Contracts (whose is going up, whose is going down)
Brian Young is one of the highest paid DT in the league and has been seeing the field less each week. I think he will be gone after this season. Fred Thomas could go any where. He could be cut depending on who we bring in or draft, he could re-sign effectively reworking his contract or he could just stay the same. We should also give thought to locking up Will Smith and J. Brown before too long.
Brown is signed until 2011 although the last year of a rookie contract is typically an option year. Smith is signed until 2009 (again, last year is probably an option year). We may not re-sign Smith this season but we almost certainly will the end of next season.
Brian Young is
not one of the highest paid DTs in the league, i'll flesh out his contract in a second. 2.5 mill is high for him, but that can be reworked.
Freddie T will probably rework his. Since he has such a small bonus, there's no risk. He'd still be "cuttable". It's the guys with huge bonuses you worry about reworking deals with (because further inflating the bonus makes it even worse to possibly cut them).
Horn is also another interesting player to watch. He had his new contract backloaded pretty heavy. He is still a good WR but it will be hard to keep Devery on the sidelines and pay Horn the huge numbers. I hope Horn is willing to restructure his deal to something a little more cap friendly. The last thing I want to see from Horn is his contract or play holding this team back much like Rod Smith is doing in Denver. There is no doubt that both can still play but it is not good for the team when a younger guy is riding the pine in favor of a fan favorite making 10 times the money.
Horn I think will have to take a straight up pay cut, looking at the numbers. His signing bonus isn't outragous, but it's enough considering Horn's age they can't tack on another 3 million or so by converting part of his base to bonus. He'll have to reduce his base pay.
Fourtantly, I think Horn may do that.
Now the base salary is not nearly enough to gauge how much money the players are making or counting against the cap. Wish there was a site that would give you all the info.
I'm working on it. I have to search for news reports of the contracts to find it, but I got good detailed info on McKenzie up as well as updating Freddie T and Horns numbers