The NFL enters uncharted territory today as teams can sign free agents and there are no salary cap restrictions.
“The situation we’re walking into is certainly unknown for everyone,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik says. “So no one can really look at the crystal ball and say here’s what people are going to spend and here’s what people aren’t going to spend. It’s all pure speculation.”
Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based consulting company Sports Corp. Ltd., thinks teams will be tightfisted.
“That’s one of the possibilities in the uncapped season, will some teams be spending far below the current floor, especially teams that perform poorly on the field?” says Ganis. “Teams will have the option of spending the amount on their team that they think it is worth. A 4-12 team does not have the caliber players a consistently 12-4 team has. I expect the small and midsize market clubs are going to start to pay in this uncapped year based on what they can afford.”
It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend. Will teams throw money at the likes of free agent defensive end Julius Peppers or will they stay conservative as Marc Ganis suggests?
I think it will be a little bit of both. I expect some small market teams like the Bills, Browns, Bengals, and Jaguars to all spend significantly less money on player salaries than they did a year ago.
On the other hand, I expect that teams like Dallas and Washington will look at this as an opportunity to go out and buy talent that they could not usually afford. If you are the Redskins would someone like Brandon Marshall or Anquan Boldin would cost them maybe a 2nd and a 3rd round draft pick and a new contract extensions, but either player would immediately upgrade the Redskins attack.
