After a miserable season that looks set to continue all we can do to ease our weary souls is look forward to what might be next year where we have more cap space than we have had in a while.

How big that cap space bounty might be has become a thing of myth and legend, with numbers as big as $90m whispered. So let’s have a look at what the situation might be in 2019 and what we can expect in regards to free agency.

The basics

The basic number as it stands right now with no cuts and no extensions is $67.2m. That’s banking on the salary cap rising to $190m for next year. Not a bad number.

The problem is we only have 31 players signed and that number must cover the top 50 salaries. We also lose several key starters and backups including Fitz, Buc, Nelson, Dawson, Golden, Boston, Gunter, Bene, Pierre, Mayowa, RSJ and Wetzel. So we are not just talking back end of the roster here.

Suddenly that $67m doesn’t seem so much.

Plus, we don’t really have $67m because drafting high doesn’t come cheap. As things stand drafting #2 overall the rookie salary pool will total around $11m (after one or two don’t make it through OTA’s). Now suddenly that $67m is down to $56m.

Put a bare minimum aside for IR signings of $6m and we are at an even $50m. It soon disappears.

Extensions

If we are going to get up to 53 we first have to look our own free agents. The extensions here are highly hypothetical, but we have to work with something.

Fitz – Will he come back or will he call it a career? This is really a coin flip. If it’s an exciting new HC and he feels healthy I think yes. I’m banking on him not wanting to go out on a low and I’m hoping he comes back on a cap friendly deal. 1 year at $11m cap hit.

Golden – This is not a good year to be a DE coming back from an ACL injury with little production. The draft is DEEP with edge talent that is going to deflate the FA market. It’s not a shallow market in free agency either. My feeling is that Golden must settle for something like $6m per year but that we don’t resign him.

Mayowa – Has looked like a decent rotational player and will likely be resigned for depth. $2.5m cap hit.

Ricky Seals-Jones – He’s not good enough for a TE1 in my opinion but he should be back. $1.8m cap hit.

Olsen Pierre – Hasn’t pushed like he has previous years but is a reasonable rotational player. Resigned at $2m cap hit

John Wetzel – I think Wetzel will be back but I’m not sure at what price. I’m going to say 2nd round tender at $2m cap hit.

Everyone else I think walks. Bene, Boston, Dawson, Nelson, Buc etc are gone.

That leaves us with roughly $34m in cap space and 36 players. Not a lot that is it? With that in mind do you want Fitz back? Can Kirk or a high draft pick WR replace that production? Or a cheaper option FA like Golden Tate? Is it time to let Fitz travel the world?

Cuts

There are some obvious cut candidates right away that just aren’t deserving of a place on any roster, but as always with the Cardinals, it's not so simple.

Cutting Andre Smith claws back $4m. He’s just not good enough at pass pro.

It’s time to move on from Mike Iupati but his dead cap is 100%. It save us nothing by cutting him. So he stays but only as a backup swing guard. That’s a pretty good backup to have.

Sadly, Brandon Williams saves us nothing by cutting him so for this scenario he stays as a back end roster guy and someone to give away penalties.

Gresham. Gresham. Gresham. What a bad contract. I want to cut him but it’s a $5.75m dead cap hit and only $2.5m saved. Sadly he stays, but gets cut in 2020 with only $1.75m dead cap.

So we can’t even jettison our dead weight with the way their contracts are structured. Of the players most fans would have at the top of their cut list 3 of them barely gain any cap space.

Total $38m in cap space. 35 players.

What’s left for FA?

I’m not going to propose any FA signings, I’ll leave that to you in comments, but bear in mind 50% of guys currently unsigned will extend with their current teams. What I wanted to do with this article is give you some realistic numbers to work with. That $75m number that’s been floating around is much more like $38m and we still need 18 players.

6 of those are going to come from the draft, and we already took care of that money with the draft pool reduction. So we are up to 41.

Another 6 of those at least will be back end roster spots earning varying degrees of vet min and UDFA contracts. Let’s call them $3m total. Now we are at $35m and 47 players.

The bottom line(s)

So by the calculations we have run through here we have $35m to sign 6 free agents.

If Fitz retires you can make that $46m and 7 free agents but the FA WR market is very slim this year.

I also think there is a good chance Keim restructures Chandler Jones ($19,500,000 cap hit) and possibly P2 to turn some of that money into bonuses and spread it out into future years. He could free up to $10m easily that way at the cost of future cap space. Depending if it’s required.

Using those numbers what would you do? Let us know in the comments.

Team needs would be RG, RT, WR, CB2, FS, 2 x LB, and possibly C. Two or 3 of these should come from the draft.

You can find a full list of 2019 FA's below with thier current salary.

FA list