Here is how it would look if the Cowboys cut or traded Romo before June 1st, restructured the top 10 contracts and cut Doug Free. The number is $48.8 million in 2017.
This is how much space they would have to re-sign their own free agents and to sign outside free agents.
Note that new contracts often have very reasonable cap hits in the 1st year. For instance, a new contract for Zack Martin would not create a huge hit in 2017.
Obviously they won't use all of this space because future years also have to be considered.
The main thing to take from this is that worrying about making Romo a June 1st cut is a complete waste of time.
Making Romo a June 1st cut pushes money into future years which is also what happens when they restructure other contracts. It's the same concept either way in regards to the cap.
If they can get anything for Romo in a trade, then they should do it. There is no significant downside in regards to the cap.
Glad you posted this.
I dont know how many times this concept has to be posted before people will consider this approach.
The other thing many have trouble accepting is that Dez probably needs to be replaced by 2020 given his age and wear. It is also quite possible the life of a NFL RB may be 5 years or less - so Zeke's prime may be only during his rookie contract.
If these are correct, it is actually strangely in our advantage if our cap blows up ~2020 and we have a down year or two then to get the high draft choices to reload RB/WR1 and a couple other positions.
I guess people may just have trouble with the concept of tanking.
I actually thought
@bkight13 mentioned extending Romo's contract so that his cap hit is reduced in 2017.
This would make it easier to trade him or keep him as backup.
Is it easier for your to extend your analysis for 3 years so that we know the consequences for restructuring until 2020?
I tried doing it by hand, but it seems you have an automated accurate method.
