[KI Skins Fan]

Right now, our cap space is approximately $21.5MM but I'm just about certain that we'll have more room than that as FA progresses.

As soon as we reach a long-term agreement with Rak, I think he'll probably help out the team a little by taking perhaps $9.5MM in salary this season, saving the team $2.0MM in cap space. That would take us to $23.5MM.

In my mind, it's a near certainty that we're going to do something to improve the OL. When that happens, some OL currently on the team making approximately $2MM will be cut. That would increase the amount we could spend to $25.5MM.

I think that we need to take advantage of the strong class of FA DE's this year. If we upgrade with a starter there, then Bowen and his $2MM cap number will probably go away. That would mean that we could spend $27.5MM on FA's.

We'll have enough cap space to improve the team. What we shouldn't do is hang on to older, overpaid, under-performing players who can be easily replaced.

One other thing to consider has to do with the typical perception of the FA class on the part of the average fan, including myself. We tend to see our team shopping for the higher priced FA's because those are the players we know. But that is not necessarily going to be the case, except for maybe a couple of players, at most.

If the team's executives were to function that way, we would have no chance of building a winning team. They spend a lot of time and effort scouting and evaluating pro players on other teams. They are going to try very hard (and let's hope they succeed) to identify players who, for whatever reason, will cost less in FA but produce as well as those who would have cost more. Our salary cap dollars may stretch a lot farther than many of us think.

I'm very optimistic about what the Skins can accomplish in FA. I think we have in Bruce Allen a better, more professional GM than we've had for a long time. We'll soon see what he and his team can do.