Can Someone Please Explain to Me Why The Carolina Panthers Always Have Minimal Cap Space to Work With for Free Agency?

[RumHam]

Cut Kalil as post june  cut and that 7 million goes towards draft picks, this should be a given and if it doesn't happen that's step 1 of next year being a waste and not for the better.

Can't believe what Ross Cockrell is making, didn't play a down and wasn't worth that money.

Cut Cockrell, Torrey, Butler, Searcy, Captain, Poe (BTW, these are all your FA Hurney pick ups last year that proves he's still incompetent) 

Restructure Thompson and save about 3 million

After all that we're adding around 19 million to that cap number and puts us close to 35. (adding some room in there for a qualified general manager to squeeze some extra out of it, but then again hurney gonna hurney)

Seriously besides last year's draft, which is only one draft and we haven't seen long term results, what good has Hurney done? Eric Reid's deal was fair. He also took a project in Gaulden in the third and here we are trying to find a free safety a year later. And then there's Gano getting 3.6 million. If they can get him to restructure, that might add another 1-2 million.

[RumHam]

6 minutes ago, grimesgoat said:

A lot of the salary cap space has to do with how much gets carried over from the prior year.  If you don't spend your full cap, you get to carry some over.  It may make sense to build through the draft and squirrel some money away if you know you are not going to truly compete for 2-3 years, then all of the sudden you find yourself with a solid young core and 50 million in cap space (without a bunch of dead money).  Unfortunately the Panthers never think strategically (or more than 12 months out) and are stuck with little money to improve the team through free agency.

Gettleman was pretty good at the rollover game, but then when we finally got some money to play with, we blow it on Munnerlyn, Kalil, etc.  Whether those were Gettleman's signings or not is not as important to me.  The point is we need a GM that is not going to spend every penny he has just because he has it.  And anyone that wants to spend every penny we have for the upcoming season is putting us right back on the treadmill.  Our ceiling in 2019 is possibly sneaking into the playoffs as a wildcard.  To me, that is not worth spending all of our available cap space on a ton of high priced vets.  

This is why the Colts have so much room. They literally signed zero free agents last year and lucked out (HAHA). Now, they're on a spending spree. We really need to follow that model if we aren't going to be competitive next year. 

[kungfoodude]

1 minute ago, grimesgoat said:

Gettleman was pretty good at the rollover game, but then when we finally got some money to play with, we blow it on Munnerlyn, Kalil, etc.  Whether those were Gettleman's signings or not is not as important to me.  The point is we need a GM that is not going to spend every penny he has just because he has it.  And anyone that wants to spend every penny we have for the upcoming season is putting us right back on the treadmill.  Our ceiling in 2019 is possibly sneaking into the playoffs as a wildcard.  To me, that is not worth spending all of our available cap space on a ton of high priced vets.  

I don't get why so many people want us to break the bank to get a "top" pass rusher in free agency this year. Odds are that is going to be something that hamstrings the franchise in the future for relatively little gain. Decide on some of our potential core players(D. Williams, S. Thompson), build through the draft(which we appear to have done well last season), and make some good free agent signings for the future. 

The roster overhaul is probably at least two more full offseasons, possibly 3-4. We were one of the oldest rosters in the league, so this was coming. Think about all the "core" players we have lost in the past two seasons and how many we will likely lose in the next two.

As you said, we are probably going to be a fringe playoff team next season. Just buckle in for the rebuild and be glad it hasn't looked like the Browns, Bills, etc.

[RumHam]

12 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Any of Cockrell, Searcy, Poe or Smith would be as good of a LT as Matt Kalil.

He is one of the top two worst roster moves this franchise has ever made. Very unfortunate we didn't fire Gettleman before he made this idiotic blunder.

One bad move as opposed to four. Got a hurney homer over here. We needed a tackle desperately, the market made overpayment a necessity for veterans, he thought a change of environment with his brother would be good, but it didn't end up well. Hurney paid guys that were more interested in a paycheck than contributing, and overpaying at that. Hurney is still bottom 5 GM in the NFL and probably the worst out of anyone with equivalent tenure. 

[RumHam]

Just imagine being able to sit Cam, tank and roll over 40 million? Get a top QB in the draft for the next five years and win a super bowl in 2020 or 2021?

