For an analogy with Ramcyzk and McCoy, Kyle Turley had 6 seasons to begin his career where he started 15-16 games and made an all pro team. After that, he played 14 games total the next 4 years. Carl Nicks had 4 healthy seasons and then horrible injuries. LeCharles Bentley had 4 healthy seasons and then horrible injuries. Jermon Bushrod was a regular starter for 6 seasons, made two pro bowls, got benched for half a year, converted to guard and managed to start a full season, then broke down and never played another full season. Other guys like Roaf, Armstead, and Evans lasted longer, but half of these pro bowl oline careers are short ones.

Ramcyzk is in year 7 as a full time starter. McCoy is in year 5. I don't care so much about age, I think at that position its more about how each unique player handles the wear and tear. We have to be financially prepared that its reasonably likely that one of them is starting to break down, though it could also be neither or both. It's not financially responsible to put ourselves in a position where there is no backup plan if they both don't last forever like a Roaf or Evans.

I think a player who has had strong seasons at both LG and RT could probably play RG or LT too. He has played both guard and tackle and he has played both left and right side, and he would have to learn a new scheme anyway, so adjusting the positional aspect might not be the end of the world when adjusting the scheme at the same time. At some point one or more of our starters will miss a string of games and we have to decide if we want Collins there or we want Young, Peat, etc. Collins does have the upside to become a solid starter again for a year or two if healthy.

But, we would have to look at the financial consequences of signing Collins too. It would depend a lot on how much money he would want. We are only $2.75 million under the cap, though perhaps there is some offsetting of pushing some lowest of 52 contract off the list if he would sign so perhaps we could give him $3.5 million or something. But that might greatly diminish our flexibility to do anything else.

We could give him a multi-year contract to spread the cost but that is very risky.

We could add a bunch of void years but that gets us in trouble for dead cap in 2024 if its a one year deal and he moves on and all that cash hits the cap.

We could try to restructure other contracts to make room, but after restructuring and extending Granderson and Ruiz, trading Lutz, and cutting Roby, we only have one contract left that has not been restructured for 2023 and includes a base salary of over about $1.5 million. That is James Hurst with a base salary of $3.5 million. James Hurst might be hesitant to restructure his contract to facilitate the signing of his possible direct replacement, given our investments in Penning and Ruiz. Hurst might also want an extension to restructure. An in season restructure is not like offseason, because in the offseason converting salary to a signing bonus means the player getting the money almost a year early, while Hurst is getting his cash weekly now that the season has started and its all guaranteed, and certain methods of pushing the money back would require him taking it later for more of it to apply against future caps, such as converting it to a guaranteed 2024 roster bonus, so logically he might want more money in order to take the cash later or agree to a restructure that doesn't give him any new guarantees or much cash acceleration. And if Hurst agrees and we add void years or a 2024 guaranteed roster bonus and cut him in the offseason, that hits 2024 dead cap.

Considering the financial consequences, if Collins would not come incredibly cheap, it might make sense to delay any potential move until we actually have a significant injury to a starter and then see who is available then. While many teams are close to the cap just like we are, few are also in the position of having essentially every contract already restructured and almost no ability to create new 2023 cap space.