Thread: Mostly Complete and Mostly Authorititative 2012 List of Franchise Tags

Well as you can all see the list of top UFA's who have not been franchised is not very large. I've taken the liberty of adding Brandon Carr since KC tagged Bowe as expected. So now we can actually narrow our FA shopping list down for real.

Gotta say the only three who trip my trigger are MWill, VJax, and Big M.C. and even then I'd still rather see us go 2nd tier with a WR in favor of grabbing MWill......but that's me.

Originally Posted by motownbear

Why can't we get both vj and Williams?

If the could get Forte off that Franchise Tag there's probably enough cap room this year to do it. The problem's might come around year three though when the deals for Uralacher, Pep, and Cutler either need to be extended or on at their highest cap cost. It can be done more easily if the cap would start increasing by 10% or so each year.

I think what it comes down to is how we manage the rest of the roster. We as fans and Lovie as a coach have a lot of loyalty to certain players who been great team players but have mostly journeyman talent. Those guys eventually get some pretty decent salaries and collectively can chew up a lot of cap space. Replacing them with less expensive although less experienced talent is how you free up cap space to buy your All Pros.

For instance, Izzy is probably worth about $2.5 mil in salary for a two year deal, $5 mil total. I'd bet we could draft another LDE early in this years draft who could play 80% as good as a rookie as Izzy can and his cap cost might be somewhere between $500k and $1 mil tops. So we save $1.5-$2.0 mil against the cap if we replace him.

Now multiply that times 3 or 4 more Izzy's and pretty soon your cap costs decrease by maybe $8-$10 mil which is how you afford your stars. You lose part of your veteran core in favor of less experienced players but you have more top tier talent in exchange. The trouble is we as fans and Lovie as a coach favor keeping those guys around. They're capable and they're dependable but maybe they just aren't worth what we pay them. AA would be a good example. It was probably time to let him go last year but we kept him on for one more year and got very little in return.

I think BearStuff made a good point when he pointed out how good Pitt can be at releasing guys at just the right time. Releasing Hines Ward is an example. Not the best PR move around because Hines is a fan favorite and bleeds black and gold but to keep Wallace, Hines Ward had to go. Maybe with Emery skills as an evaluator of college talent we can get younger and less top heavy with vet salaries and have more to spend on top tier talent.

Just a thought.

Originally Posted by motownbear

Why can't we get both vj and Williams?

Man, I'd be all for that if they could swing it. If they could, I think I'd be fine with BPA through the entire draft.

Originally Posted by Papa Bear

Man, I'd be all for that if they could swing it. If they could, I think I'd be fine with BPA through the entire draft.

Yeah, I think that getting them both is not out of the question but it would take some creative contract negotiations from the front office.