As fellow Redskin fans sift through the rubble of the offseason news... be careful, and have a box of salt ready to grab for all the pinches you are going to need. It is the age of technology, which has spawned the age of sensationalistic journalism. Gone are the days of reading news like gospel and here are the days when an average citizen has to wade through a sea of sensationalism just to try and get to a bottom line. The NFL and the Redskins are no different.
Over the weekend, rumors, stories and headlines sprung up everywhere about the status of Champ Bailey and the possibility that he would be somewhere other than D.C. next year. As every person with an opinion weighs in over the internet, we thought it might be nice to try and look at some cold, hard facts rather than to just continue speculating...
The Redskins have $6.4 M in cap space.
Champ's franchise tag will cost $6.8 M, meaning a roster move needs to be made before he can be tagged.
Bruce Smith is set to count $8.835 M against this year's cap.
Cutting Smith will give an additional $6.5 M in cap space... minimum... the break could be all $8.835M of it if Smith were to retire.
The Detroit Lions are interested in putting Champ together with his brother Boss and are talking to the Redskins about what it would take.
The Lions have $12.5 M in cap space and have the money to ink Bailey's deal.
The Lions have the #6 overall pick in the draft.
The franchise tag usually requires either a first and third round pick, or even two first round picks as compensation for a franchise player.
Matt Millen has expressed his interested in Bailey.
Unfortunately... that's about it for facts. The rest is pure speculation.
Oh sure rumors abound... the Redskins want the #6 overall, a second round pick and a player for Bailey... some crystal ball gazers have DT Shaun Rogers and the #6 pick being the bait... and those are just the Detroit rumors... then there are the K.C Chiefs rumors too... if you were to believe everything you read, the Chiefs should have a deal in place for Bailey by Valentine's Day... er... wait a minute, that was a couple of days ago.
We now live in an era that the onus of determining relative importance is on the reader, not the news publisher. We live in an era where Doug Williams can be leaving Grambling, then not leaving Grambling, and then leaving Grambling again, and all in 24 hours. So as the impetuous internet newshounds scour and scour and scour the internet for just a little bit of news in the offseason, remember one thing, the harder you have to look, the less likely that there will be any truth in it.
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