Well, this is my 2nd response piece of the week but I felt this would be a good idea since GangGreenMag painted a very bleak picture of the offseason in that he had us neither bringing back Braylon Edwards or getting Nnamdi Asomugha due to salary cap constraints. However, even w/ using his underlying math that the salary cap would be at $148 mil, I still believe that this is quite possible. Here's how.
Now, as GreenBeer mentioned in his piece we currently have 61 players on our payroll of $118.5 mil which means we gotta get rid of 10 guys before we even start. These could include Brandon Long, Wilfred Billingsley, Logan Payne, Robby Felix, Dennis Landolt, Lorenzo Washington, Drew Willy, Carlos Brown, Richard Taylor and Marlon Davis (I know, I havent heard of them either. That's why we're getting rid of them). This would save us $3.3 mil total so we'd be down to $115 mil toal w/ $33 mil left.
Next are who we should bring back w/ money amts approximated
Santonio Homes ($7 mil)
Braylon Edwards ($6 mil)
Wayne Hunter ($1.5 mil)
Drew Coleman ($1 mil)
Eric Smith ($1 mil)
David Harris ($10 mil)
Kellen Clemens ($1 mil)
Trevor Pryce ($.6 mil)
Steve Weatherford ($1 mil)
This would cost roughly $29 mil overall and leave us w/ $4 mil at the moment. It also means we would not be bringing back Cro, Ellis, Pool, Brad Smith, Rob Turner, T-Rich, Lance Laury, Nick Folk and James Ihedigbo. If the draft costs us $7 mil then we'd be $3 mil under. Therefore we're gonna need to cut some guys. Here goes.
Bryan Thomas (savings of $3.7 mil)
LT ($2.425)
Jenkins ($4.7 mil)
Woody (3.24 mil)
Taylor ($2.275mil)
Haqrtsock ($1.65 mil)
Brunell ($1.3 mil)
Gholston ($.47 mil)
This would save us another another $19.76 mil which would get us to $16.76 mil under the cap. Add in restucturing Bart Scott and take another $2.25 mil off and we're left w/ $19 mil to spend on free agents.
Nnamdi Asomugha ($13 mil)
Mathias Kiwanuka ($2.5 mil)
Jason Snelling - to take over for LT ($1 mil)
Seneca Wllace ($1.5 mil)
This would cost $18 mil, leaving us w/ $1 mil to spend on another d-lineman or we can resign Jenkins back after cutting him to fill that gap
Here's how our depth chart would look going into the draft
QB: Sanchez, Seneca Wallace, Kellen Clemens
RB: Greene, Jason Snelling, McKnight
FB: The Terminator
WR: Santonio, Braylon, JCo, Patrick Turner
TE: Keller, Mulligan, Cumberland
OL: Brick, Slauson, Mangold, Moore, Ducasse, Hunter, Purdum
DL: Pouha, DeVito, Pryce, Jenks, MTV, Pitoitua, Jarron Gilbert, Matt Kroul, Marcus Dixon
LB: Harris, Scott, Pace, Kiwanuka, Westerman, Mauga, Satele
S: Leonhard, Smith, Lowery, Emmanuel Cook
CB: Revis, Nnamdi, Coleman, Wilson, Cole
K: Novak
P: Weatherford
In addition we also have Joey LaRocque, Carlton Powell, Ellis Lankster, Chris Jennings, T.J. Conley, Cody Brown, Garrett McIntyre, Brain Toal and Eric Ainge to keep us company. Yay.
Going into the draft our obvious needs would be DL, OLB and Safety.