Hawkstorian":3ksijzil said:
but my guess right now is between $13M and $18M, which in the grand scheme isn't really much.
I'd guess probably not that high. They've got 126 million on the books for next year. The cap is at 143 and is projected at about 150.
So that means 24 million on the high end, but they still need 18 more people signed to get to the top 51 for the cap, plus they've got sevens starters as UFAs.
So, even if those 18 are all getting paid league minimum and the cap goes up to 150 as projected, they're then at 15 million, and the chances of them 1) not resigining any of their starters and 2) filling out over 1/3rd more of their roster at league minimum is really, really, really low, IMO. Factor in the 1-2 million wiggle room that every team has and I think the low end up your projection is actually as high as you could possibly get on the high end, and is VERY unlikely.
Basically, to get to 13 million in cap room they'd have to not resign any of their FA starters and get from 33 players to 51 players without paying anyone over the league minimum.
(I'm not factoring in the draft pool b/c it's dependent on record and we don't know that either, but for those guys we can assume > 500K per player for the pool, meaning I'm making a conservative estimate (giving them more room)).