Cap Hits

[radtech]

Carlos Rogers and Donte Whitner are both over paid and played poorly a majority of the season. The last 6 games of the season including the playoffs showed how much they slowed and exposed in coverage. What is the cap hit if both were released?

In free agency I would like to see Goldson return but if that doesn't happen, I would like to see Culliver at the free safety position. Hopefully he can control himself better. He played out of control in the SB and looked like he was too emotional.

One intriguing free agent the Niners should take a look at is Keenan Lewis, a free agent corner back from the Steelers. He fits the right age range at 26 and is an underrated corner.

[thesack12]

I'm not sure what either guys cap hit would be off the top of my head. I think Rodgers' is fairly high though.

But I'm with you, this secondary definitely needs to be reworked. They got straight up abused those last 2 games, and lets not kid ourselves Flacco and his WR corps are far from being a top caliber group.

Culliver was just utterly used and exposed. IMO his play is the biggest reason Frisco isnt the Super Bowl champs right now. I don't think you give up on him, but I don't feel comfortable relying on him as anything more than a nickel corner right now.

As for safety, we will see how the Goldson situation plays out. From what I am seeing and reading right now, I get the feeling Frisco will move on from him. I think they will retain Whitner, because his cap number isnt too high and he is pretty good against the run. This draft is also considered to be safety rich, so that is an avenue to explore as well.

At CB its now heavily rumored that Frisco will explore a Revis trade. We will see what whappens with that. I have also heard they have interest in Dolphins free agent Sean Smith. He would be a quality get if the price is right. Either way, I'm glad to see that Frisco apparently realizes that their secondary isnt good enough as currently constructed and are looking at options to improve it.

[and1GS]

Flacco/Boldin/Smith/Rice with Jones at the slot in the passing game is about as good as you're going to get, not to mention that when good Flacco shows up they're even more dangerous. If they aren't a top caliber group I'd like to see who is. Packers, Falcons and Pats are all teams I'd rank above the Ravens, but we beat all of them so I don't think we need a secondary overhaul. We need tweaks.

For example, doesn't make sense to have two hard hitting safeties. Also, Culliver really got smacked up but the problem lies ahead of him on the depth chart. Moving him to FS is an interesting idea, but I think he's too small to make that shift. He's already not that great a tackler and I think he would be exposed at safety. He's a fine corner, just very young and immature. He's got good potential if he starts concentrating better.

[thesack12]

You have to also include TE's into the reciever corps.

In addition to the 3 you mentioned: Packers (Rodgers- Jennings, Nelson, Jones, Finley), Pats (Brady- Welker, LLoyd, Gronkowski, Hernandez), Atlanta (Ryan- White, Jones, Gonzo)

As they are currently constructed, IMO I would easily say that all of:

Giants (Manning-Nicks, Cruz, Bennett, Hixon, Randle)
Dallas (Romo-Bryant, Austin, Witten)
Philly (Vick-Jackson, Maclin, Celek)
Saints (Brees- Colston, Moore, Graham, Henderson)
Denver (Manning- Thomas, Decker, Stokley, Tamme)

Are better overall units than what the Ravens have. 6 of the above mentioned teams also happen to be NFC teams, so that has to be a concern.

I might include San Diego in there as well. (Rivers-Alexander, Floyd, Gates). Those teams are just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I thought deeply about it, I would come up with a few more teams I thought had more solid units as whole.

Baltimore doesn't have anybody that will scare you, or whom you have to specifically game plan for. Ray Rice is that team's best offensive player...

Also, Frisco definitely did not beat Atlanta and New England on the backs of defense, and certainly not the secondary. The D, especially the secondary, got torched routinely by both those teams. Just look at the amount of points the D surrendered in those games. Those games were won solely thanks to Kaep and the offense. You can't keep spotting teams 20 points or so early on, and expect to win those games. Its really a testament to how good Kaep and the offense are that they rallied to beat Atlanta on the road, and damn near pulled off the comeback against Baltimore.

[and1GS]

I don't think you can include Philly in there considering how bad VIck and the o-line were.

[thesack12]

^ Philly is a very dangerous group. Their biggest problem has been not being able to stay healthy as a unit. They are also going to get Jason Peters back, who is widely considered one of the best tackles in the league. He went down in preseason and didn't play a down last year.

The Chip Kelly factor has to be considered as well. We don't know how exactly his scheme is going to project to the NFL, but he is definitely going to utilize a high octane approach. The Eagles already have the personnel in place that fit that style very well, and are capable of being a very potent group. That team has good potential to light up the scoreboard on the regular.

[gswhoops]

Carlos Rogers and Donte Whitner are both over paid and played poorly a majority of the season. The last 6 games of the season including the playoffs showed how much they slowed and exposed in coverage. What is the cap hit if both were released?

Rogers' cap hit is pretty awful if we cut him this year.

If we just straight release him, his entire prorated signing bonus gets pushed onto our cap this year which would give him a cap hit of $4.425M. So, we save $2.9M total but end up paying him almost $4.5M not to play for us (by way of reference, that would be the 9th highest paid player on the team).

We could designate him a June 1 cut, which would mean his cap hit is only $1.45M this year, but the rest of his bonus ($2.9M) would count on our cap next year, when we're going to be squeezed as is. I think the scenario that makes the most sense with Rogers is that we designate him a June 1 cut next offseason, which means his cap hits are $1.45M in 2013 and $1.45M in 2014.

Whitner is more stomach-able (just $833k this year), but I can't see us cutting him unless we bring Goldson back, which looks highly unlikely at this point. I just don't see a defense-oriented team with SB aspirations ditching both their starting safeties in the same offseason.