I think the Packers have a slew of free agents of the own to sign, don't they? I haven't looked recently. Even with that said, look how many failed free agent acquisitions there are that we list off every single season about the seasons prior. Why do we still clamor for players that their last team doesn't even want them?
Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool
I feel like a lot of those guys are gone, though.
Heyward's a given. So is James Jones.
Perry will get a bigger offer from some other team, based on his potential and the way he played last season when healthy. Add to that that he very much prefered to play for a 4-3 team coming out of college and his durability problems and I can imagine that letting him go would be benificial for both sides.
If Raji does come back, I think he'll have to settle for even less than he got last year. He took the prove-it deal and didn't prove all that much. Also, with Guion signed for another three years, Pennel on the roster and Raji being 30 when the season starts, I can imagine him being the odd man out.
Neal might be back, but I hope it'll be on a better contract than the last one. He's not very good at anything, just decent at a whole lot of things. If he doesn't take a $2.5 million deal, you can safely part ways with him the amount of guys we have under contract at OLB and the draft still coming up.
That leaves you some room to work with. Especially if you consider that Peppers' $10,5 million will be off the books next year, which gives you some breathing room to work some money into the 2017 season. Josh Sitton and TJ Lang both are in the last year of their contracts and carrying a pretty big cap number for a pair of guards. Extending them or having either one go in FA next year gives you some more 2017 wiggling room. Lastly, this might be the time to look at a restructering for Rodgers if he and McCarthy truly want to step into the FA market. Unlikely, but he's at or above $20 million for the next four years.
That's a lot of what-if's, though, and I agree with Barfarn that you can't go and hang against the cap ceiling. That generally doesn't work all too well. I do think that there's some room for spending, though. A guy like Malik Jackson is far out of reach and not worth putting yourself in cap hell for, but getting a guy like Damon Harrison on around $5 per year or Trevathan at around that same price.
Again, wishful thinking, but McCarthy promising to surprise us has me believing just a little bit.