8 hours ago
(Yesterday, 03:30 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I feel like the Bengals have already done a good number of reworked deals for most of these backup/fringe guys to save money at this point.
Bengals have the 8th most cap space in the league right now at $32.6 mill, and they don't have a ton of money tied up in guarantees aside from Burrow, Higgins, and Chase.
There is always a possibility that one of the unexpected fringe guys ends up performing close to these guys and justify knocking them off the roster, but it's really just a matter of saving a mill or two here and there if it does happen.
They should have plenty of money to work with if they really wanted to.
Remember, our functional cap space is gonna be around $9 mil less than whatever figure is bouncing around on OTC/spotrac.
You have to count 53 instead of 51 (+$2 mil-ish), you have to count the practice squad (+$3-$4 mil), you have to count guys on IR (All, over $1 mil), and you have to remember Stewart and Knight are signed yet, so they are not top 51 atm (+$1-2 mil over replacement).
Our REAL cap space is more like $22-$23.
And remember, those rewoeked deals did not save us much, cap wise. Volson's cap hit went from $3.8 to $3.1. Moss's a little more savings, but he is still $3.1 as well, and I *think* hexwas right around $4 mil to start.
Point being, we could have saved twice what we did by cutting one of them. And we could still net nearly $2.5 mil by cutting Volson.
I agree that now, we are unlikely to cut either after the renegotiations, but it is just bad cap management to pay RB3-4 and OG 4, who are just barely aboce practice squad level, over $6 mil a year.
It is even sillier when you draw a line in the sand with the best pass rushing DE in the league. Sure, in a perfect world, I'd like to keep everyone for better depth. But if I have to choose, I would need to think hard, or long. Pay Trey, move on from the overpriced, underperforming depth.
Heck, if I could turn that Moss/Volson $$ into a reliable starter level player elsewhere (Hernandez, Risner, Scherff, Blackmon) I think that would have been money much better spent. Don't you?
