TheOak

Essentially from what I have heard and understand that $2.3m worth of space is where any team wants to start the season with to have room for injuries as Xan pointed out.

So we are starting with 0 cap space theoretically.

I would cut (with justification):

Vilma - Frees up 4.7m, he is presently injured; productive decline for two seasons; still very questionable if he will not be suspended; we already have his replacement.

Shanle: Frees up 1.5m, has lingering shoulder problems, production is damned near zero. His stats have been on a decline since 2008

Ellis - Frees up 5.86m only 10 tackles last year and 0.5 sacks... Dude gots to go!

With 10 LB's on the roster according to the player roster on neworleanssaints.com we can afford to make room there. Vilma and Shanle have 8 and 9 years respectively and are becoming injury prone.

Ellis and Shanle are free agents next year, Vilma is a free agent in 2014.

The argument could be made to keep Vilma for his leadership and to show loyalty, plus he still has contract life after this season... getting rid of Ellis and Shanle frees up 7.36m and neither one of them has done squat in a season or two.