mgteich

CURRRENT SITUATION
The projected cap is the $123M. We have $108M under contract for 49 players. Add $4M to fill the roster with four out of re-signees Evans, Paxton, L. Sanders, Hochstein and T. Williams. Add $6M for the cost of rookies, practice squad, IR players and money to sign players during the season. Add a net $0 for cap effects for LTBE's not earned in 2008 and esclators earned. We will then have about $5M of cap money, not a large amount at all (but sufficient) considering that we need at minimum to sign a starting, a #3 wide reciever and some jag backups.

It will be close even to be able to franchise Cassel, but we'll have just enough. $123M less $108M is $15M, but he can't be a franchisee for long. At minimum, we need to re-sign a few of our own free agents early.
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THE PROJECTED 2009 ROSTER

THE HAVES ($98M) 26 players
(including the 2009 1st round draft choice)
The top half (26) of our roster uses over $1M of cap money each. I include our #1 draft pick in our top 26. None of the rest of the rookies will have a cap hit over $1M. These players are almost all starters; all are major contributers. The only likely 2009 major contributers not paid over $1M are last year's rookies. This is our core. There is little waste of cap money. Some are allocated a relatively large amount of cap money since they are near the end of their contracts (Light, Green, Vrabel). Others are bargains since they are in the lastyear of their rookie contracts (Wilfork, Mankins, Hobbs). This is all normal. The challenge will be extend or replace the many players whose contract is up in 2009.

As I look at this group, it as good as we have ever had.

FREE AGENTS TO COME ($10M 8 players $1,250,000 per player)
This includes re-signees. This isn't much cap money, but it will need to suffice.

THE HAVE NOTS ($10M 19 players $525K per player)
(the remaining cap money is for practice players, IR and for the a season reserve)
These are 2008 rookies, 2009 rookies, STers, jags and backups.

I am not sure that this group is as good as in past years, but the Labor Day is a long way away.

RESTRUCTURING ADJUSTEMENTS
It is my hope that several players will extend their contracts with a net total zero effect on the cap.

captadamnj

Rest assured, the Pats front office will find a way to make it work for the players they believe they NEED, which isn't always what they (nor we the fans) WANT.

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Miguel

How did you determine this??

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mgteich

I just put in a WAG. No one knows the actual amount or IMHO has a reasonable estimate. There are a lot of variables. The key for me is that it is the net effect that is important.