2013 Free Agents

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

I think you two are both missing the point of the article. Unless i'm missing something, the problem isnt that we can't restructure contracts. Its that the contracts are fairly small compared to the contracts we've restructured in the past. In other words, we cant just restructure a few contracts and create 20MM in cap space like we have in the past. We'd have to restructure AND EXTEND the contracts of a number of aging veterans (hurting us in future years) to create a fairly small amount of cap space in 2013. In doing so, we'd essentially be giving OURSELVES a cap penalty in 2014, 2015, etc.

We may be better off just eating the bullet in 2013 by only making the minimum number of restructures we have to to get under the cap, resign our own guys, and make budget acquisitions (like we did this year on defense). Then, we're set up to be extremely flexible in 2014 and beyond.

I imagine there will be some amount of cap restructures that let us get the guys they are interested in, but without pushing more than x% of the cap penalty forward through cap magic. My guess is that they would try to keep about 60% of the penalty in this year, and move the rest forward by minor restructures that turn into dead cap if we cut someone. One good thing is we have quite a few midrange guys that we might just want to lock up an extra year or two that would give us that same flexibility.

I guess I basically believe that if we made it through last year when the final punishment wasn't proclaimed until right before FA(even if they had some concept it was coming), then this year they will be able to make it work with the time and knowledge they had to prepare for it.