03-11-2024, 11:15 AM
Free agency starts in about 2 hours, so I thought I'd do a mock off season beforehand. That way, I can see how wrong I was at the end of the week!
I started with free agency, using Fanspeak's Manage the Cap simulator.
Step 1 was cutting and restructuring players. I cut Joe Mixon and Nick Scott. I also restructured Orlando Brown Jr's contract.
This freed up 17,050,000 in cap space, for a total of 72,410,229 in cap space.
They have restructuring Brown's contract as creating 9,000,000 in cap space. I'm not sure where they got that number. To my knowledge, it would be closer to 4,250,000 per this article, but maybe Fanspeak is assuming some major restructure with void years and all that, I'm not sure.
Regardless, I just put it in the back of my mind to leave at least 5 million in cap space at the end of this exercise, just in case.
Step 2 was re-signing my own free agents.
Priority #1 was DJ Reader. I started by offering him 12,000,000 AAV for 2 years, but he declined. We eventually came to terms at 2 years, 14M AAV. A year 1 cap hit of 11,200,000.
After that was settled, I re-signed our tight ends. I gave both Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson 2 year deals at 2 million AAV. It may be a bit of an overpay, but they wouldn't settle at 1.5 or 1.6, so I just jumped to 2.0 to get it over with. Maybe I could have gotten 1.8 out of them, but I'm not really worried about a couple hundred thousand (in this simulation. In real life, I would gladly take a couple hundred thousand :) ).
For depth, I re-signed both Marcus Bailey and Akeem Davis Gaither at relatively low contracts. 2 years, 1.2 to 1.5 million AAV.
Finally, I wanted to see where Chidobe Awuzie's head was at. I offered him a 2 year, 5.5M AAV contract, which he declined, but he accepted 2 years 7M AAV, so that will cover our depth for another season or two.
Summary:
Drew Sample, TE 2 year, 2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,600,000)
D.J. Reader, DL 2 year, 14M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 11,200,000)
Akeem Davis-Gaither, LB 2 year, ~1.2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 920,000)
Marcus Bailey, LB, 2 year ~1.2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,000,000)
Chidobe Awuzie, CB 2 year, 7M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 5,600,000)
Tanner Hudson, TE 2 year, 2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,600,000)
Step 3 was outside free agents.
I went into free agency with 50,490,229 in cap space with big needs at OT, DT, and RB, and minor needs at P, OG, S, and TE.
I ended up signing the following contracts:
Jermaine Eluemunor, OT 2 year, 7M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 6,000,000)
Sheldon Rankins, DL 2 year, 10M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 8,000,000)
Teair Tart, DL 3 year, 4M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 3,000,000)
Tommy Townsend, P 3 year, 3M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 2,250,000)
Clyde Edwards-Helaire, RB 1 year 3M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 3,000,000)
Geno Stone, S 2 year, 6.5M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 5,200,000)
Josh Uche EDGE, 3 year 8 M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 6,400,000)
John Simpson, G 1 year, 4M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 4,000,000)
After these signings, I had 12,640,229 in cap space left over, with 5 million already reserved for draft picks.
These signing effectively made DT a luxury requirement in the draft, but not a necessity like it was beforehand. Rankins and Tart offer pass rush and run stopping capability, respectively, and help bolster a really weak room at the moment.
OT is still a big need, but I am not forced to take an OT at 18 (although I almost definitely will). I really like Geno Stone, who was used as a 3rd safety in Baltimore. I see us using Hill the way the Ravens used Hamilton. Putting him all over the field rather than a traditional drop back safety.
Townsend was a luxury signing after D'Andre Swift kept slapping me across the face with rejections, even when I got up to 7M AAV, which would have defeated the purpose of cutting Mixon... Same with CEH. Signed him as a stop gap who is familiar with Burrow and was a cap savings relative to Mixon's contract.
Simpson was simply guard depth because, unlike in real life, I was unable to get Cody Ford to agree to a 1 year 2M AAV contract. Maybe a little rich for the Bengals' blood to pay a backup guard 4M, but I had the cap space.
Uche was a complete luxury signing because I had more cap space than I knew what to do with haha. He's only had 1 good season in his career, but he was elite in 2022. 2023 was just a complete train wreck for the Patriots, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt there.
So, going into the draft, I had over 17M in cap space (minus the 5M reserved for draft picks) and I have filled almost every need to some degree. The top priorities for the draft are a long term starting RT, a long term RB to pair with Brown, a long term TE to pair with Sample and Hudson and a long term CB to help replace Hilton and Awuzie, on short contracts.
I'll do the draft in the next post...
