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Money management Teams looking to restruture for salary-cap purposes
The 10 NFL teams in the worst cap situations still have an incredible amount of work to do to free up space to sign their draft picks and to create emergency funds to get through the season if injuries occur. Every team has already been charged a tender price of $209,000 for each draft pick. (Do the math: If a club had a choice in each round, those seven picks would make up a rookie pool of $1.4 million.) Let's say a first-round pick signs a deal with a cap charge of $1 million this season. The team has already been charged $209,000 to draft that player so that's nearly $800,000 left to be charged to the books. When a drafted player signs, he replaces someone already counted among the team's top 51 salaries. Pretend that the 51st highest salary on the roster is $400,000. That $400,000 is dropped but there's still another $400,000 needed to sign the pick. That's not much relief, especially considering that teams should keep a reserve pool of $750,000 to account for in-season replacements.
Some of these teams plan on cutting players June 1 to create space for their rookies. The 49ers will release Jerry Rice and that alone will free up space for their picks, but not for an emergency cushion. Victor Green has accepted a salary reduction that should go a long way to help the Jets' situation, but they'll need another player or two to follow Green's lead. The Giants should be able to ask the same of aging tight end Howard Cross, tackle Lomas Brown and cornerback Dave Thomas, and Carolina has to take a long look at Sean Gilbert's contract. Dallas doesn't seem to have many options. From a cap standpoint the Cowboys are lucky they don't have a first-round pick to sign and second-round choice Quincy Carter should agree to a cap-friendly deal. But they still only have $4,000 to play with -- I'd say that Mark Stepnowski's contract is a candidate to be redone. The Saints likely will do something with guard Chris Naoele and another offensive lineman to have the space to get their picks into camp. And personnel people around the league anticipate that the Titans will restructure deals or part ways with wide receiver Chris Sanders and possibly linebacker Eddie Robinson. No team likes to let go quality players or offer them "take it or leave it" pay cuts, but when you look at the cap space situations of these 10 teams, something sure has to give. Pat Kirwan, who spent 12 years as a pro football coach, scout and personnel administrator, is an NFL analyst for CNN/Sports Illustrated and a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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