Quote:
Originally Posted by The Pest
I think realistically you want to come out of this offseason with the following positions:
A starting defensive end to replace Bailey.
Depth at the OLB spot.
A starting ILB opposite of Hitchens.
A starting CB opposite of Ward (who I think has starting material) and a depth CB.
The safety position is the probably the hardest to determine. I think Sorenson should be cut because his talent doesn't match his contract. Berry is the wild card because of his injury and contract. If it were up to me....I'd look for another starter and a depth piece while cutting Sorenson and Berry.
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I don't see a viable path to cutting Berry if/when he fails his physical and 80% of his 2019 salary ends up guaranteed.
And I think Fuller plays enough outside in our base sets that I am comfortable considering him our CB1 with Ward as the CB2. Ideally you'd find another starting caliber CB but I don't think I want to pay what the market bears for one, especially when I'm as desperate as I am to get Jones and Hill extended. Hell, I'd sure love to lock up Fuller for the foreseeable future as well.
If you have about $25 million in cap space after tagging Ford and cutting Sorensen, you can probably just barely get those 3 guys extended (and I mean
barely). Even if they have relatively paltry year 1 base salries, they're gonna still carry $6-8 million cap hits when you spread those signing bonuses over 5 years. I gotta believe you're looking at at least $20 million in year 1 cap figures to get those 3 extended (and probably upwards of $70 million in cash spending by Clark to get those bonuses paid which isn't exactly a given).
I just think the idea of going out into the market and adding any key pieces is pretty damn optimistic. And you're not getting much more active in 2020 either as Houston/Berry/Watkins dropping off will pretty much pay for the inevitable raises built into the contracts for Hill, Jones and Fuller. We'd be able to move on from Hitchens at that point but it would be painful so if he's even average we'd hold onto him.
Cutting Houston, Berry and Watkins in 2020 would free up about $40 million and that should be enough to cover the massive base salary increases that you see in year 2 of those extensions. I don't see restructuring being the answer either; the money just isn't there if we hope to hold onto the 'new core' of players in their early/mid 20s. And I know Watkins is in that age range himself but injuries and likely earning potential just makes holding onto him incredibly unlikely, IMO.