The Titans and the Salary Cap - A Guesstimation

In light of the Chris Johnson holdout, and the repeated calls for "pay da man" issued from the fan base, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at where the Titans actually stand in regards to the 2011 salary cap.  If you want to pay CJ, shouldn't you know if it's possible?

I gathered most of the data from rotoworld.com.  There you can find the most up-to-date contract info for all NFL clubs.  There are a number of players, all recent free agent signings, for which the actual contract numbers aren't available, so the numbers are subject to change.  Also, a number of low round draft picks don't have actual numbers, but they are guaranteed to all be real close and small.

I made a big nasty spreadsheet with everyone, but it is rather pointless given that a lot of the guys listed are not going to make the team.  So, let me just list our Top 20 cap eaters:

• Figures are in millions of cap dollars for 2011, so they include prorated signing bonuses, etc
• Percentages are percent of 2011 cap, based on a $120m hard cap.

 1 Roos,M		$6.83	5.69%
 2 Hope, C		$6.50	5.42%
 3 Stewart, D 		$6.50	4.58%
 4 Hasselbeck, M	$5.00	4.17%
 5 Washington, N	$4.80	4.00%
 6 Scott, J		$4.70	3.92%
 7 Haye, J		$4.25	3.54%
 8 Witherspoon, W	$4.17	3.47%
 9 Amano, E		$4.13	3.44%
10 Ruud, B		$4.00	3.33%
11 Finnegan, C		$3.79	3.16%
12 Bironas, R		$3.65	3.04%
13 Gage, J		$3.50	2.92%
14 Griffin, M		$3.31	2.76%
15 Smith, S		$3.25	2.71%
16 Locker, J		$3.15	2.62%
17 Graham, D		$2.83	2.36%
18 Morgan, D		$2.61	2.17%
19 Fuller, V		$2.06	1.72%
20 Britt, K		$1.88	1.57%

TOP 20 TOTAL           $67.38  56.15%

EVERYONE ELSE          $43.90  36.58%

TOTAL APPROX          $111.28  92.73%

From this you can see who our top-paid players are, and how much cap they take up relative to the total team salary cap.  The number is approximate since:

1. Some contract details might not be exactly right.
2. I don't know if we take a hit for releasing VY.
3. A lot of the guys that are bundled up in "everyone else" won't be on the team, and their cap #'s will be irrelevant.  This includes CJ.  Given a new deal, his current cap number ($1.04 @ 0.86%) won't matter.

Interesting tidbits:

• While Roos has the highest cap number, this is due to a large signing bonus being prorated over his contract.  His base salary is only $5m.
• Chris Hope is the highest paid player on the Titans, by over $1m dollars.  His 2011 base salary is $6m and is cap amount is larger due to a roster bonus.  For nothing more than inflammatory tendencies, that amounts to over 8 times CJs currently contracted salary. ;)
• There are a number of Top 20 cap eaters that may in fact not make the team.  These include fan favorites such as: Chris Hope, Jovan Haye, and Justin Gage.  Those 3 alone account for over %12 of the total team cap amounts.
• A large number of players are entering the last year of their contracts.  For example:  Griffin, Scott, Finnegan, Fuller, and Stevens (there are more)
• And last but not least, there is plenty of cap space available to give CJ a large contract, especially if heavily front loaded in bonus, and back-loaded in salary.   Of course availability of large upfront money is dependant on the Titans's bank account, and I don't know it's status.   This doesn't mean I necessarily support giving CJ everything possible, just that "cap considerations" aren't really a good excuse to avoiding doing a deal with CJ.

If you think numbers are boring, sorry.  If not, I hope this shed at least a little light on the whole "wher be our moneyz!!?!"