texastwister said:
The Cowboys have a little more than $11 million in salary-cap room. The 2006 cap numbers for the six players signed – guard Kyle Kosier, linebacker Akin Ayodele, tight end Ryan Hannam, guard Andre Gurode, Owens and Fabini – equal $12.4 million.
I don't know the details of Fabini's contract, but from what I've been able to glean, 12.4 mil sounds a little on the low side:
TO will count 6.67 million this year...
Gurode will count 1.5 million this year...
Hannam will count a little under 1 mil...
Kosier and Ayodele will count 1.5-1.6 million... I forget which one will be 1.6, which one will be 1.5... so, besides Fabini, that's 12.2 million in cap commitment... I'm guesstimating that Fabini will be in that 1.5 million range, but wouldn't be surprised if it was as much as 2.0 mil...
That would mean the Boys have committed to 13.7-14.2 million in cap hit in 2006 thus far, not 12.4 mil...
We also know from Adam that the Boys started out 22.6 million under the cap, and I read media reports that cutting Keyshawn gave us another 1.5 million... that brings us up to 24.1 million... this would mean the Boys are between 9.9 million and 10.4 million under the cap after the signings to date...
Then, we should remember that the Boys need to pay their draft picks and fund a practice squad with some of that money... a conservative estimate would be 3.5 million to get that job done... now we're looking at 6.4 and 6.9 million in available cap room...
After that, some thought should be given to Jerry's stated plan to use some of his cap room to sign young veterans who are looking at free agency next year to contract extensions, the most notable being Jason Witten... I'm purely guessing here, but I figure Jerry's probably earmarked 3-5 million for that... that oughta get a coupla players inked to extensions... and that brings us down to 1.4-3.9 million under the cap...
HOWEVER, we also need to remember that the Boys are gonna do something with Larry Allen's contract, either cut him or renegotiate his deal... I have no idea what kind of money they can free up that way, you'd need Adam to give you a take on that... but I'd say, off the cuff, that the Boys might have 4-6 million to spend in the free agent market... that could get them 3 players of the caliber of Ayodele, Hannam and Kosier... or 2 players, if they choose to splurge a little on a kicker like Vinatieri or Vanderjagt (Josh Brown's cost would probably be more in the Ayodele/Hannam/Kosier range)...
And y'know, if those two players were Vinatieri and a decent free safety, I'd be content with that offseason haul... there's also the possibility that the Boys have more wiggle room available to them in the form or renegotiating some other veteran or veterans' contracts... I haven't heard about any such options, but that doesn't mean they're not out there...
One thing this likely means is that you won't be seeing Keyshawn Johnson or Eric Moulds in Dallas this coming season... any further upgrades to the WR corps will probably come in the draft...
As near as I can figure it, I've covered all the bases, and in the process, left things just as murky as when I started, LOL... I'm looking forward to hearing from somebody who knows a LOT more about all this than I do, AdamJT13... I'm sure he'll offer us his take before too much longer...