how to create cap space

[EightyNine]

a lot of people are upset that we are not signing free agents but they know we dont have much money to spend...so who becomes expendable at this point???

your thoughts???

[Ja Rhule]

cap space is for us, fans... I do not believe in cap space.

[EightyNine]

cap space is for us, fans... I do not believe in cap space.

what does that mean?

[Carolina Crazy V2]

what does that mean?

What does...this all...meann?

[jspeight49er]

restructure delhomme for one thing

what are we doing with lucas? Not sure it makes a big difference as far as cap goes whether we release or trade him, but I am curious.

[carpanfan96]

lucas would free up 2.3 million.

[holycrikey]

Restructuring Delhomme is almost a complete necessity at this point.

I could forsee a couple other top guys accepting restructurings to help the Panthers free up space this year (aka, possibly accepting contracts that are backloaded towards more money in years after 09/10).

But I think it'll be just enough for use to sign a couple draft picks and very low-tiered FA's.

Should be a quiet offseason for the Panthers unless they somehow luckily trade Peppers.

[Ja Rhule]

what does that mean?

With my limited knowledge of accounting I can put this team at least $15 million under the cap. At least! I know Hurney can do better.

[carpanfan96]

Restructuring Delhomme is almost a complete necessity at this point.

I could forsee a couple other top guys accepting restructurings to help the Panthers free up space this year (aka, possibly accepting contracts that are backloaded towards more money in years after 09/10).

But I think it'll be just enough for use to sign a couple draft picks and very low-tiered FA's.

Should be a quiet offseason for the Panthers unless they somehow luckily trade Peppers.

Delhomme isn't a given, mainly because to do so would require us to give him an extension as he's in the last year of his contract. I'm not sure carolina wants to do that right now.

[Ja Rhule]

Delhomme isn't a given, mainly because to do so would require us to give him an extension as he's in the last year of his contract. I'm not sure carolina wants to do that right now.

Do you wanna pay him $10 million?

[carpanfan96]

Do you wanna pay him $10 million?

his salary is 5.6 million and that's all the team can touch. The rest is from Bonuses already paid to him by the team. Not a whole lot of relief there. maybe knock him down to 3.6 million this year but his number would still be 8 on the season. Might be able to save 2 million possibly 3 million with an extension. Which, I don't know if that's a big enough incentive for Carolina to Extend him. If they want to they will, but it wont save us an absurd amount of money like everyone thinks it will.

[jramsey4]

With my limited knowledge of accounting I can put this team at least $15 million under the cap. At least! I know Hurney can do better.

I do too. Cut or Trade Peppers. I think Peppers is a tremendous talent and is better then almost anyone we can get in FA or the Draft but seeing as I don't see us ending up with him next season, all he is doing is crippling our team at the moment. Even if he does stay on next year our depth will suck along both line's (never a good thing) as we will be limited to who we can sign in FA. The answer is simple get what you can out of the guy and trade him. It wasn't 2 weeks ago that the possibility of getting nothing out of him was likely (because of Gross) so whatever we get is just icing on the cake.

[panthers55]

his salary is 5.6 million and that's all the team can touch. The rest is from Bonuses already paid to him by the team. Not a whole lot of relief there. maybe knock him down to 3.6 million this year but his number would still be 8 on the season. Might be able to save 2 million possibly 3 million with an extension. Which, I don't know if that's a big enough incentive for Carolina to Extend him. If they want to they will, but it wont save us an absurd amount of money like everyone thinks it will.

Correct. His initial signing bonus can't be extended but his salary could be converted into a signing bonus through an extension and paid out over a couple of years. We could also lock him up for the rest of his career at a lower salary so he could be a cheap back-up when we eventually replace him.

I suspect we could save 3 or 4 million which is a lot of money. I wonder if they may have hoped that they would have traded Lucas and that someone would give 2 1sts for Peppers by now. Therefore they didn't need to look at restructuring Smitty and Jake and some others. If things drag on, they may have to do some more restructuring and extensions.

Maybe they are holding out hope that Peppers will sign long term if no one ponies up the 2 1sts.

[sml1950]

Correct. His initial signing bonus can't be extended but his salary could be converted into a signing bonus through an extension and paid out over a couple of years. We could also lock him up for the rest of his career at a lower salary so he could be a cheap back-up when we eventually replace him.

I suspect we could save 3 or 4 million which is a lot of money. I wonder if they may have hoped that they would have traded Lucas and that someone would give 2 1sts for Peppers by now. Therefore they didn't need to look at restructuring Smitty and Jake and some others. If things drag on, they may have to do some more restructuring and extensions.

The only reason to free up more cap room at this time is to sign a FA. We're assuming that there's someone out there that the Panthers are interested in. Maybe, maybe not.

I suspect it would be relatively easy to redo the contract by guaranteeing all of next year salary, but Jake may actually want a real extention. The structure of this next contract should be a good indication of our long term plans at the QB position.