Panthers 2016 offseason (my ideas)

[Murph]

While all of us are enjoying this season I know a few of us are wondering how we can retain the majority of this team next year. I decided to see If I could find a way to that so I went to OvertheCap.com and Spotrac and planned out a Panthers team for the 2016 season that is doable within the projected cap. I wish I could somehow just link the page that I created to do this but I couldn't figure out how. Here is what I did:

At the start of the next offseason these were our free agents (unrestricted and restricted)

Charles Tillman CB

Jeffrey Jansen LS

Mike Tolbert RB

Tyronne Green G

Fernando Velasco RG

Kyle Love 43DT

Joe Webb QB

Stephen Hill WR

Amini Silatolu LG

Brad Nortman P

Frank Alexander 43DE

Josh Norman CB --Transaction--Franchise TagExtend

Mike Remmers RT

Wes Horton 43DE

Ben Jacobs LB

Chris Scott RG

There were two guys under contract for next year that I cut: Jared Allen (8.5 million in cap savings) Roman Harper (3.76 million in cap savings)   I completely left Charles Johnson's and Jonathan Stewart's contracts alone...no restructuring giving  us the worst cap hit from them as possible.   From the free agents listed above, here are the ones I retained and their contracts for 2016: Charles Tillman - one year 1.6 million Jeffery Jansen - three year deal 4.2 million deal, cap hit for 2016 is 1 million Mike Tolbert - one year 1.8 million Joe Webb - three year 4.5 million dollar deal, cap hit for 2016 is 1 million Kyle Love - one year at vet minimum (760k) Amini Silatolu - two years at a little above the vet min per year, (900k) in 2016 Josh Norman - franchised, cap hit 13 million Chris Scott - two years at a little above the vet min per year, (700k) in 2016 Mike Remmers - five year 30 million dollar deal, cap hit for 2016 is 4.5 million   The rest of the FA's I let walk. Of the 25 starters from 2015 (11 off.+ 11 def. + 3 special teams) only Brad Nortman is not retained. My choice for doing that is threefold: 1) He is not in the top 10 of any of the stats that matter for punters. 2) His offseason value will be inflated because he is on a great team. 3) The contracts being handed out to the better punters over the past few years are 5 or 6 year deals averaging 3 to 3.75 million per year and Nortman is not worth that. Here is the most important piece of info from everything that has happened above. After the cuts and the re-signings, the top 51 players under contract next year plus the dead money from current and prior year's cuts give us a total of $147 million. Overthecap.com has the projected cap at $150 million. This is also very important, because we will draft so late in each round only our first round draft pick will give us a player in the top 51 next year. The additional cap hit from him will be about 1 million because he will bump out another players cap hit. I have also added a free agent punter to the roster with a cap hit of about 1 million. So here is next year's depth chart with our 1st - 5th round draft picks (I'm assuming our 7th rounder will not make the cuts) totaling 56 players whose top 51 salaries still put us about 1 million below the estimated cap (yeah I know that is cutting it close): OFFENSE STARTERS   1ST BACKUP   2ND BACKUP                       Quarterback Cam Newton   Derek Anderson   Joe Webb                       Running Back Jonathan Stewart   Cameron Artis Payne   Fozzy Whittaker                       Fullback   Mike Tolbert   Brandon Wegher                           Wide Receiver 1 Kelvin Benjamin   Jericho Cotchery   Corey Brown                       Wide Receiver 2 Tedd Ginn   Devin Funchess   Kevin Norwood                       Tight End   Greg Olsen   Ed Dickson   Scott Simonson                       Left Tackle Michael Oher   Nate Chandler                           Left Guard Trai Turner   Amini Silatolu   Draft Pick                       Center   Ryan Kalil   Draft Pick                           Right Guard Andrew Norwell   Chris Scott                           Right Tackle Mike Remmers   Daryl Williams                                             DEFENSE STARTERS   1ST BACKUP   2ND BACKUP                       Left Defensive End Charles Johnson   Ryan Delaire   Arthur Miley                       Left Defensive Tackle Star Lotulelei   Kyle Love                           Right Defensive Tackle Kawan Short   Dwan Edwards                           Right Defensive End Kony Ealy   Mario Addison   Draft Pick                       Left Outside Linebacker Shaq Thompson   AJ Klein                           Middle Linebacker Luke Kuechly   David Mayo                           Right Outside Linebacker Thomas Davis   Draft Pick                           Left Cornerback Josh Norman   Teddy Williams                           Right Cornerback Charles Tillman   Bene Benwikere                           Free Safety Kurt Coleman   Dean Marlowe                           Strong Safety Tre Boston   Colin Jones   Draft Pick                                         SPECIAL TEAMS STARTERS                               Kicker   Graham Gano                               Punter   Free Agent                               Long Snapper Jeffery Jansen               This totals 56 guys, as for which three don't make it the final roster I think the #6 WR and #6 DE would be first two go. You can struggle to find the last guy to cut. So there you go. If you love how this team is put together and want to get one more year out of almost all of them here is one idea that could work.