[Khyber53]

Honestly, our problem has been a straightforward, if not simple, one:

Sometimes we just buy an agent's spiel hook, line and sinker. 

We did it with Matt Kalil when there was absolutely no evidence that he was worth the money we spent. A bit of this might weigh on the shoulders of how much we respected his brother's play here. He did improve our O-line play results last season by staying at home on the couch. We got suckered here.

We did it with Dontari Poe who got the big check and never lived up to it. He actually looked gassed and out of place a lot of last year, he may not have had the conditioning at this stage in the game to really compete on that level. Of course, sometimes a fat wallet weighs a guy down. He was supposed to be the terror of the NFC South, a good vet that had motor and demanded double-teams. Errr, not even close. Suckers, again.

Another fat wallet weigh-down was our old buddy KK Short. He went from tearing up the league on the rookie contract to a big money letdown. Short musters a sack now and then when a QB stumbles into his path, but he's been half-assing it since the contract and it shows. KK, you looked good and we really bought into the "don't let him get away, you'll regret it" idea. Heck, I even fell for that one.

Ross Cockrell, really, who da crap is that guy? I want his agent to sell my house. Talk about getting a buttload of money for nothing! 

Really, we need a guy sitting in at all player/agent interviews who just says no to everything. Everything. Just to make sure we keep a realistic eye on talent evaluation. Personally I like Marty Hurney 2.0 so far, but we can see a bit of it creeping in. We also, however, see him cutting ties with some of the old timers who have hit the end of their career. As much as I hated to see Thomas Davis be put out to pasture, it was too costly to keep him with diminishing capabilities. I think we've got Greg Olsen at that point as well, and I hate to see him go, but I think it is time for him to find a commentator's booth job rather than for us to keep him employed until one finds him.

 

[kungfoodude]

7 minutes ago, RumHam said:

One bad move as opposed to four. Got a hurney homer over here. We needed a tackle desperately, the market made overpayment a necessity for veterans, he thought a change of environment with his brother would be good, but it didn't end up well. Hurney paid guys that were more interested in a paycheck than contributing, and overpaying at that. Hurney is still bottom 5 GM in the NFL and probably the worst out of anyone with equivalent tenure. 

The market dictated we pay a bottom 10 tackle like a top 10 tackle? That is literally retarded.  

[kungfoodude]

5 minutes ago, Khyber53 said:

Honestly, our problem has been a straightforward, if not simple, one:

Sometimes we just buy an agent's spiel hook, line and sinker. 

We did it with Matt Kalil when there was absolutely no evidence that he was worth the money we spent. A bit of this might weigh on the shoulders of how much we respected his brother's play here. He did improve our O-line play results last season by staying at home on the couch. We got suckered here.

We did it with Dontari Poe who got the big check and never lived up to it. He actually looked gassed and out of place a lot of last year, he may not have had the conditioning at this stage in the game to really compete on that level. Of course, sometimes a fat wallet weighs a guy down. He was supposed to be the terror of the NFC South, a good vet that had motor and demanded double-teams. Errr, not even close. Suckers, again.

Another fat wallet weigh-down was our old buddy KK Short. He went from tearing up the league on the rookie contract to a big money letdown. Short musters a sack now and then when a QB stumbles into his path, but he's been half-assing it since the contract and it shows. KK, you looked good and we really bought into the "don't let him get away, you'll regret it" idea. Heck, I even fell for that one.

Ross Cockrell, really, who da crap is that guy? I want his agent to sell my house. Talk about getting a buttload of money for nothing! 

Really, we need a guy sitting in at all player/agent interviews who just says no to everything. Everything. Just to make sure we keep a realistic eye on talent evaluation. Personally I like Marty Hurney 2.0 so far, but we can see a bit of it creeping in. We also, however, see him cutting ties with some of the old timers who have hit the end of their career. As much as I hated to see Thomas Davis be put out to pasture, it was too costly to keep him with diminishing capabilities. I think we've got Greg Olsen at that point as well, and I hate to see him go, but I think it is time for him to find a commentator's booth job rather than for us to keep him employed until one finds him.

 

Yeah, I was actually a little pissed to see Greg return because I was hoping we got some relief from his cap figure. Oh well, at least it is just one more year. Odds are he will get injured again. 