I started with free agency, using Fanspeak's Manage the Cap simulator.
Step 1 was cutting and restructuring players. I cut Joe Mixon and Nick Scott. I also restructured Orlando Brown Jr's contract.
This freed up 17,050,000 in cap space, for a total of 72,410,229 in cap space.
They have restructuring Brown's contract as creating 9,000,000 in cap space. I'm not sure where they got that number. To my knowledge, it would be closer to 4,250,000 per this article, but maybe Fanspeak is assuming some major restructure with void years and all that, I'm not sure.
Regardless, I just put it in the back of my mind to leave at least 5 million in cap space at the end of this exercise, just in case.
Step 2 was re-signing my own free agents.
Priority #1 was DJ Reader. I started by offering him 12,000,000 AAV for 2 years, but he declined. We eventually came to terms at 2 years, 14M AAV. A year 1 cap hit of 11,200,000.
After that was settled, I re-signed our tight ends. I gave both Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson 2 year deals at 2 million AAV. It may be a bit of an overpay, but they wouldn't settle at 1.5 or 1.6, so I just jumped to 2.0 to get it over with. Maybe I could have gotten 1.8 out of them, but I'm not really worried about a couple hundred thousand (in this simulation. In real life, I would gladly take a couple hundred thousand :) ).
For depth, I re-signed both Marcus Bailey and Akeem Davis Gaither at relatively low contracts. 2 years, 1.2 to 1.5 million AAV.
Finally, I wanted to see where Chidobe Awuzie's head was at. I offered him a 2 year, 5.5M AAV contract, which he declined, but he accepted 2 years 7M AAV, so that will cover our depth for another season or two.
Summary:
Drew Sample, TE 2 year, 2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,600,000)
D.J. Reader, DL 2 year, 14M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 11,200,000)
Akeem Davis-Gaither, LB 2 year, ~1.2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 920,000)
Marcus Bailey, LB, 2 year ~1.2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,000,000)
Chidobe Awuzie, CB 2 year, 7M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 5,600,000)
Tanner Hudson, TE 2 year, 2M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 1,600,000)
Step 3 was outside free agents.
I went into free agency with 50,490,229 in cap space with big needs at OT, DT, and RB, and minor needs at P, OG, S, and TE.
I ended up signing the following contracts:
Jermaine Eluemunor, OT 2 year, 7M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 6,000,000)
Sheldon Rankins, DL 2 year, 10M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 8,000,000)
Teair Tart, DL 3 year, 4M AAV (year 1 Cap hit of 3,000,000)
Tommy Townsend, P 3 year, 3M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 2,250,000)
Clyde Edwards-Helaire, RB 1 year 3M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 3,000,000)
Geno Stone, S 2 year, 6.5M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 5,200,000)
Josh Uche EDGE, 3 year 8 M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 6,400,000)
John Simpson, G 1 year, 4M AAV (year 1 cap hit of 4,000,000)
After these signings, I had 12,640,229 in cap space left over, with 5 million already reserved for draft picks.
These signing effectively made DT a luxury requirement in the draft, but not a necessity like it was beforehand. Rankins and Tart offer pass rush and run stopping capability, respectively, and help bolster a really weak room at the moment.
OT is still a big need, but I am not forced to take an OT at 18 (although I almost definitely will). I really like Geno Stone, who was used as a 3rd safety in Baltimore. I see us using Hill the way the Ravens used Hamilton. Putting him all over the field rather than a traditional drop back safety.
Townsend was a luxury signing after D'Andre Swift kept slapping me across the face with rejections, even when I got up to 7M AAV, which would have defeated the purpose of cutting Mixon... Same with CEH. Signed him as a stop gap who is familiar with Burrow and was a cap savings relative to Mixon's contract.
Simpson was simply guard depth because, unlike in real life, I was unable to get Cody Ford to agree to a 1 year 2M AAV contract. Maybe a little rich for the Bengals' blood to pay a backup guard 4M, but I had the cap space.
Uche was a complete luxury signing because I had more cap space than I knew what to do with haha. He's only had 1 good season in his career, but he was elite in 2022. 2023 was just a complete train wreck for the Patriots, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt there.
So, going into the draft, I had over 17M in cap space (minus the 5M reserved for draft picks) and I have filled almost every need to some degree. The top priorities for the draft are a long term starting RT, a long term RB to pair with Brown, a long term TE to pair with Sample and Hudson and a long term CB to help replace Hilton and Awuzie, on short contracts.
I'll do the draft in the next post...
![[Image: oN5QAdY.png]](https://i.imgur.com/oN5QAdY.png)
