but has been a non-factor since. The dead money part sucks but if he isn't producing and cutting him saves 2 mill plus opens up a roster spot to bring in someone who can (or has the potential to) i think thats the way to go.

Golston never has been anything more than a big body and he is one of the poster boys for the good guy,good in the locker room types that we hold on to even though they bring nothing to this team on the field. Needs to be let go just for the sake of opening up a roster spot. The money saved is just gravy

If you are right and we have 36 mil to work with before these cuts that would put us at almost 45 mil when/if we made them. I would be interested in seeing if we would save anything substantial for cutting Lichtenstiger. I think he is set to make something in the 3 mill range which isn't much but that guy just doesn't look like an NFL OL. I think if he stays he should move to C. He usually gives up about 40 lbs to the people he is trying to block. Can't be to surprised when they just walk him into the backfield every time we pass.

Thanks D.O, it looks like I am not able to post attachments on here (says so on my "posting rules" at the bottom left of my page). If you'd like send me your email address and I will email the spreadsheet to you. I agree with you on the Carriker, Golston and Chester releases or at the very least pay cuts. I think Bowen would be better let go next year (less dead money according to spotrac).

Also another one that is listed on their site as counting towards the cap is Brandon Meriweather. I have read in other spots that he is a free agent but if that's not the case and they can release him, his cap figure is $3.4mill with $1.2mill of dead money. That's another savings of $2.2mill. That one to me is a no brainer.

How about Sav Rocca? Slated to make $1.3mill with only a $162k of dead money for a savings of $1.2mill. Another no brainer IMO. See ya Sav.