Carolina has 46 players on its roster and only $275k in cap space. So it will be interesting to see how it maneuvers potentially shorthanded this season. (Hard to do because of inevitable injuries.)

More interesting is next season for Carolina. It has committed almost $146M in salary next season and has almost $62M in dead cap next season, for a total of almost $208M. Yet, the cap is will likely be about $176M.

In addition, Carolina has 7 draft picks in the first 3 rounds of next season's draft - all requiring big money to sign, including bonuses. How will Carolina get out of this fix? Will it be forced to draft and cut pretty good prospects, as it did with this season's 2.25 pick, QB Young? Can Carolina salvage the problem by trading next season's picks for future picks further down the line? It will be difficult to trade them for players in light of the already existing cap issues. Stay tuned.

I'll probably be able to sit on my hands for this season and next but luckily I've already signed my core players to long-term extensions. Only 7 players are set to be free agents in the next 2 years for the team. Even then, I feel like there was more value added to the team this season that was lost with the additions of the FA signings and the 2 draft picks that were kept. The main loss would probably have been LT Nathaniel Daniels who'll be replaced by 4th-year tackle Patrick Lynch. Another may be WR Alex Bishop who had his replacement drafted at 1.23 and arguably better WR Charles Rodriguez. RB Franks and Strickland, who averaged 5.2 and 5.7 YPC will be missed, but not by much with Ellis Russell replacing them having a 4.5 YPC last year. It'll be tough with depth throughout the season but I'm not too worried. Draft picks can easily be traded away for future picks and by then the cap would clear. My blunder with the cap room was simply skipping a year of resigning my players. Resigning them all this year created a high cap cost as evidenced by my core secondary players. CB Pace(7.5M), CB Ho(7.2M), FS Howard(7M), and CB Burt(6.7M). Having all of their contracts front loaded is really handicapping me now but once the dead cap clears and their cap cost drops for the 79' season I should still have a competitive team, a plethora of draft picks, and a cap room that'll allow me to spend more generously.

I expect you'll be competitive before the "79 season. But you are in a tough position short term. Keep your players healthy.

And now the time is right for the Saints to go marching in. Ha ha.