Color me ecstatic Panthers GM Dave Gettleman has been aggressive in the early free agency period, something he really hasn’t done since coming to Carolina. Time will tell whether he made good decisions. It will also tell whether he spent the money wisely. If you were thinking the Panthers are out of cap space now you would be wrong.

From Over the Cap Total Cap Liabilities: $163,665,140 (Top 51: $156,000,140) Offense: $80,494,784 Defense: $50,560,089 Special Teams: $8,205,000 Team Salary Cap: $181,170,644 Team Cap Space: $25,170,504

The cap number does include $2.5 million for CB Captain Munnerlyn.

This does not include the following that I can tell:

That’s an estimated $8.6 million to subtract form the available cap space.

That leaves the Panthers with approximately $16.5 million in cap space.

The Panthers certainly have enough money to do a number of things. We are now entering the 2nd tier of free agency activity. This is more Gettleman’s style. If he doesn’t make a couple more moves this week then he is instead waiting for the bargain shopping period, his bread and butta! Those deals are rarely for big money.

If he’s happy with what he has done so far then he may instead turn back to existing players. I’m sure Kawann Short would still like to talk a long term deal. His line mate Star Lotulelei would also welcome a long term deal since he is on his final year as well. My preference is to keep both.

What would you do with that cap space at this point Panthers fans?