MAC_32
Footballguy
I wrote back in December how important prioritization is going to be in approaching this offseason. You're hinting at it here. Not everything is going to be fixed in March and April. There will be some calculated risks and I'm very curious where they will be taken. Because we need help at all of FS, DE, DT, ILB, SS, and CB3. And we already have piles of money devoted to the defense.We need at least one more pass rusher and Dorsey was trying to add another dominant DT. We're going to lose Randall at FS and Kirko at LB which was already thin so we need a FS and a LB who can play but we've got Myles and corners who can play press-man.
The defense is much more open to change depending on what we do in FA and the draft and what Woods brings as a coaching strength.
If I had to guess I think those risks will be at SS (hope one of Burris or Redwine takes a big step up with a rehabbing Burnett as the fall back), ILB (use the savings from cutting Carrie/Kirksey to retain Schobert but don't do anything else of consequence), one of the OT's (Lamm vs. Forbes with Hubbard as a fall back), and OG (hope Teller keeps developing, use the loser of Lamm/Forbes as plan B, and intend to add someone in the middle rounds). I think the extent of the priority capital on the OL will be spent round 1 of the draft. I think Browns fans will be pissed about it, but given all of the holes (I didn't even mention TE) I think those would be unreasonable complaints.
So all of that would leave $50 mil in cap space to infuse talent at FS (isn't anyone there), DE (Vernon expires at year's end and there isn't anything behind him), DT (Ogunjobi expires at year's end and there isn't anyone behind him), and CB3 (Mitchell expires at year's end and there isn't anyone behind him). Depending on what happens with the CBA it may be wise to use it all. But we probably can't target anyone that we'd have to lock up for more than 2 years with so many rookie deals ending soon. So none of those adds will be tier 1 free agents. They'll probably be tier 3's. Cause tier 1's get retained then tier 2's that actually get to free agency get paid like tier 1's.