The salary cap has made keeping everyone on the roster an improbable task. Not only will the Chargers have scheduled free agents hit the market, but also they will see some who were not scheduled to hit the market in cuts. The whole plan is worked on and molded. Often times key pieces fall into place, while other times a move is made and later in the offseason another opportunity presents itself, only to be thwarted by the original move. The key is foresight, knowing who will be available when.
As it stands now the Chargers have 18 free agents, three of whom are restricted free agents, seven are unrestricted free agents and eight are excusive rights free agents. For a complete understanding of these terms visit our Free Agent Terminology Page.
None of the current cast will be franchised or used a transition player. Mostly role players and up and coming stars dot the list eligible for free agency. After the season Coach Marty Schottenheimer and General Manager John Butler said they would take a month or more devising a plan. Butler was at the Senior Bowl and had duties to attend. They wanted to make sure they had all their people together to talk strategy. Now with the Super Bowl just ended, the time has come to evaluate and make those good sound decisions they spoke of.
At the time Schottenheimer stated, "I understand the interest of trying to have this information and trying to make it available to our fans; they're entitled to know it, but this is not the appropriate time because right now we want to be accurate.
"There's no reason for us to sit here and speculate that, well, we need to do this, we need to do that. At this point what we have to do is make sure we get the right information. And that can only be done, in my opinion, on the basis of the dialogue that takes place between coaches and the personnel people and John Butler and I.
"I could sit here and play buddy and tell you well we need tight ends we need defensive backs, we need defensive linemen, but I am to going to do that. Right now we need an opportunity to evaluate this outside of the framework, or the emotion of a season just concluded."
We are glad that time is upon us. Finally all the waiting is over and the action fans of the NFL need are almost ready to blossom. We will also update our own list of free agents as news filters in regarding them and potential and finalized contracts. All of that information will be updated via our Chargers Free Agents Page as well as in feature articles. We will also track players as they become ex-Chargers and hope to follow their careers through retirement and possibly beyond. That list will grow this offseason. Let the games begin.
Over the next few days the writers at Chargers Update will be reviewing the chances of each of our own guys returning to the team. With any luck they will do as we say as you have come to know we are always right!
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