At least we get to see him retire a Panther, I suppose. 

[grimesgoat]

9 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Cut Kalil as post june  cut and that 7 million goes towards draft picks, this should be a given and if it doesn't happen that's step 1 of next year being a waste and not for the better.

Can't believe what Ross Cockrell is making, didn't play a down and wasn't worth that money.

Cut Cockrell, Torrey, Butler, Searcy, Captain, Poe (BTW, these are all your FA Hurney pick ups last year that proves he's still incompetent) 

Restructure Thompson and save about 3 million

After all that we're adding around 19 million to that cap number and puts us close to 35. (adding some room in there for a qualified general manager to squeeze some extra out of it, but then again hurney gonna hurney)

Seriously besides last year's draft, which is only one draft and we haven't seen long term results, what good has Hurney done? Eric Reid's deal was fair. He also took a project in Gaulden in the third and here we are trying to find a free safety a year later. And then there's Gano getting 3.6 million. If they can get him to restructure, that might add another 1-2 million.

I wasn't a fan of bringing Hurney back, but I don't know if we can indict him on the signing Cockrell and Searcy since they got hurt, and Torrey Smith definitely was hindered by Cam's noodle arm.  I'm not necessarily saying bring them all back, just that I wouldn't create dead money just to get rid of them.  Smith we can cut without incurring dead money so I think that is a given since he seems redundant now with our young receivers.

I also don't know why we would cut Butler.  He's fairly cheap and a good rotation guy.

I'm not down on Poe like many here.  I think he will flourish in a 3-4 so I'd like to see him there.  

9m for Shaq is way too much.  Restructure or let him walk.

I don't care how much it costs/saves to keep Kalil around - he needs to be gone.  Sends the wrong message if he sticks around.

Frankly I do not believe we will have enough to do much more than pay our draft picks, fill out the back of the roster, and maybe sign 1-2 new guys.  If Williams can be signed for around 5-6 million, I do that.  I wouldn't spend more than that on a guy coming off knee surgery.  Maybe try to grab a good 3-4 LB, a decent T, and a big-bodied WR not named Funchess and get ready for the draft.  Coming out of the draft with decent starters penciled in and about 15m in space would be ideal for me.

[t96]

14 hours ago, JARROD said:

Seahawks, Cowboys, Texans, Colts all have $50 million plus,.. All on the cusp or playoff teams—- they can buy themselves a championship appearance at least.

Hell— the Patriots won the Super Bowl again and even they have more cap space than we do.

pathetic

Well if Cam was healthy we would’ve been in the playoffs and we have no starters becoming free agents right now. Those teams have several that will either walk and hurt the team or will eat into all that “cap space” they have.

[Mr. Scot]

16 minutes ago, t96 said:

Well if Cam was healthy we would’ve been in the playoffs and we have no starters becoming free agents right now. Those teams have several that will either walk and hurt the team or will eat into all that “cap space” they have.

Technically, Cam was healthy when the Steelers started destroying us.

51 minutes ago, RumHam said:

This is why the Colts have so much room. They literally signed zero free agents last year and lucked out (HAHA). Now, they're on a spending spree. We really need to follow that model if we aren't going to be competitive next year. 

Do you really see Hurney and Rivera going that route as opposed to trying to win now?

[RumHam]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Technically, Cam was healthy when the Steelers started destroying us.

Do you really see Hurney and Rivera going that route as opposed to trying to win now?

No I have absolutely no faith. Everyone wants to point to the shittsburgh game, but the fact is the shoulder was bad before then and in all honesty it was the Rivera Gets Exposed game. We were already down fourteen points when that hit happened. No deep passes in prior games or really all season. Tomlin called our bluff and also destroyed our secondary for what it really was.

[t96]

10 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Technically, Cam was healthy when the Steelers started destroying us.

Do you really see Hurney and Rivera going that route as opposed to trying to win now?

Your point? Pats got destroyed by some sh*tty teams this year. One game does not make a season and we were 6-3 after that. We proceeded to lose our next 5 games by a total of 20 points... A 100% Cam changes that tremendously.

[Dingo_ate_Babies]

We can create cap room by cutting: Kalil, Torrey Smith, Cockrell, Searcy, Munnerlyn

and by restructuring: Kuechly

and by extending: Addison and Shaq Thompson