Can we stop now please?

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

From the Washington Post article about Gibbs presser,
"Trading wide receiver Laveranues Coles to the New York Jets for wideout Santana Moss caused a salary-cap bind after a $9 million cap hit (with a net cap cost of roughly $6 million). Nonetheless, Gibbs indicated the Redskins wouldn't have gone above their budget to sign Pierce or Smoot even if the club had had more cap room."

They weren't going to spend the money regardless.. Lets stop blaming the trade for everything and move on..

I beg to differ.

Can someone please tell me when we last had $6.5 million (the amount of cap space we ate by trading Coles) in cap space before the regular season started? I don't think we've ever had that much room.

For starters, we could sign Burress to a one year deal (which he reportedly is seeking).

Second, we could use the cap space to restructure deals. Last season, the Vikings converted player salaries into roster bonuses. The idea being that if you do such deals, you incur a cap hit when you have the cap space in order to decrease your future cap figures.

Third, we could've used the $6.5 million to sign Smoot. For example, we could have given him a $6 million roster bonus for 2005. Our offer of a $10.5 million SB on a $30 million deal with a roster bonus of $6 million essentially would've given Smoot a $16 million signing bonus.

So, while there are plenty of good arguments for supporting the decision to trade Coles, let's not avoid reality and pretend we would've had $6.5 million in unused cap space. TRUST ME, with Snyder at the helm, it would've gone to good use.