We do not have many notable players in the last year of their contracts. There is Will Allen, $1.5M, and Benny Sapp, $1.9M. One will be gone and the other likely next year. Vernon Carey, $2.5M, should stay and we see how he plays this season. Joe Berger, $1.5M, is good depth at C and G but, we could look to develop Jerry or, find a better option from final cuts. Chad Henne, $555K, is here and we will see what he does this season. Then there is Kendall Langford, $1.4M, who we have had contract talks with, and reports are that we are far apart. IF we cannot see a possibility of signing him, we have three choices. We can keep him this year and lose him for nothing. We can plan to franchise him next year for over $16.7M (this year's DE tag). Or, we could trade him and likely get good value back. Thoughts?
You have to add Wake and Soliai into the mix as well as both need to be signed long term..Find it hard to believe we will have enough $$$ to sign Langford long term and keep everyone. Top 5 nose tackle,top 5 linebacker,top 5 outside lb,top 5 defensive end in salaries Don't see how it will work
The Fitzgerald, Asomugha and Chris Johnson (once he is signed) contracts are going to make negotiations a nightmare for GMs. No longer do the big $$$ contracts just go to QBs. On the positive (I guess) is if Henne plays well this year and they decide to resign him I don't see him getting top 10 QB money so the salary cap can be spread out a little more to the rest of the team. Not sure where Miami is currently salary cap wise, but using the space to give signing bonuses this year would be wise. It may allow them to keep an extra player or two than trying to sign them all next year. At least for Langford, Wake or Soliai...don't see Carey getting a big payday.
If you get Soliai's $12M cap hit off the books, the team has about $21M in cap to get these guys done, and still have enough to play with at final cutdowns.
I would think Soliai's contract would be tricky to restructure. Would need to be a friendly contract to have him forgo $12.476 mil this year.
We have about $9M now; take out the franchise tag of $12M and it goes to about $21M; new contracts for all might—MIGHT—count $5M against the cap each...that's $15M to get those three done, and $5-6M to sign others.
I predict for the Phins the perfect storm. Henne will throw for around 3500 yards and flip his td and int ratio from last year to 19 Tds 15 Ints they win 2 more games from last year making them 9-7. So what do you do? He's a free agent do you pay him the big bucks? Franchise him?
Depends on who/how you can replace. The Dolphins has proven that they can draft/trade develop DE's and OLB's rather easily. NT's on the other hand are problematic to find and replace if they can be replaced. Ireland has a tough call ahead. If you can't resign then you must get value/draft pick in return.
We also have Jake Long's contract next offseason (they won't take chances with that one). Sean Smith needs to be sorted out to as I believe he only signed a 4 year contract. If on the very off chance Henne lights it up...then they gotta sign him also. Going to get real dicey re-signing everyone that's for sure. Only so much money to go around.
http://blogs.nfl.com/2011/08/16/updated-cap-space-for-all-32-teams/ This is the latest cap info from the NFL last week. Miami is at $4.9M under. When you add in money saved from Allen or Sapp leaving, we will have over $6M for final cut upgrades or injury replacements during the season, which is fine. I'll do a run down on next year's decisions later, as it is much more involved than now. It appears the we are fine with keeping the franchise in Soliai and see if he can be the same or better than last year. Also, what we do with other players next year will have an effect on what we can afford at NT. We can still redo contracts for Wake Langford, etc without it costing anything this year. The only pressing issue for now is Langford, and if we believe we will be unable to work out a new contract. The salary cap is lower than what most everyone thought it would be, and is not expected to go up much next year. I can't see using a franchise tag of around $17M on him with the other DE's we have. I really want to keep him but, if it looks like we cannot, I have to look at trading him now.
Yeah, good point. After he runs for 1800 yds and 17 TDs, it's going to take a big contract to keep him.
