Clear picture on cap room

[panther4life]

Not trying to steal anybody's thunder and if mods feel a need by all means merge this with another one.

Last years cap was officially 120.375 million

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7570116/nfl-plenty-cap-room-improve

The panthers spent 117.575 miillion.

Leaving 2.8 million unused money to be carried over this year per the new cba.

The cap is not expected to change much(less than a million but wont be officially announced until the next 2 weeks.)

The panthers currently have 132.775 million commited but get a 2.8 million deduction(the money we did not use last year) to the 2012 cap, hence the reports of us being 9.6 million over.

We have to be under the cap by 4 p.m on march 13th, so we will see some cuts and restructures soon.

If we stay put where we are at our draft pick will get a 4 year deal worth around 13 million. Jake Locker last years 8th pick got a 4 year 12.56 deal

and the 9th pick Tyron smith got a 4 year 12.49 million dollar deal. Lockers Cap hit was 2.287 million for 2011. The 40th pick in the draft last year got a 4 year 4.85 million dollar deal. The cap hit for 2011 was only 385k tho.

Its safe to assume the cap hits from this years draft picks will be about 4 million.

So once we do get under the cap just remember we have 4 million commited to draft picks.

Our priciest free agent we probably want to keep is Shockey. He made 3.81 Million on a 1 year deal last year.

Use this link to look at players salaries. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/carolina-panthers/

you can filter by entire contract, cap hit, etc.

and use this one to understand everything cap related. http://www.askthecommish.com/salarycap/faq.asp

EDIT: added 2 very helpful links.

[Keep Pounding]

It still is cutting it close, I'm not that knowledgeable about cap numbers, but it seems everywhere I read, I hear a different view.

[Dex]

Why is everyone so damn worried. JR knows what he's doing and I have faith in Hurney.

[Brandon]

Hurney knows how to manipulate the cap well, it'll work out.