SKINS 5.1 million under cap.

[Bill B]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

If someone throws Dockery numbers at him, I would agree with you (and by "Dockery Numbers", I mean an amount truly out of whack w/ the going rate for TE's). Otherwise, b/c he is as talented as any (and I mean ANY) TE out there - you find a way to resign him.

I don't think it is going to be easy unless they get to him early. The cap jumps by about 10 million next year. While we may be 5M under this year, a lot of salaries balloon next year, other teams will have a lot of cap room to spare and use to bid against us.

Hopefully, we have learned something from the Antonio Pierce fiasco.

I hope you are right about this. My worry is unless we franchise him there is no way he is going to resign early and not test the open market. If his agent is worth anything his advice to Chris is play out your contract and test the open market. What would Cooley have to gain by signing early other than maybe a little goodwill from the fans and team - he would literally lose millions by not testing the market. I think most of us would test the open market if we were in his shoes - Dock did and the Bills throw an absurd amount at him.

So in my opinion if talks break down you have to think the Skins will franchise him - you can't take the risk of losing him for nothing because everyone knows teams will go after Cooley - especially if he is an unrestricted free agent.

Finally - does anyone know who Cooley's agent is? Hopefully not someone too hard to deal with.