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Going into week 11, the oddsmakers have given the Rams a 0.9% chance of making the playoffs.
So not too soon to start playing armchair GM, as I've seen many threads here do.
First up - our guys. We are actually in pretty good shape there. Of the starters, only Saffold, Dunbar, and Stewart are UFA.
Currently we have 46 players under contract at $122 million. So little if any cap space, again.
We'll see if Bradford takes a restructure - currently he's scheduled to make $17 million. No way he makes that on the open market so I think he will quietly restructure to give us some room.
Finnegan and Wells are the other guys that you immediately have to wonder if are worth their current contracts. Long is making a lot of money, but seems worth it, as does Laurinitis.
Finnegan is making $10 million - but if we cut him we take a $6 million hit, meaning we only recoup $4 million this year. Wells is playing better, but if we cut him we get the full value back, $4.5 million, with no dead money this year.
I think the smart thing to do is to resign our own guys when possible, and look to restructure Bradford and Finnegan. That would give us some cap room. If Bradford insist on $17 million, probably time to give him his walking papers.
Dunbar should be easy to sign. Stewart personally I like, but the deepest area in FA is Safety - there's 7 or 8 quality starters becoming UFA next year: Bird, Bethea, Whitner, Clarke and Pollard are the best. The market should be depressed with a glut of quality starters.
If Bradford is booted, then we get $10 million cap back (and have $7 million dead money that year). There is almost NO ONE at QB coming up - the only viable starter is Jay Cutler. He's OK, but has a lot of negatives as well. And he'd cost more than we'd have available without other cuts.
We'd pretty much have to go QB in the draft, and that's the hardest position to draft successfully. Even 1st round picks only hit half the time. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on draft success on this board - as a rule if you are in the top half of the first round, you are a 'hit' about 75% of the time. That means someone who starts in the league for 5 or more years. Back half of the first round to first half of the 2nd - 50% chance of a hit. After that it goes down - fast. By the middle of the draft (4th round) you are looking at 20%. QB chances are lower.
Looking around the rest of FA there's a few interesting names - but no money to go get them. We won't be signing much there. And overall the quality at our places of need (except S) are low, and they are high priced. CB has an interesting collection of names as well. Want a splash at RB? 29 year old (by then) Maurice Jones Drew is probably your only hope there.
What will make it interesting is there are several teams in really bad cap shape going into 2014. The Cowboys are $25 million over the cap. The Saints are $18 or so. The Steelers about $15. And the Seahawks are about $1 million over the cap, with some interesting names in the free agency list (Golden Tate for one).
Looks like there won't be too much movement and we'll continue to improve through the draft.
Which sounds good to me.
So not too soon to start playing armchair GM, as I've seen many threads here do.
First up - our guys. We are actually in pretty good shape there. Of the starters, only Saffold, Dunbar, and Stewart are UFA.
Currently we have 46 players under contract at $122 million. So little if any cap space, again.
We'll see if Bradford takes a restructure - currently he's scheduled to make $17 million. No way he makes that on the open market so I think he will quietly restructure to give us some room.
Finnegan and Wells are the other guys that you immediately have to wonder if are worth their current contracts. Long is making a lot of money, but seems worth it, as does Laurinitis.
Finnegan is making $10 million - but if we cut him we take a $6 million hit, meaning we only recoup $4 million this year. Wells is playing better, but if we cut him we get the full value back, $4.5 million, with no dead money this year.
I think the smart thing to do is to resign our own guys when possible, and look to restructure Bradford and Finnegan. That would give us some cap room. If Bradford insist on $17 million, probably time to give him his walking papers.
Dunbar should be easy to sign. Stewart personally I like, but the deepest area in FA is Safety - there's 7 or 8 quality starters becoming UFA next year: Bird, Bethea, Whitner, Clarke and Pollard are the best. The market should be depressed with a glut of quality starters.
If Bradford is booted, then we get $10 million cap back (and have $7 million dead money that year). There is almost NO ONE at QB coming up - the only viable starter is Jay Cutler. He's OK, but has a lot of negatives as well. And he'd cost more than we'd have available without other cuts.
We'd pretty much have to go QB in the draft, and that's the hardest position to draft successfully. Even 1st round picks only hit half the time. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on draft success on this board - as a rule if you are in the top half of the first round, you are a 'hit' about 75% of the time. That means someone who starts in the league for 5 or more years. Back half of the first round to first half of the 2nd - 50% chance of a hit. After that it goes down - fast. By the middle of the draft (4th round) you are looking at 20%. QB chances are lower.
Looking around the rest of FA there's a few interesting names - but no money to go get them. We won't be signing much there. And overall the quality at our places of need (except S) are low, and they are high priced. CB has an interesting collection of names as well. Want a splash at RB? 29 year old (by then) Maurice Jones Drew is probably your only hope there.
What will make it interesting is there are several teams in really bad cap shape going into 2014. The Cowboys are $25 million over the cap. The Saints are $18 or so. The Steelers about $15. And the Seahawks are about $1 million over the cap, with some interesting names in the free agency list (Golden Tate for one).
Looks like there won't be too much movement and we'll continue to improve through the draft.
Which sounds good to me.
