MadCards 2014 Offseason plan (Players currently under contract)

[MadCardDisease]

2013 was a year of change. Change for the better. It was a challenging year for new GM Steve Keim, but he was able to completely retool this roster all while the specter of Rod Graves was weighing heavy on the cap.

With the success of the 2013 season comes new challenges for Keim and company. Like 2013 the specter of Rod Graves is still weighing heavy on the cap to a tune of $10,000,000 in dead money. Also with success comes new problems... figuring out which free agents to keep as a part of the core all while maintaining a healthy salary cap for the future.

Here is the 2014 salary contract situation according to Over the Cap:

http://overthecap.com/teamcap.php?Team=Cardinals&Year=2014

The Cardinals currently have about $112M in salary spent in 2014 with $10M in dead money thanks to Rod Graves. The Cardinals are rumored to be moving the $5M of extra cap space from 2013 to this years cap. So that would give the Cardinals about $10M of free cap space to start 2014 off with.

This is where the difficult choices need to be made:


ILB Daryl Washington:

Washington has a court date scheduled later this month. The outcome of that may mean another suspension from the league. The 4 game suspension this year clearly hurt the team early this season. Washington is due a $10M roster bonus in March. Will Washington be suspended again by the league? Will the Cardinals exercise the roster bonus? I believe that the Cardinals will exercise the bonus. This team is clearly better with Washington on the field. We just have to hope that he makes better decisions in the future.


DE/DT Darnell Dockett

I think Dockett was a key part of the defense this year and played well under Bowles system. Cutting him would only save about $2M so I think 9-0 is on the Cardinals roster for another year.



WR Larry Fitzgerald:

Steve Keim has come out saying he and Bidwill intend for Fitzgerald to retire a Cardinal. What does that mean? Could it mean Fitzgerald never leaves the team? or Fitzgerald signs with another team but when he retires signs a one day deal with the Cardinals? Who knows. However one thing is for sure, Fitzgeralds current contract is a heavy burden for the Cardinals.

In 2014 Fitzgerald will count $18M towards the cap. In 2015 that number climbs to $21M. Those are astronomical numbers and something must happen for Fitzgerald to remain on the team. Cutting Fizgerald would save $8M this year on the cap. However it would be very unpopular. Fitzgerald isn't taking a pay cut. So the only option is for the Cardinals shuffle some money around and convert some of it to a bonus.

Prediction: Cardinals convert $5M of Larry's 2014 salary to a bonus and spread it over 2014-18. They will have to revisit this again next year and if he doesn't put up big numbers then they will have to cut him.

Cap Savings ($4M)



OG Daryn Colledge:

In 2014 Colledge will cost the Cardinals $7.275M. Thank you Rod Graves .

Now I think Colledge is a decent OG. However due to Graves and his horrible contract skills, Colledge is now vastly over paid. IMO the only option is to cut Colledge this year. Cooper will be back and can fill in his position.

Cap savings ($2.725M)


ILB Jasper Brinkley

Brinkley is a marginal player who was able to fill in while Washington served his suspension. However with Minter on the roster and if the Cardinals can resign Dansby, there is no need to carry Brinkley.

Cap Savings ($2M)



QB Carson Palmer

Palmer signed a 2 year deal with the Cardinals with a 3rd year that voids right after the Super Bowl. In 2014 his salary soars to $10M. In 2015 he is $3M and then his contract terminates before the season starts. I believe that Keim will extend Palmer's contract into 2015 move some of Palmers 2014 to 2015 in the form of a bonus.

Cap Savings ($4M)



RB Ryan Williams

Very strange situation with Williams this offseason. Normally I'd say that he would be gone from the team very soon but why did the Cardinals keep him on the roster all season. Williams counts about $1.5M on the cap in 2014. Cutting him would save about $1M. I think the Cardinals keep him till after free agency and the draft and maybe through training camp. If they sign Mendenhall or another RB or they draft a RB then I think Williams is gone.

Cap Savings ($1M)



CB Patrick Peterson

Pay the man. Extending Patrick Peterson will be a top priority this offseason. No other player is asked to do as much as Peterson. His price tag won't be cheap though.


By making the moves above(not including the PP extension) the Cardinals will create about an additional $13.725M in cap space to work with. So that with their existing cap space would total about $23M for free agents in 2014.


Next up will be my plan for which Free Agents the Cardinals will go after.

 

[Chopper0080]

Which of those decisions was difficult?

 

[MadCardDisease]

Which of those decisions was difficult?

I wrote that before I decided to break it up into two parts. The difficult part will be deciding which of the UFAs to keep. Although Fitzgeralds contract is an albatross and will be difficult to deal with in the years to come as we keep kicking the can down the road.

 

[kerouac9]

W/r/t Fitz's "bonus": you can't pay a bonus this year and then account for it two years down the road. You have to spread it out equally over the remainder of the deal.

 

[MadCardDisease]

W/r/t Fitz's "bonus": you can't pay a bonus this year and then account for it two years down the road. You have to spread it out equally over the remainder of the deal.

That's right.

So lets call it $5M and spread it over 5 years for simplicity sake. That comes out to be $4M in savings this year.

 

[Mitch]

While I agree with the majority of your predictions---Peterson, at $16M a year (Revis $$$) would be another salary cap albatross in addition to the ones you were already trying to solve.

Look at what BASK were able to do with $16M last year---they were able to sign the following players:

Abraham
Dansby
Shaughnessy
Bell
Powers
Fanaika
Winston
Mendenhall

That's more than 1/3 of the 22 starters.

I think one of the main reasons why the Bucs were 4-12 thus year was paying Revis $16M at the exclusion of adding key other pieces.

You call Fitz's contract burdensome---which it is, no doubt. But, how wouldn't $16M a year for Peterson be burdensome as well? Especially when you can wait a year to work out a deal with him.

 

[MadCardDisease]

As for Patrick Peterson's new contract...


I believe the contract extension will be close to what Cortland Finnegan got with the Rams.

So we are looking at about 5 years $50M with about $25M guaranteed. Now the $25M guaranteed money would be split between a $10M signing bonus with roster bonuses and other incentives coming to the remaining $15M.

So I think the Cardinals can extend PP and only have an additional cap hit of around $2M for 2014 when added to his remaining $5.8M he has for this year.

 

[MadCardDisease]

While I agree with the majority of your predictions---Peterson, at $16M a year (Revis $$$) would be another salary cap albatross in addition to the ones you were already trying to solve.

Look at what BASK were able to do with $16M last year---they were able to sign the following players:

Abraham
Dansby
Shaughnessy
Bell
Powers
Fanaika
Winston
Mendenhall

That's more than 1/3 of the 22 starters.

I think one of the main reasons why the Bucs were 4-12 thus year was paying Revis $16M at the exclusion of adding key other pieces.

You call Fitz's contract burdensome---which it is, no doubt. But, how wouldn't $16M a year for Peterson be burdensome as well? Especially when you can wait a year to work out a deal with him.

Ha! I must have read your mind. See my post above.

Remember that we are talking about Keim and not Graves here. There is no way Keim would panic and give out a contract as horrible as the one that the Jets gave Revis.

Also Revis will not be making $16M this year. The first thing the new Bucs HC does this year is drop Revis and save the $16M on their cap.

 

[GuernseyCard]

Peterson doesn't have to be dealt with until the end of 2014. The only incentive, an important one, for dealing with it now is that it could be cheaper over the long term.

The big Fitz decision, IMO, comes with the $8m bonus due in early 2015.

How much of the Carson salary to bonus are you moving to create the $4m CAP room?