Should I Stay or Should I Go: Mark Brunell

And if I stay it will be double

Now that the "regular" season is over it's finally time to get down to business. If you're a true Redskins fan you know that our time to shine is nigh, it's the OFF-SEASON!

With that in mind Redskins Fanhouse will kick off the festivities by running down the team's unsigned free agents and potential cap-casualties (this could take a while). I'll try to offer up opinions on what I believe would be best for the organization and what I believe they'll really do.

Today's victim is Mark Brunell who's earnings, talent, and reverence towards Coach Gibbs should make for an interesting situation

2007 Salary Cap Number: $6,715,000 ($4,629,000 dead cap penalty if cut before June 1st)

Importance to Team: Trifling. If Brunell stays on the roster it will obviously have to be in a backup roll. Jason Campbell is the man in town but everybody knows you need good depth in this league. I'm not sure how thrilled I'd be about Todd Collins making a spot-start if JC were to go down. Although his knowledge of the offense is somewhere between negligible and irrelevant he's still a strong presence in the locker room.

Relative Opportunity Cost*: Obviously his cap number vastly outreaches his production so something has to give. The team can't afford to keep a backup on at that kind of salary so he will either have to take a pay cut or face the chopping block.

Verdict: Brunell is scheduled to undergo surgery on his throwing shoulder in the very near future, the results of which could end up determining his future. From where I sit I don't really see the overwhelming need to keep Brunell on the roster. If he's cut after June 1st the team would save almost $2.1 million on the 2007 salary cap, at this point that seems like a good move. If the Skins really are that committed to the aged qb Coach Gibbs will have to have a heart-to-heart with Brunell and his agent/priest to figure out how much they could possibly afford to pay.

*No I didn't really devise a formula to calculate this, I'm a blogger not a mathlete.

All of the salary information used here comes from the Warpath Insider's Cap guru.
PC'S Washington Redskins Salary Cap Pages