I had been curious to see how much teams like Pittsburgh, Balltimore and Philly. The three top ranked Defenses spend for that ranking. Here is what I found. These numbers are 08' salary cap totals for the 11 starters.

Steelers 37.769 million into their starting D for the championship.
Ravens 55.216 million into their starting D for the championship.
Eagles 37.553 million into their starting D for the championship.

Now, for the Packers. The salary cap number of the team on the field for the final run was. Minus Jenkins and Barnett. I didn't remove Bigby because he is a minimum wage so it didn't really matter.

29.879 million.

Now it seems that everybody is in agreement that if Jenkins and Barnett are around the Defense is much better. How much is to hard to say, but safe to say better. With Jenkins and Barnett the Defensive starters would get.

36.488 million. which is close to Pitt and Philly. Would they be that good, who knows. Problems I see.

Poppinga at over 4 million (will be better in 09'dropping to 2.8)
Pickett 3 million going up to 3.5 for 09'.

I don't think either of these players are really earning that money, or at least it could be used better.

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Yet another hole is punched in the hater's rabid delusions that Thompson is "cheap."

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Brady might now have earned his money last season, but Pickett earned his. Pickett was are second me D-linemen when Jenkins went down.

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