ESPN: How the Cowboys can clear cap room

[CCBoy]

How the Cowboys can clear cap room
March, 8, 2012
By Dan Graziano


http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/36800/how-the-cowboys-can-clear-cap-room



The Dallas Cowboys have a ton of offseason needs, many of which they plan to fill via free agency. But before they can go out and hunt for cornerbacks and safeties and guards and help for the pass rush, they need to know exactly how much salary cap room they have. Calvin Watkins writes that they're about $12.5 million under the projected cap right now, but that they can clear more room by restructuring the contracts of Dez Bryant and some other players:

It's written in wide receiver Dez Bryant's contract the Cowboys can move his $1.4 million roster bonus into signing bonus to create $957,000 of cap space. The Cowboys have done this in the past with several players.

Also, cornerback Orlando Scandrick, who is scheduled to make a base salary of $7.1 million can get that moved to signing bonus money to create cap space as well. Right tackle Doug Free is in the same situation. He's supposed to make $6 million in base salary in 2012 but that could get changed as well.

If the Cowboys move Free and Scandrick's money around, it will lower their salary cap figures and create $8.6 million in cap room...

[CCBoy]

This needs AdamJT's scrutiny...as the almost $1M Dez addition, coupled with the $8.6 for the projected reworks on Free and Scandrick, and put in the additional $6M for a June release of Newman, with the original surplus of $12.5M....and a gross math here, renders: roughly $28M that could be put to use for this season.

[elcowboi]

Also, cornerback Orlando Scandrick, who is scheduled to make a base salary of $7.1 million can get that moved to signing bonus money to create cap space as well. Right tackle Doug Free is in the same situation. He's supposed to make $6 million in base salary in 2012 but that could get changed as well.

If the Cowboys move Free and Scandrick's money around, it will lower their salary cap figures and create $8.6 million in cap room...

If Scandrick and Free make that kinda money they would have to go to jail for stealing. Those DEFINITELY need to be the next two who renegotiate their contracts. It's sad the Cowboys invested that much money on both of them and didn't get all that much in return. I hope they do it for the sake of the team at least.

[CCBoy]

This needs AdamJT's scrutiny...as the almost $1M Dez addition, coupled with the $8.6 for the projected reworks on Free and Scandrick, and put in the additional $6M for a June release of Newman, with the original surplus of $12.5M....and a gross math here, renders: roughly $28M that could be put to use for this season.

Now, to the above add in:

Other players like David Buehler ($1.26 million) or Kenyon Coleman ($1.9 million) could end up as cap casualties as well. Restructuring Jason Witten and potentially Tony Romo and DeMarcus Ware again could free up just about as much space as the Cowboys could ever want.

And if desired, the Cowboys actually could afford Nicks, Carr, Williams, as well as redo their own set of free agents as well.

We all would be left breathless if the team actually did that...but the potential, at least this year, is there.