$20 mil Over to $20 mil Under the Cap in 3 Easy Steps(and Lose Only 3 Players)

Now that the season is over and people are starting to freak about the cap again, I'm going to show you 3 steps we can take to gain a treasure trove of cap room.

Step 1- Convert Roster Bonuses into Signing Bonuses
Converting Galette($10 mil), Byrd($4.8 mil), Graham($3.3 mil), and Lofton's($3 mil) roster bonuses into signing bonuses saves us about $21.1 mil. We are now under the cap.

Step 2- Cut Some Fat
Here we will cut Evans($6 mil), Bunkley($2.9 mil), and Hawthorne($3 mil). This saves us $11.9 mil.

We can also consider Colston($4.3 mil), Grubbs($3.6 mil), and Lofton($4 mil) here. They are less cost effective as the others(more dead money), and are arguably more valuable than the other 3 also. We would be better served by getting them to take pay cuts or shifting their money around.

Step 3- Extend Brees
The long term numbers don't matter for our purposes here, but we can save varying amounts depending on how we shift the money. I'm going to go with dropping his base salary to $10 mil, saving us $8.75 mil.

Conclusion
So there you have it. We cut only 3 players and saved $41.75 mil with all of these moves, taking us from about $20 mil over the cap to about $20 mil under.