More movement than normal this year?

[Cyberjag]

Is it my imagination, or are more teams dumping their older starters this year than in years past? There seem to be a lot of reshuffling of more recognizable names going on than normal. If so, it could be a byproduct of teams dumping salary in reaction to the cap staying flat.

At any rate, it seems like a good year to look for temporary safety help, at least...

[Brokenbad]

WE HAVE NO MONEY!!!!!

As far as all the transactions, it's no worse than the NBA.

[jungleking]

It's been talked about a little bit, but you're pretty much right on all points. The cap was growing at a pretty good clip in the years leading up to the CBA, and contracts that were signed before then assumed future growth that isn't happening now. There are a ton of veteran free agents that could be had relatively cheaply.

[CRA]

It's been talked about a little bit, but you're pretty much right on all points. The cap was growing at a pretty good clip in the years leading up to the CBA, and contracts that were signed before then assumed future growth that isn't happening now. There are a ton of veteran free agents that could be had relatively cheaply.

We don't have the money at the momment to afford relatively cheap good vets.

[Stroupe-a-loop]

Yeah, a lot of teams, including us, planned for the cap to be larger by now. It's not, so a lot of people are getting cut. I mean look at how many free agents that were signed a year or two ago have been cut.

[Doc Holiday]

Yep, a lot of teams are in our same position actually, we've been only hearing about the teams that have the extra space.

At least we aren't as bad as the Ravens going forward and having to cut quality starters already on the team, but we are a step shy of that too though.

Things to look at going forward over the next year for the panthers is that Hardy is in a contract year and next year is the first year that Cam can renegotiate his contract.

For those wondering why I and some here were some much for trading DWill it was because its better to have two top tier DE's then two top tier RB's and I would say right now it will be almost impossible for us to resign Cam and Hardy in the same season.

Something also needs to be done about Beason's contract if he's nolonger MLB because he's getting paid like the all pro he was and not the WLB he will probably end up being.

[Panthro]

I'm not sure I jive with your "at least we are not as bad as the Ravens" statement....for reasons

[Kurb]

You guys should probably get comfortable with the idea we don't sign Greg Hardy to a long term deal.

He might get tagged, but the best situation might be to trade him this season before the deadline for MOAR PICZ

[Scrumtrilescent]

Market correction...but then you have the outliers like Miami shitting in the ice cream.

[panthers55]

We will try to sign Hardy to a big contract, we just won't guarantee most of it. Giving guys big contracts isn't a problem as long as you don't create tons of dead cap space down the line. If you give it to them as roster bonuses or options they don't trigger until they are due. If you don't exercise them then they don't count against you. We can sign him and end up with a cap hit or less than 5 million in the first year of the contract. Look at Flacco. He got a 120 million contract but his cap hit this year is 6 million.

Someone could outbid us but that is always the risk you have.

[Cyberjag]

Suddenly I feel a lot better about Gettleman sitting back and waiting until the dust settles. There should be more quality FAs out there than normal. If our biggest loss is Gamble (who missed most of last year anyway), we could possibly go into the draft in better shape than we ended 2012 in.

[panthers55]

Suddenly I feel a lot better about Gettleman sitting back and waiting until the dust settles. There should be more quality FAs out there than normal. If our biggest loss is Gamble (who missed most of last year anyway), we could possibly go into the draft in better shape than we ended 2012 in.

There are a bunch more cuts going to be made as we go so this is the first wave. And next year it will get even more crazy as the cap stays the same and the result of all this year's restructures take effect next year. It is a good time to sign one or 2 year contracts for players as well until the cap goes up in 2015 or 2016.

I suspect guys like Beason and Williams will be kept this year but will be released next year if they don't restructure. While things here might not change that much this year, it will next year.

[thefuzz]

Is it my imagination, or are more teams dumping their older starters this year than in years past? There seem to be a lot of reshuffling of more recognizable names going on than normal. If so, it could be a byproduct of teams dumping salary in reaction to the cap staying flat.

At any rate, it seems like a good year to look for temporary safety help, at least...

I think that you are pretty dead on it.

When Hurney and other GM's were "hoping" for the cap to go up, I was shaking my head not to do the things that they were doing.

It wasn't set in stone, and I knew that if it didn't happen, then we would be in this situation.

We are, and we aren't alone.

The big difference is some of the other teams have had better drafts, and had deeper rosters, we have not, and do not.

[rayzor]

most teams were in cap trouble because they wrote checks thinking that the tv deals would have raised the cap higher earlier.

rookie cap makes draft picks nicer options and seeing them have success earlier makes older players with significant cap hits expendable.

teams fighting to make cap room cut loose a lot of decent, but overpriced and replaceable players, essentially flooding the market.

combine little cap space with flooded market and you get buyers market. gutted rosters have created holes so teams are forced to be more active than usual. players facing lots of competition on the open market forces the prices to come down and it also eliminates the pressure for teams to pick up players right away, although a few teams have been too short sighted to notice this.

take CBs for example. i saw reports this morning saying that only 5 of 30 available CBs have been picked up so far and the average cost per year has gone from $5mil/yr to $3mil/yr. jason cole tweeted that the bottom has dropped out of the CB market. what we did in picking up florence yesterday helped set the stage (along with other contracts from other teams) for the going price of CBs.

and the same thing is being done with other positions, tho probably not as dramatic as it is with CBs. munnerlynn will be a whole lot more affordable next week than he was at the start of FA. same with most players that are available.

it seems like there's more activity than usual and there might be, but it's not nearly as active as it could be with all the roster spots available throughout the league and the amount of talent that is available. the reason is most teams understand that they can comfortably wait and the prices will drop on solid players.