According to Overthecap, our top 51 players currently command $189,317,895 this season. We also have $21,097,194 in dead money. That's $210,415,089 this season against a $188,200,000 cap. We're $22,215,089 over this season's cap already.
Next season, our top 51 players would have salaries of $175,092,475 and I think the only dead money is Duke's 1.5 million. There's not a lot of wiggle room. If we continue to draft well, we're going to see veteran cap casualties very soon.
That's a bit grim, but not too far off. Next year is last year on the current CBA then probably an uncapped year. Salary cap will go up soon, plus we have at least 35k of extra we can use. Cap will go up some too.
So cap casualties are probably: Kircksey who is owed 10 mill, deadcap 2.4....8 mill savings there
Travis Carrie 8.15 mill with deadcap of 1.8 so 6.34 mill
Hubbard 7.3 with deadcap of 2.4, so 5 mill saved
Morgan Burnett 4.8 mill, no deadcap, he basically signed a 1 year deal
Colquitt is owed 2,8, he might not be on the team
Schobert is on last year of a contract that pays him 2 mill. He has been affective in this defense, I wouldn't be surprised if we pay up to keep him
Higgins is only being paid 2 mill on a one year contract, similar he was a RFA like Schobert, but no way we pay up to keep him, too much invested in WR already
Randall is on the last year of his contract, 9 mill, might be able to get him a bit cheaper, but if we don't think Redwine is ready yet, might need to keep Randall.
I am sure I am missing some, but those cuts save us 27 mill, brining back Schobert and Randall, probably costs us 15-20 mill, so saves around 10 mill. Outside of another 8 or so draft picks, we will have room to sign 1 big free agent or 2 if they decide to use the overage we have saved that is about to go away. Issue with using overage is we are about to get very expensive keeping some of our own players.
Draft a tackle in the first, keep a tackle to play, and pay a guard. Lets invest in the o-line similar as we did the d-line this off season, not quite as much, but we can improve 2 positions and will have a very good line again,.