Drafting well and being smart in free agency? Plenty of teams had none of those names and made it further. With all those guys, this year's team wasn't good enough. What makes you think sacrificing future dollars will have a different result next year? If you aren't improving, you're falling behind. The only way to improve cheaply is to go through the draft or have some damn good scouts who can find half of the players you have listed (Schultz, Anger, Kearse)
The Dolphins have $64M in cap space without restructures
The Chargers are at $58M in cap space without restructures
The Bengals are at $54M in cap space without restructures
The Colts are at $37M in cap space without restructures
The Chiefs are at $15 (17th in cap space) in cap space without restructures
The Cowboys (30th) are at -$25M in cap space without restructures
That's at minimum $40M, and up to about $90M in more cap space to start with. Every one of those teams can exercise the same restructuring option. What are you going to get when over half the league can restructure from a significantly better starting point and flat-out outspend you in terms of the cap without doing a single thing? The Cowboys are currently 30th in cap space so there isn't much further to fall than that. In fact, they are $40M below the league average right now. That discrepancy between cap space makes it so you can't even plan on free agency. If someone can spend more than you and is willing, you won't be signing anyone.
Myself, I'd probably be the most interested in keeping the punter. After that, Schultz, but only at a reasonable deal. Those are pretty much the only 2 who consistently performed. Between Lawrence and Gregory, we're only talking 9 sacks. Is that worth $27M plus whatever a Gregory contract would cost against the cap?
If that results in a few less wins, who cares? They weren't good enough with them; they won't be good enough without them. Better get the books right so they can actually go after elite talent at some point.
