[sportscurmudgeon]

JWsleep:

Believe me, I recognize that the "cap bump" in 06/07 has been a big part of the Redskins' planning process over the past year or so. And it will make the team able to keep many of the players they signed to long term deals. Here are my worries anyhow:

1. Injuries. You can't predict them. You can't plan for them. You can't be afraid to sign players to big deals because they might generate lots of "dead money" because of injuries because if you do that you'll never have anything more than a glorified college All-Star team. But if Clinton Portis gets hurt and his injury turns him into a an "average RB", the damage will be a whole lot more than just an injury to a RB.

2. The wrong players. Some players never turn out to be the "'foundation players" they were envisioned to be. Case in point is Jeremiah Trotter who signed with the Skins for MORE money than Ray Lewis was making at the time. I don't care if you bleed burgandy and piss gold, if you think that Jeremiah Trotter was worth more than Ray Lewis as a linebacker two seasons ago, you were hallucinating. So, let's hope that Shawn Springs and LaVar Arrington prove to be worth the investment in them. Oh yeah, Mark Brunell too.

3. Internal "strife". One of the hallmarks of Joe Gibbs in the 1980s was that when a player became an internal distraction he got cut immediately. That is one of the reasons why there were rarely any dissention issues on the teams then. There were no cap issues or dead money implications then; there are now.