re: Balance The Saints Cap

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So what moves are you going to make?

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What I did in the little game thingy:
-Convert $4m of Brees base salary to signing bonus
-Extended Strief to 3 year, $10m deal: such a big guessing game here. RTs are weird contract wise. Strief could sign a 4yr/$17m type deal in FA or a 3y/$8m type deal with us and neither would shock me. Here, I did a $3m signing bonus, guaranteed $2m first and secondyear salaries, non-guaranteed $2m third year salary (wasn't an option on the tool, but with a $1m roster bonus). Not that anything after this year makes a difference with the cap tool, but it seemed reasonable for him.
-Tagged Graham at $6m
-Picked up Harris's exclusive rights (dirt cheap)
-Original round tendered Bush ($1.3m). The $1.33m would be about the same he would make elsewhere, but with our letting Harper go and likely not re-signing Jenkins, he knows that his best chance at a $3m+/yr deal would be playing another year here as a starter or, more likely, the third safety on a team that runs a lot of 3 safety sets.
-Post June 1st cut Bunkley. Tough choice.
-Cut Lance Moore: Ditto.
-Cut Pierre Thomas
-Don't pick up Morgan's round drafted tender: I think we can re-sign him at vet min if desired, saving us ~$800k.

That leaves us without a center but otherwise in good shape in terms of major needs. That also leaves us with a smidge over $6m in cap space to get our 2014 version of Keenan Lewis/Curtis Lofton (surprisingly good FA with little cap room, thinking someone like Donald Butler or MAYBE Chris Clemons) without touching Grubbs/Colston/Evans. Start playing with their contracts if you have a good chance at getting a guy like Hakeem Nicks on a 1yr/$3m type deal (plus it would be amazing having Hakeem Nicks and Akiem Hicks on the same team).