FA2
DE Arnie Blackledge (78/78) is one of our holdover defensive studs. He's going into his last year at a criminally underpaid $1.6m. So he's holding out.
We do have $33m to spend and 34 guys under contract. We could possibly extend him. I value DEs quite a bit, but they're also a spot we seem to be able to spin decent options for pretty cheaply. I think we're likely going to be able to replace those spots with 3-5th round LB types with specialized skillsets in our 4-3 defense. It'll be a nice annoyance to keep this guy around as a nod to our general competitiveness this year and then have him hold out for the duration though.
We fill out with a bunch of UDFAs. And we still have about $20m in space with a legal roster at the end of it. There really isn't a difference-making upgrade piece out there in the last stages of FA2. I think this is likely where we'll be signing any veteran FAs in future years. Just don't really see that piece this year.
We go ahead and do something likely a little stupid... sign DE Blackledge to a 5yr/$75m flat extension. It's a $15m/yr deal. That's a very large portion of our cap, but we've got the surplus this year and hopefully we'll be able to work our way around it in the future.
We already did this one, but my guess is we're likely playing him out through the year in a non-holdout scenario and then franchising him. That could be something that pops up in this career in the future.