Hat Tip: Arrow Head Pride.
Ask The Commish has the salary cap figures for all 32 NFL teams. The Washington Redskins, at 2.388M over the 2007 cap, rank dead last.
In fact only the Carolina Panthers are also over the cap, though they just need to make 3 dollars and 10 cents (seriously who calculates this stuff?) of room. This can be done by either restructuring a contract or buying Roger Goodell a stamp and a long distance phone call.
We're not in "Cap Disaster" mode yet, and I'm not being an alarmist. What many ignore, though, is that being where we're at makes it difficult/impossible to sign the players we need to compete in 2007. The lazy, apathetic attitude of "Well we're in salary cap hell every year, so we'll figure it out this year" won't solve the problem and it won't ever put us in the enviable position of the Arizona Cardinals who, like the Redskins, finished with just 5 wins in 2006 but have 36.7M to spend on whomever they want right now. They can afford to splurge. At the very least, they wouldn't have to waste time "negotiating" with their starting left guard. (For the record, Arizona might just be negotiating with their starting Left Guard right now, I wouldn't have an effing clue. I'm just saying that if we weren't over the cap right now, resigning Derrick Dockery would be yesterday's news).
Whether or not the Redskins will claw their way back to merely embarrassing cap space, can't we all agree that -- all things equal -- 'tis best to have the money and not need it than need the money and not have it?