AJ’s tendencies regarding free agency are well documented; he doesn’t like to add talent by free agency, particularly marquee free agents. I thought I’d add up the 2009 cap numbers for the New and Gone free agents. I didn’t have numbers for Banks, Mason or McDonald so I threw them in at $300,000 as a guess. It seems like AJ has cleared about $ 13M in cap room from these moves.
At first I started this investigation because it seemed like the Chargers are having a fire sale this off-season.
But as I looked at in more detail there are quite a few guys with old legs on that Gone list: Bennett, LT, Jamal, Osgood, Mano.
So is AJ just getting younger or does the loss of our talented free agents represent a fire sale?
New Garay, Antonio $480,000
New Clark, Corey $306,412
New Strickland, Donald $950,000
New Banks, Gary $300,000
New Mason, Marcus $300,000
New Vasher, Nathan $4,866,666
New McDonald, Ryan $300,000
New Green, Tyronne $412,312
New Sum $7,915,390
Gone Bennett, Michael $1,506,630
Gone Cromartie, Antonio $2,019,130
Gone Hughes, Brandon $356,662
Gone Manumaleuna, Brandon $1,700,000
Gone Osgood, Kassim $1,156,630
Gone Tomlinson, LaDainian $7,548,299
Gone Whitehurst, Charlie $718,630
Gone Williams, Jamal $5,306,630
Gone Ghiaciuc, Eric $1,038,890
Gone Sum $21,351,501