Eagles 2012 Roster, Cap, Draft and needs.

Having gotten fed up with the talk of about coaching changes I was talking to some friends about what we thought the Eagles would look like in 2012 . Having flicked across to www.eaglescap.com and had a look at how the cap was looking for 2012 we pretty much thought the eagles where looking in great shape. But then we started to break down the details and we suddenly realised this is a pretty tough off season to balance. So this is how we broke down the roster going into 2012. I am not going to name FA's or Draft picks because I have no idea who is really available, so instead I am going to look at it by rolls.

Firstly the 2012 roster as it stands now excluding recently added practice squad/camp bodies:

Free Agents:

Owen Schmitt

King Dunlap

DeSean Jackson

Evan Mathis

Juqua Parker

Trevor Laws

Derek Landri

Antonio Dixon

Free agents eagles will probably resign (values are generous gut estimates)

Owen Schmitt ~minimum

King Dunlap ~1-2m (I think we keep him due to his versatility across the Oline)

Derek Landri ~1-2m

Evan Mathis ~2-4m (Having been rated the best guard in football by PFF his value

This will give us a 46 man roster in the region of $108m I am going to ignore people like Chad Hall and Cedric Thornton which have been signed onto the team during the season from a cap perspective since they will probably be competing with draft picks for places on the team.

My guess is that the eagles will waive/trade Asante Samuel and Winston Justice giving us around -$13m in salary but nearly $4m in dead money. Giving us $9m cap relief. We also will nearly certainly fill up the roster with draft picks at a minimum cost of around $4m leaving us with a retained roster of around $103m

Now I don't know the 2012 cap - I am going to throw out a number around $125million. Assuming some wriggle room for mid season additions that gives roughly $20million in cap space. Initially that looks like the eagles are in a pretty good place from a cap perspective, but we have some hard choices ahead.

I think there are 2 players the front office will be looking to give extensions before the end of the 2012 season. Firstly the eagles need to pay LeSean McCoy! Ignoring Shady should be impossible for the front office.. Secondly with the CB franchise tag being so high we will probably want to extend DRC mid season if he is performing to a decent level. Now the eagles have never liked to defer large parts of the salary with huge signing fee's and low base salary. Especially when in 2013 we will need new deals for Maclin and maybe Cole, and the prospect of having to rebuild the roster if we stink it up like this year, I cant see the FO letting Andy go crazy.

So these moves will probably take at least $10m from the cap.

That gives around $10m for Free agency.

There are 2 different sets of needs for the team this off season, things we have to get because we don't have them and things we need upgrade.

Roster needs:

2nd or 3rd QB (FO needs to decide if Kafka is a legitimate no2 for Vick)

3rd Running Back

No 1 WR

5th WR

OL Depth

DT rotational player (depth)

Upgrades to Roster by importance:

MLB

SAM LB

Kick returner.

Safty

Now I believe we can address 3rd RB, 5th WR and OL depth with the back end of the draft or UDFA and will not address them again. I think we will have to tough it out at Safety as I don't see how we will have the ability to significantly improve the position with all our other needs.

That leaves a No.1 type WR, LB upgrades, DT, Kick returner and possibly a No2 QB. Now that is a lot of needs to address with your 1st and 2nd rounds (do we have 3rd round picks under Andy Reid?) and FA. I think there are only 2 realistic ways this can work out.

Sign top FA/trade WR:

That very well could be Desean, a figure of around $8-$10m pretty much wipes out our cap for all of free agency. Even if we don't go for Jackson and go to the rather stacked free agent class of WR this year I think we will struggle to get someone able to take a No1 WR role for less than $8m.

That leaves the eagles in the position where they will need to draft the rest of their needs. With a draft maybe looking like: 1st round LB. 2nd round DT 2nd round QB 3rd round being the best available LB left. Kick returner would have to be a undersized specialist from the later rounds. The problem with this approach is that you often will have to reach to get all the roles you need, and have little or no margin for error with this.

2nd Option: Fix QB and LB with FA/Trade maybe DT

If the Andy does not think that Kafka is ready we will need to bring in a vet QB to cover Vick, now whoever he chooses will probably cost in VY's price range to bring in. That would leave the eagles probably looking to Fix LB with a trade or FA.

We would be entering the draft with pretty much a filled roster except 1 need. Now its hard to say at this stage how the draft boards are shaping up but we will probably need to move up to get a player we can realistically rely on in their first year at WR. The only other option is to take a risk on a high reward but question marked player.

I think this off season could be a challenging one for the Eagles, there is a way to get this roster up to a really high level but with our Offensive play makers moving towards the big contracts they deserve we need to make tough choices on how we can keep improving this team.