Cap space

[*ochocincos*]

(02-07-2022, 02:50 PM)mikey6866 Wrote: Lets see 70 MIL.

Bradley bozeman C - 9 mil per year
Austin corbett RG - 9 mil per year
Trent brown RT - 12-14 mil
Jessie bates S - 13 mil on franchise tag

We could essentially sign 3/5 of Oline from outside our organization, and retain our best free agent and still have 25 mil left to sign or retain guys like uzomah, hill, ogunjobi or even apple.  Not to mention how we can easily structure or restucture any contract at any time.  If we sign Oline and we lose ogunjobi or hill or apple we just draft their replacement in the early rounds.  We can free up dollars cutting hopkins if we sign a center as well.  We are in great position to get oline fixed and really open up the draft to get some young talent on D to supplement the money we have spent there the past 2 offseasons.  They spent most of the FA dollars on D recently and they need to spend on the oline this year and then draft is wide open for some young defensive talent.  That how the NFL works.

That's $43-45 mill just out of those 4.

Bengals only have 34 players under contract for 2022 if Reiff voids his contract (assuming yes if you're replacing him with Brown) and Waynes is cut (assuming yes if you're getting around $70 mill in cap).

You're now at 38 with the 4 guys you said to add, and you need to get to 51 (including draft).
Vet minimum is just under $1 mill.

You need to replace/re-sign the following players (starters in bold):
- Eli Apple (CB2)
- Ricardo Allen (SS2)
- Darius Phillips (CB5)
- Trae Waynes (CB4)
- Tre Flowers/Vernon Hargreaves (CB6)
- Jordan Evans (LB5)
- Larry Ogunjobi (UT1)
- BJ Hill (UT2)
- CJ Uzomah (TE1)
- Auden Tate (WR4)
- Mike Thomas (WR5)
- Trent Taylor (WR6 + PR)
- Brandon Allen (QB2)
- Mitchell Wilcox (TE3)

Draft should cover about 5 of those, possibly up to 7.
But the others you'll have to figure out how to fill with only ~$20 mill in cap.
It's very possible that Apple, Uzomah, and one of the DTs costs almost $20 mill alone.
And that doesn't even start to address that there are a few positions that the depth is bad, which means more players could/should get replaced.