Cleaning house

If Hurney is still our GM in 2019, that's a bigger problem anyway.

 

I’ve seen a bazarre amount of “Matt Kalil redemption story” narratives out there. Lemme tell you something, not only is that not fucking happening, he’ll go down as one of the top five worst signings in team history.

 

Some people would swear it was Richardson who told Hurney to over pay for two rbs amongst other positions. I want to draft smart and hopefully a LT to keep cam from getting killed

 

I hadn't heard I guess because of the cap hit, before.

 

I am among those who would not be surprised to find that JR did a lot of behind-the-scenes GM'ing.

And for what it's worth, Kalil is better than Clark in protection, I'm not sure about run blocking though. And we're on the hook for Kalil's salary, so there's no point in letting him go unless we can sign an OT who's a guaranteed upgrade.

 

Nobody knows what is said or done behind closed doors. That's a new rule I'm following. Nobody knows.

 

Ok, here's some content. If you really want to talk about cleaning house, let's look at what our roster is likely to look like next year before Free Agency. These are who we have under contract for 2019:

Offense
QB: Cam Newton
RB: Christian McCaffrey and Alex Armah
WR: D.J. Moore, Jarius Wright, Curtis Samuel, and Torrey Smith.
OT: Matt Kalil and Tyler Moton
OG: Trai Turner, Greg Van Roten, and Brendan Mahon
C: Tyler Larsen
TE: Greg Olsen, Ian Thomas

Defense
DE: Mario Addison and Marquis Haynes
DT: Kawann Short, Dontari Poe and Vernon Butler
LB: Luke Kuechly, Shaq Thompson, Jermaine Carter, and Andre Smith
S: Rashaan Gaulden and Da'Norris Searcy
CB: Captain Munnerlyn, Ross Cockrell, James Bradberry, Donte Jackson, Lorenzo Doss, Kevon Seymour, and Corn Elder

ST
Graham Gano, Michael Palardy, and JJ Jansen

Let's assume we stand pat where our specialists are concerned. We've got 23 million in cap space, and a ton of holes. I think that we cut Smith, Cockrell and Munnerlyn, which would bring our cap to 32.6 million. Now we need to sign some people.

Let's start with the offense. It's highly likely we bring Heinicke back, unless we start him the next two games and he really shits the bed. CAP, Fozzy, and Kenjon Barner will be fighting for two spots maybe. I can see us bringing CAP and Barner back, leaving Fozzy as the odd man out because he's expensive and Barner returns kicks.

WR is an odd spot, because we've got some good young talent for a change. Funchess is gone, unless he takes a small contract. Smith is a candidate for release, and that would give us five million back in cap. We'll probably bring Byrd back though, and see what happens with the draft before signing anyone else. Manhertz is back, and we're going to sigh Daryl Williams and, God help me, Amini again. Everyone is going to make similar to their 2018 salary exempt Williams, who will probably carry a cap figure of around 5 million, which is close to top 10 at his position.

This leaves us with 22.3 million in cap space, and our offense looks like this:

QB (2): Cam Newton, Taylor Hienicke
RB (4): Christian McCaffrey, Cameron Artis Payne, Kenjon Barner, and Alex Armah
WR (4): D.J. Moore, Jarius Wright, Curtis Samuel, and Damiere Byrd.
OT (4): Matt Kalil, Daryl Williams, Marshall Newhouse, and Tyler Moton
OG (4): Trai Turner, Greg Van Roten, Amini Silotolu and Brendan Mahon
C (1): Tyler Larsen
TE (3): Greg Olsen, Ian Thomas, and Chris Manhertz

Still have a potential hole at Center, and we could use more WRs and RBs, but all in all we aren't desperate to fix anything before the draft.

The defense needs some work. Start with the secondary. We're probably going to re-sign Eric Reid because of reasons. We still need another Safety, and there's no way we're bringing Adams back for one more year. Colin Jones, however, knows our system and isn't terrible at Special Teams. At Cornerback, we have no glaring needs but would love an upgrade. That's probably going to have to come through the draft. I'm giving Reid a cap hit of two million because he's not getting a big contract anywhere after his play this year, and Colin Jones stands pat. We've got 19 million left.

At Linebacker, I like what we've got. Even with Davis retiring, we have Luke and Shaq as quality starters, and one of our 2018 draftees may be able to join them. We'll probably bring back all our depth here in Jacobs, Mayo, and Norris. Even if that's all we do, I think that LB will be a strength in 2019 again just because of Luke. Current cap is at 16.8 million.

So that brings us to the defensive line. At DT we look ok on paper, but we will still probably give Love another year. On the edge we need help. Obada has shown enough that he's back, and Cox probably is as well. They're likely to get raises, although what the hell do I know about that? I just pencilled them in as making a million apiece, which doubles their current salary. Horton's back too. Now we are sitting at 12 million left, and we need 5 of that set aside for rookies.

This team still has a big hole at DE, I think. We need an impact player there, and this is where I think Hurney or whoever we have tries to generate some excitement. The big names out there will be Ziggy Ansah, Demarcus Lawrence, and Jadaveon Clowney. I think Ansah is older than he claims and he's already a little old. No way does JJ let Lawrence out of Dallas. There's a chance that Houston can't hold on to Clowney because they've already got a ton of money tied up in edge rushers. But they have a ton of cap space, so that's a crap shoot. We would probably need to hit him with a contract that carries a 12 million dollar cap hit his first year. We may look at someone like Dante Fowler, Jr. or Aaron Lynch, and still go hunting for help in the draft. So that leaves us with the following depth chart.

DE (6): Mario Addison, Marquis Haynes, Wes Horton, Efe Obada, Bryon Cox, Jr., and a UFA
DT (4): Kawann Short, Dontari Poe, Kyle Love, and Vernon Butler
LB (7): Luke Kuechly, Shaq Thompson, Jermaine Carter, Andre Smith, Ben Jacobs, David Mayo, and Jared Norris
S (4): Rashaan Gaulden, Da'Norris Searcy, fucking Eric Reid, and Colin Jones
CB (5): James Bradberry, Donte Jackson, Lorenzo Doss, Kevon Seymour, and Corn Elder

That's 51 roster spots, with holes/upgrades wanted at Center, Tackle, Defensive End, and Cornerback. I figure we can get two or three of those filled in the draft, and try out some JAGs to see if we can catch lightning in a bottle with someone.

I'm obviously not a GM, but with two games left this year that's what I'm thinking.

 

Ok, wasn't looking at things the right way. If Kalil is a post June-1 cut, we'll get eight million in cap savings.

He's as good as gone. Dontari Poe gains us six million in cap space as a post June-1 cut too, for what it's worth.