We'll have about 50 million in cap space when free agency kicks off.
Now a nice chunk of that needs to be put aside for Wilkerson and other young, core players we need to lock up for the long haul, but any way you slice it we're going into free agency with a GOLD CARD this year, and here's the thing, we are mandated by league rules to spend a whole lot of it. We couldn't pull an Idzik this year if we wanted too. League rules are constructed so no owner can just spend the rest of his life hoarding money. You can get away with that one year, but if you have tons of cap space the following year you are mandated to spend it.
That said, we have a bit of a problem because the cap number was recently raised, and not slightly, but substantially. This essentially bailed out the teams that were up against the old cap limit and gave them a better chance to re-sign their own pending free agents, of course the guys who would have been most coveted on the open market, so it works to our detriment because now we will have boat loads of cash to spend, cash we are mandated to spend, and probably not a lot of young impact free agents to spend it on.
That said, if a player like DeMarco Murray hits the free agent market, it would probably behoove the Jets to designate him a high priority free agent, because again, we have to spend money and it would be nice to get some real bang for the buck, instead of being forced to throw it away on guys who don't really deserve it.
Murray may not be our biggest need, but he is a truly elite player in this league in the prime of his career, just turned 27 last week, and despite getting 400 carries last year, he has not really been over used in his career due to injuries (lost time) and being a member of a RBBC approach in Dallas for the early part of his career. So I would target Murray as a priority FA and make Spiller my fallback Plan B if we are unable to sign Murray.