How Much Do We Have To Spend?

That's the key question as we head into free agency. It used to be easier to answer that question, because we could just calculate the room under the salary cap, and we all had a sense of how much that could buy.

In an uncapped world, the answer is very different. We have to stop thinking about cap as a budgetary guide and instead think about cash. Over at the EaglesCap blog, BJ has gone though the effort of calculating what the Eagles spent on a cash basis in prior years. His results (in $ millions) for the last three years:

 

What will the team budget be for this year? These goal posts should serve as a useful guide.

Now, given the budget, how much cash are we already on the hook for? I have made some preliminary estimates of that number. I had to make a number of assumptions, including tenders for the restricted free agents (except Ellis Hobbs, who I assumed would be non-tendered) and made some guesses on escalators in some guys' contracts. My biggest guess, though, was Jeremy Maclin. His contract details were never released, at least that I saw. (If anyone has them, let me know.) I assumed that he has a $5.5 million cash payment of some sort next year, an option bonus of some sort. Could be off on that though by $3 million or so in either direction. Really tricky to guess without better data.

Anyway, let's start off with the 10 biggest cash commitments heading into 2010:

 

These guys represent a substantial portion of the cash commitments to the whole team. Looking at the top 51 salaries (a good off season rule of thumb for figuring out what will wind up being paid to the final 53-man roster, and admittedly based on cap rules), the Eagles have a lot of cash committed overall, nearly $115 million. In fact, the team is already pegged to spend nearly as much cash as it has on average in the last three years, and that's before we even sign a single draft pick or free agent ... or star wide receiver:

 

Now, all that said, there is a lot of cash tied up in guys who are rumored to be on the list to be cut or traded, or "dealt with" in some way during the off season. And given the commitment level, you can see why the Eagles would be looking to trim some less productive weight:

 

So how much do the Eagles have to spend? Depends on what they do with these guys listed above. But as you can see, the budget changes dramatically when you start removing these guys.

By the way, I included Clemons and Brown because they draw the ire of fans. But from a cash perspective, they really aren't that big a deal, keeping in mind that $635K is the minimum for players of their experience. It is certainly worth keeping them around until somebody takes their job, as opposed to proactively cutting them (trades, of course, are a different story, if one were to present itself).

For the more expensive guys, like Curtis and Howard, that decision becomes less clear. They make enough that an injury could put you on the hook for a lot of money for a guy for whom you don't have high expectations. And they each are due $1 million roster bonuses, so decisions could come soon on those two.

And for the other five guys ... well, why should the 2010 off season be any less interesting than 2009? But hopefully it is clear why difficult decisions will have to be made on all nine guys listed above.