According to Barry Jackson, Miami was under the salary cap by more than $12M, including Soliai's $12M franchise salary. This was yesterday, and before the Berger cut. He wrote that Langford was told his contract was a priority, and that Langford said they are still far apart, and that he was a little frustrated. He went on to say that if Bradshaw has a much better year than Bush, there will be questions asked. To be fair, Ireland is looking at BIG cap hits at QB next year, regardless of how Henne does, and Langford, and Soliai to deal with. And let's not forget Wake, who still has two years left. I posted, during the lockout, that we had the money to sign whoever we wanted. IF we signed Solia to a contract, we would have roughly just under $20M to spend. I do like most of what Ireland has done this off season but, one more impact player on the OL, and/or at RB, would have made me feel a whole lot better.
See, and people are worried about getting blacked out. No worries, we got 12 mil to spend on tickets.
I am not sure how our oline will play in the regular season so I am going to wait before I compliment or rip Ireland not toomany think too much of our offeseason moves but I will say I think we are getting faster i hope we dont spen millions of dollars more on the oline because we wpent too much there as it is. I may be in the minority but I would like Miami to invest more money into the dt or de spot . I think I like the Bush move more then I like the Daniel Thomas move. I wont object to signing another olineman but I dont want us to keep spending money on this position.
The big investments we made in the OL has come and gone, with the exception of "Big Jake." With the re-do of Carey and the rookie salay being cut, we no longer have a big investment in our OL.
Here's a salary breakdown of our OL Long is at $11M this year and next. Carey is $2.5M and a FA. Cog is $1.05 this year and $3.3 next year if we keep him. Pouncey is around $2-3M, without specifics for this year. And no one is saying what Columbo is making, although it can't be much. Long may be making more this year than the other four starters combined. The salaries for the reserves are meaningless, and close to or at the minimum.
Colombo is estimated to be at $2 million this year. And as for the premise of the OP, that we have money left to spend… well, we do have cap space left, but the team isn't required to meet the 99% salary floor until 2013. It makes sense just to hang on to the empty cap space, see what's out there in 2012's free agency, maybe use the cap space to lock up other players long term. Henne's in the last year of his rookie contract, for example.
