10-08-2024, 09:07 AM
(10-08-2024, 08:23 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Best I can tell is the Bengals have a little under 9 million in cap space. What difference maker do you think that will sign?
This is more of a happened in the offseason situation, but Hendrickson, Burrow, and Hubbard have $14.8m, $10.7m, and $7.8m base salaries this year. If you had restructured, say $12m, $5m, $6m of each of those into signing bonuses, that would have cleared you up another $13m in cap space this year. You can do a pretty good amount with $22m and didn't have to cut anyone other than bottom-of-the-roster guys to make space for the additions.
Danielle Hunter: 2yr/$49m (he has a cap hit of $13.7m this year)
Justin Simmons: 1yr/$6m (would actually wash out to $0 since you wouldn't sign Stone and his $6m cap hit this year)
Chidobe Awuzie: 3yr/$36m (has a $6.9m cap hit in 2024)
Tyler Boyd: 1yr/$2.4m (for when Higgins was inevitably hurt)
They'd be taking the spots of guys making at least $800k (so x4 = $3.2m in cap savings).
That's $19.8m in cap space taken up, and you've gotten better and deeper in the secondary, you've added a great pass rusher so you're not completely boned when Hendrickson comes off the field, and you've made sure Trenton Irwin doesn't get on the field in Week 1 and 2 and maybe you score enough points then to win those games.
....But that all requires the FO to spend more money than they're required to by the cap, so it was never going to happen.
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Even without all of that.... Andrew Van Ginkel has a $3.4m cap hit this year, and Clowney has a $6m cap hit this year. You could have added BOTH of them in FA with just our current amount of cap space without having to have done any cap gymnastics at all once you factor in the 2 bottom-roster guys making $800k each being removed from the calculation.
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