PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Eagles' recent spending spree -- which resulted in new contracts for Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz, Vinny Curry and Brent Celek -- has not exhausted the team’s salary cap flexibility.

That’s the good news. Depending on exactly where the 2016 salary cap lands, the Eagles should have somewhere between $20 and $30 million of space. By cutting a few high-priced veterans -- Jason Peters ($6.2 million cap savings), Mark Sanchez ($3.5 million) and DeMeco Ryans ($3.5 million), for example -- the Eagles could create another $10 to $13 million in space.

With $35 to $40 million in space, the Eagles would be in the top 10 of teams with the most space in the NFL.

The bad news is that the Eagles also have a gaping hole where the franchise quarterback should be. In 2015, Sam Bradford counted for just under $13 million against the Eagles’ salary cap. To use the franchise tag would mean committing $20-25 million of cap space to Bradford this year.

The Eagles could use the franchise tag on Sam Bradford, or they could sign him to a long-term deal. James Lang/USA TODAY Sports

But the Eagles’ current cap space would allow them to work out long-term contracts with Bradford and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox. Those contracts could be structured to keep the cap hits reasonable in 2016.

Last year, for example, the Dolphins signed defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to a six-year contract worth $114 million. That’s a lot of money. But the cap hit for 2015 was only $6.1 million. It balloons to $28.6 million for 2016, but that just shows how contracts can be tweaked to fit the team’s salary cap situation.

Cox already counts against the Eagles’ 2015 cap for $7.7 million because the team used its fifth-year option to extend Cox’s rookie deal. Using a structure similar to Suh’s contract, the Eagles could lock Cox up for the long term without raising his salary cap number in the short term.

The four contracts the Eagles did last month added about $16 million, total, in salary cap charges for 2016. Those deals also give the Eagles stability with four players while the cap continues to go up every season.

If the Eagles try to work out a deal with Bradford, the market is very pricy. Quarterbacks have gotten some very big deals in the past few years. But many of those deals -- Colin Kaepernick's, Andy Dalton's and Ryan Tannehill's among them -- also feature language that allow the team to get out of the deal after two or three years without serious cap damage.

A deal like that would allow the Eagles to spend two years finding out how good Bradford can be in coach Doug Pederson’s offense while maintaining the ability to move on if he doesn’t live up to the contract.

That is the kind of contract the Eagles should have done with Bradford last year, at the time they traded for him. Bradford has more leverage now because free agency is beckoning, but the Eagles could still use the franchise tag as an incentive to bring Bradford to the bargaining table.