With the ability to restructure contracts like Dimitri Patterson's, Dansby's, and cutting ties with Bess...Miami can easily add another $10mil of cap space if they need to. So in reality, Miami has about $50mil of cap space to play with. $6.5mil of that is for the rooks so $43.5mil. Regardless, they can pony up a combined $20mil PER YEAR ($12mil for Wallace and $8mil for Jennings) but that doesn't mean $20mil counts THIS YEAR, so they can have a contract where say $15mil of both combined contracts count towards the 2012 cap space. So we kick both Hartline and Bess to the curb and still tag Starks at $8mil, leaving us with $20.5mil now. Now, remember, we've already locked $6.5mil for the rooks, which in reality, like we did "this past year" all of the $6.5mil won't really be needed as only the 51 top salaries count toward the cap and the 4th picks and beyond really won't even count towards the cap.
So continuing, with $20.5mil left to play with and you've already got all your rookies' cap space to sign them away plus locked down Wallace, Jennings, and Starks.
You lock up Long and Smith to long term deals $10mil for Long and $7mil for Smith, but again, the 2012 cap number structured such that it will count say...$12mil combined. You have $8.5mil left.
Who do you got left? Ah, Mr Bush. $5mil for Bush and the $2.5mil you leave for the season or you restructure someone else like Burnett or Icognito in an extention and loosen up some more money to re-sign Fasano and money to have available for the season in case of injury.
Those are just an example, the numbers can even be structured to count even "less" for some players even. My point is that it is "not" impossible. :)
So continuing, with $20.5mil left to play with and you've already got all your rookies' cap space to sign them away plus locked down Wallace, Jennings, and Starks.
You lock up Long and Smith to long term deals $10mil for Long and $7mil for Smith, but again, the 2012 cap number structured such that it will count say...$12mil combined. You have $8.5mil left.
Who do you got left? Ah, Mr Bush. $5mil for Bush and the $2.5mil you leave for the season or you restructure someone else like Burnett or Icognito in an extention and loosen up some more money to re-sign Fasano and money to have available for the season in case of injury.
Those are just an example, the numbers can even be structured to count even "less" for some players even. My point is that it is "not" impossible. :)
