01-25-2018, 02:20 AM
(01-23-2018, 12:26 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I'm already preparing myself for a letdown in FA based on what Mike Brown said in his interview with Jim Owczarski.
The Bengals are expected to have about $39 mill of cap space, which is actually less than what they had last year entering FA ($43 mill).
They used the cap space by:
Re-signing Kirkpatrick to a 5-year, $52.5 mill deal averaging $10.5 mill a year.
Re-signing TJ Johnson to a 2-year, $3.475 mill deal averaging $1.7 mill a year.
Re-signing Brandon LaFell to a 2-year, $9 mill deal averaging $4.5 a year.
That ate up about $17 mill in cap for 2017 alone.
They added lower-tier vets Andre Smith ($3.25 mill) and Kevin Minter ($4.25 mill) for a total of $7.5 mill more, which means 43-17-7.5 = $18.5 mill in cap space remaining.
This remaining cap space was reserved for extensions to Burfict and Harris along with draft picks and injury reservation. The Bengals still have $11 mill of that, which is expected to roll over to 2018.
Now we're already hearing about money reserved for Atkins and Dunlap, plus a potential re-signing of other impending Bengals FAs like Eifert.
Unless the Bengals make some cuts to free up more cap space, I'm not expecting any quality FA to be signed from outside the organization and even expecting the Bengals to retain someone who the fans don't actually want to see retained.
All excellent points. I cut Jones and Johnson in my scenario and didn't re-sign Minter. This draft has a lot of quality inside backers to replace Minter as well as good interior linemen and corners. I think they could easily get away with ditching LaFell if Marv wasn't so hesitant to play younger players. We've got Boyd, Erickson, Ross, Core, Malone, Green and probably another young receiver in the late rounds of the draft. LaFell is simply taking up a spot that we could use to develop young talent at this point.
Bringing Smith back is the only one that makes any sense.
