i found a site that lists us at 30.9 mil under the cap
http://www.phinzmania.com/forums/view.php?pg=salarycap
Again, thats my "prelim" cap sheet for 2009.
See earlier post.
If you read the preface on the salary cap I wrote on that website, I currently have
43 contracts on the cap page.
That 30.9 million only takes 43 contracts into account. I estimated the 2009 cap to be 123 million. Cap's take the top 51 contracts into count. Usually, the last few top contracts to be counted against the top 51 are minimum salary contracts, like rookies or special teams guys or backups.
I havent accounted for any camp fodder or minor roster signings, which Miami will make a lot of. (When I say fodder or minor contracts, I mean like Anthony Armstrong - 310k, Scorpio Barbers - 310k, Will Billingsley - 310k, Chris Brown - 310k, Joe Cohen - 310k, Lex Hilliard - 310k, Erik Walden - 385k, Matt McChesney - 460k, etc.) I think Miami will make a lot of those minor and camp fodder signings, and releases, and tracking each one of them and updating a minimum contract with another minimum contract is a very tedious job and usually results in no net change on the salary cap.
For comparison and estimating purposes heading into free agency, if you add 8 contracts (which because I am counting 43 contracts, 8 more are needed for the top 51 rule) at about 500k each (estimated minimum salary of camp fodder contracts), thats another 4 million, which would put us about 26 million under the cap if we counted 51 contracts.
There have been a few other media outlets which have put us at 24.5 million under the cap, which is pretty close to my estimated 26 million taking the top 51 rule into account.
Factor in rookie signings and us carrying about 2 million in cap space throughout the season if we needed to make an emergency signing, and we probably have around 20 million to spend in free agency if we wanted to. Thats the number to know.
I usually update my page 4-5 times a year at every major point during the NFL season so check back for updates.