Well, you can pretty much say that about any player - because you can always cut other players to make it happen or manage the cap in other ways...
Bingo. If Wilfork is willing to agree to sign a price that the Patriots find acceptable the deal will get done.
But managing the salary cap can't just be done with creative accounting -
Extending Wilfork will not need creative accounting unless you consider the NLTBE move to be creative accounting. I do not.
Current Cap Total 110,900,000
Net Effect of signing Draft Picks 1,600,000
Players 52 and 53 and Practice Squad 1,230,000
Cushion for Replacing Injured Players 1,250,000
Estimated Cap Cost 114,980,000
Patriots Adjusted Cap 121,100,000
Cap Overage 6,120,000
The Pats will either use that 6 million to extend some players or push that cap space into future years.
and freeing up a few million here and a few million there on a contract like this does minimize the tough decisions that might otherwise have to be made.
As the graphic shows, the difference in the cap numbers in the 2nd year of those contracts is less than $200,000. The difference in the cap numbers in the 2 years of the players chosen at 78 and 164 is about 140,000. So the Pats saved about $60,000 in 2009 cap space with this trade. IMO, with the 2009 cap projected to be $123,000,000 60,000 is immaterial and certainly not a few million.
