Thank you as always, Miguel. A few thoughts:
1. I don't see this is particularly complicated. The Pats are likely about $10M under the league cap, and will probably carry over some money from 2014, so it could be closer to $15M.
2. The Revis situation is the big one. Cut him (not my preference, obviously), and we have tons of room. Extend him, and we should have significantly more room to maneuver. It's only if we keep him with a $25M cap hit that things get tough. I'm hoping for an extension creating enough cap space to handle the 2015 hits for re-signing McCourty, Ayers, Branch, Chung and Casillas. That would take care of most of the defense, and leave room to spare to deal with the offense, rookie pool, UDFAs and contingency funds. Other than Vereen, most of the offensive decisions are second priorities. I think there are several places where the Pats can create a fair amount of extra cap space - Arrington extension/restructure, Amendola cut/restructure, Hooman cut, restructuring Brady's deal, etc. And that doesn't count Wilfork's or Mayo's situation.
The Pats' FO was pretty adept at maneuvering with limited cap space last year. I'm fairly optimistic, though there are obviously a lot of decisions to be made.
As an aside, some of your comments in the player-by-player breakdown using Adamjt13's template seem like they are out of date and were probably written at the beginning of this year (e.g., Gronk is due a payment at the beginning of the league year and could be cut; not very likely at this point, and later in your article you pretty much say he and Brady are the only completely "safe" guys among the top cap hits; you mention Cannon possibly leaving for a starting job - I can't see where he has done anything to justify someone paying him even low end starter's money; you talk about Ridley, Vereen and Bolden competing for 1 "starting RB" job; you mention that Wendell will have to play more like the 2012 version to not be cut - he obviously has). I got a bit confused by your analysis until I figured that out. That's a nitpick, as keeping something this detailed completely up to date is a very laborious exercise.
