Breaking News Cap going up $167M to $177M and change

Mariota's contract won't come till next year. Cap would likely go up again, but I'm not sure what our contract situation will be like then. Will likely be moving on from Orakpo and Woodyard then.

Would highly expect us to go after LB's in this years draft to replace those guys next year for cheaper.

Lewan's is the one I expect to come this off season and should be in the $12-14M range as one of the top LT's in the game.

EDIT: With that said, Lewan's deal would be an extension. We're paying him $9M this year on the 5th year option of his 1st round salary. That means any deal we give him wouldn't increase this years cap number that much. Depending on how it's structured, his deal may not increase this years cap much, or we could front load it heavily to make sure we have room for Marcus next year. That's the smart way to go if you ask me.

 

Wut?

Mariota ain't getting a new contract until after the 2019 season.

Lewan's new deal, whenever it gets done, won't count against this season's cap.

 

This is exciting, but in all honesty, outside of depth, this is not a free agent class to spend it in.

Go after some solid depth, role player guys.

 

And Lewan gets paid next season too, doesn’t he?

 

That space is gonna go real fast with Mariota and Lewan.

I don't expect to be big spenders.

 

They have plenty of space at the end of the day. Remember, in a year or two, guys like Walker, Rak, Morgan, Cyp, Sly, May not even be here. Murray is also leaving as well, which will free up some room again. I see us adding a few pieces, and definitely being aggressive in the draft at the interior OL, Defensive front 7, and maybe one more CB positions.

 

I'm good with riding out Mariota. How much cheaper you think it would be to sign him for 4-5 years this year vice next?

 

Why will the space go away because of Lewan? As I said earlier, he's already accounting for $9M against the cap for this year. Even making him the highest paid tackle in the league would only up that number by ~$5M.

We could front load his contract and eat up some of this years cap room to give us lots of room to sign Marcus and other players down the road.

Ideally we do it this offseason so we won't have to worry about him hitting the open market, and we can put some of his contract extension as a signing bonus and front load it so he won't have a big cap number down the road.

 

I'm just not confident we're gonna spend big money in FA

 

We never do. I refuse to believe we ever will until I see it happen.