New to the site and was checking out some of the material. Find the website to be very informative and a great resource for Ravens fans. Had some questions relating to the salary cap spreadsheet that Brian McFarland posts. I think the work on this Raven’s salary cap spreadsheet is excellent. Great resource to look at the team’s cap situation. Had a couple of quick questions for Brian or someone else:

• Noticed that Sean Considine’s cap number in the rule of 51 is less than his cap value. Any reason for that? Is this some kind of veteran exemption?
• Also Ramon Harewood and Sergio Kindle have cap numbers less than their base salaries? How does this occur?
• Ray Lewis appears to have a rather complicated bonus structure from what I’ve found on the web. I’ve read that there will be no cap hit if he retires after this year. Is that true? Will his signing bonus proration be fully exhausted? I suppose the other bonuses in later years were roster bonuses rather than option bonuses (recognized fully in the year of receipt as a salary cap hit)?

Looking ahead to 2013 and 2014...looks like we will need to hit some diamonds in the rough in this year and next year's draft if the rumors are true that the cap will not go up much over the next two years. Have big salary cap hits (greater than $10M/year) for Ngata ($16m by 2014), Suggs and Webb (starting in 2014). Guessing that Flacco and Rice will be big hits by 2014 (maybe sooner)as well assuming we resign them. Decent hits in those years also coming from Lewis, McClain, Yanda, Leach, and Boldin. Guessing that Lewis will be done. Could see Boldin as a cap casualty next year, maybe even Leach. At least we have little to no significant dead money likely to hit in 2013 at this point (Birk - $1.4M, possibly Carr/Foxworth if we push any of this year's hit to 2013 as a designated June 1st cut, assumes Ray Lewis is zero impact as rumored when/if he retires)