Touching on your commentary regarding salary cap, someone else has already posted that's not a guaranteed number; but let's say that's exactly what it expands to over the next 2 years. You do realize that as the cap goes up, so too will all contracts from high end to low end. Every time we have to resign someone else or approach a free agent or sign a rookie, those deals are going to get more expensive too.
Supposedly, the Saints offered $9.5M/year to Jimmy Graham. I have a hard time seeing them not match $10M to keep him. If multiple teams are interested, I would not be surprised to see him get $12M+ per year. In the context of what I've said above, that contract values will trend upwards, $12M won't be outlandish for a top receiving threat, but it will still be one of the top dollar deals. You can only pay so many players top dollar.
Cobb is currently only about a $1M cap hit. Jordy is only just under $4.4M. To extend them both, we're probably talking about upwards of $11-15M additional cap per year. We'd be closing in on $30M+ for our top 3 receiving targets. Even at $150M cap, if it does actually go that high (again, that's not guaranteed), that's 20%+ of the total cap space for just those 3 players. $30M on just those 3 players would also be more than any other team paid the entirety of their combined wide receiver and tight end groups (roughly 8-9 players each) (Seattle was at roughly $29M with a lot of that tied up in overpaying Zach Miller and Sidney Rice at about $20M between the two of them; more on Seattle in a minute). With the other bodies we'd have to pay to fill out wide receivers 3-5 and 2-3 backup tight ends, we could be talking 25%+ of our cap tied up in just the wide receiver and tight end positions.
Meanwhile we have Aaron Rodgers at roughly $20M cap hit per year, Clay Matthews at $11M this year accelerating to $15M cap hit by 2017. Now you're talking about $60-$65M for just 5 players.
Sam Shields is at $5M this year, $6.3M next and then jumps to just over $12M each of the last two years. So two years from now you're talking about $77M for 6 players. That's over half the cap, even at $150M.
Julius Peppers contract accelerates significantly after this year, jumping from $3M to $12M and then $10.5M. We can cut him at virtually no cost, but then we need someone else to step up as the pass rusher opposite Matthews.
The currently scheduled 2015 free agents are:
[list]
Jordy NelsonRandall CobbJarrett Boykin (restricted)Ryan TaylorBryan BulagaDerek SherrodDon BarclayScott TolzeinBJ RajiLetroy GuionJamari LattimoreTramon WilliamsJarrett BushDavon HouseSean Richardson[/list]
That's currently our top 3 wide receivers, 3 of our 4 top offensive tackles, just to look on the offensive side of the ball. You're not going to pay any less than what we currently are for our offensive tackles; not if you want starter quality. We need Bulaga to step up and fully realize the potential he indicated in his first two years. If he does, we're going to pay him. If he doesn't, we desperately need to find someone who can and we'll likely have to pay for that player. Offensive line has been far and away our biggest weakness on offense. It needs to be addressed and we will have a harder time doing that if all of our cap space is tied up in receving threats.
Bottom line: if we go for Graham and get him in here, we're going to have to either let Jordy or Cobb go or there's going to be a lot of bodies cut and I don't think we can fill all the other holes if we do that.
References:
http://overthecap.com/offensebreakdown.php?Year=2013 spotrac.com for individual players
Originally Posted by: mi_keys