Listed below is the cap space for each team headed into the 2013 season. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, the cap number for this season is projected to be only a few hundred thousand over last year’s number. However, many teams have the luxury of some carryover cap space. The value is parenthesis represents that carryover value. These numbers are unofficial as of 1/9/2013.

Cincinnati  $55.1M ($8.5M)

Cleveland  $48.9M ($14.3M)

Indianapolis $46M ($3.5M)

Miami  $35.8M ($5.3M)

Tampa Bay  $31.3M ($8.5M)

Jacksonville  $22.1M ($19.5M)

Buffalo  $20.6M ($9.8M)

Tennessee  $19.4M ($12.8M)

New England  $18.6M ($5.6M)

Seattle  $18.6M ($13.2M)

Denver  $18.5M ($11.5M)

Kansas City  $16.1M ($14M)

Minnesota  $16.1M ($8M)

Baltimore  $15.7M ($1.2M)

Chicago  $13.3M ($3.2M)

Houston  $12.9M ($2.4M)

San Diego  $8.7M ($995,000)

Green Bay  $7.1M ($7M)

Philadelphia  $5.2M ($23M)

Atlanta  $4.9M ($307,000)

San Fran  $3.9M ($859,000)

St. Louis  $1.8M ($247,000)

Arizona  -$723,000 ($3.6M)

Detroit  -$1.1M ($486,000)

Washington  -$4M ($4.2M)

Oakland  -$4.5M ($4.5M)

NY Giants  -$4.7M ($1M)

Pittsburgh  -$10.8M ($758,000)

Carolina  -$11.8M ($3.6M)

New Orleans  -$14.7M ($2.7M)

Dallas  -$18.2M ($2.3M)

NY Jets  -$19.4M ($3.4M)

A couple of quick observations:

$74.5M in cap space separates the Bengals and the Jets.

10 of the 32 teams are currently OVER the cap and will need to make moves between now and the start of the league year in March.

January 5-6 — Wild Card Playoffs

January 6 — Assistant coaches under contract to playoff clubs that have byes in the Wild Card weekend may be interviewed for head coaching positions through the conclusion of the Wild Card games.

January 12-13 — Divisional Playoffs.

January 13 — Assistant coaches under contract to playoff clubs that won their Wild Card games may be interviewed for head coaching positions through the conclusion of Divisional Playoff games.

January 15 — Deadline for underclassmen to petition for special eligibility for the 2013 NFL Draft.

January 19 — East-West Shrine Game, Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida.

January 20 — AFC and NFC Championship Games.

January 24-25 — Regional Combine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii

January 26 — Senior Bowl, Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Mobile, Alabama.

January 27 — AFC-NFC Pro Bowl, Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, Hawaii.

January 27 — An assistant coach, whose team is participating in the Super Bowl, who has previously interviewed for another club’s head coaching job may have a second interview with such club no later than the Sunday preceding the Super Bowl.

February 2 — Texas vs. Nation College All-Star Game, Eagle Stadium, Allen, Texas.

February 3 — Super Bowl XLVII, Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana.

February 9-10 — Regional Combine, Orange Coast College-Lebard Stadium, Los Angeles, California

February 16 — Regional Combine, Methodist Training Center (Texans), Houston, Texas

February 17 — Regional Combine, Cleveland Browns Training Facility, Cleveland, Ohio

February 20-26 — Combine Timing and Testing, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Indiana

March 2-3 — Regional Combine, Atlantic Health Jets Training Facility, New York/New Jersey

March 9 — Regional Combine, One Buccaneer Place, Tampa, Florida

March 10 — Regional Combine, Halas Hall (Bears), Chicago, Illinois

March 9-11 — Clubs are permitted to enter into contract negotiations with certified agents of players who will be Unrestricted Free Agents at the end of the current League Year.

March 12 — Prior to 4:00 p.m., New York time, clubs must exercise options for 2013 on all players who have option clauses in their 2012 contracts.

March 12 — Prior to 4:00 p.m., New York time, clubs must submit Qualifying Offers to their Restricted Free Agents with expiring contracts and to whom they desire to retain a Right of First Refusal/Compensation.

March 12 — Prior to 4:00 p.m., New York time, clubs must submit a minimum salary offer to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2012 contracts and who have fewer than three seasons of free agency credit.

March 12 — All 2012 player contracts will expire at 4:00 p.m., New York time.

March 12 — Top-51 Begins. All clubs must be under the Salary Cap prior to 4:00 p.m., New York time.

March 12 — The 2013 League Year and Free Agency period begin at 4:00 p.m., New York time.

March 12 — Trading period begins at 4:00 p.m., New York time, for 2013 after expiration of all 2012 contracts.

March 16-17 — Regional Combine, Atlanta Falcons Training Facility, Atlanta, Georgia

March 17-20 — Annual League Meeting, The Biltmore, Phoenix, Arizona.

March 23-24 — Regional Combine, Virginia Mason Athletic Center (Seahawks), Seattle, Washington

March 23-24 — Regional Combine, Baltimore Ravens Training Facility, Baltimore, Maryland

April 7-8 — Super Regional Combine, Cowboys Stadium, Dallas, Texas

April 25-27 — NFL Draft, New York City, New York.

May 20-22 — NFL Spring League Meeting, Hyatt-Harborside, Boston, Massachusetts.

September 5, 8-9 — NFL Kickoff 2013

The 2013 salary cap is tentatively slated to be at or just below $121 million, according to NFL sources.

The values for restricted free agent designations and franchise tenders have also been set. Below are the tentative franchise tag and transition tag numbers for each position, in millions.

These figures were distributed in early December at the annual meeting of team owners in Dallas, reports NFL.com. They will likely be finalized in March.

CB: Franchise: $10.668         Transition: $8.939
DE: Franchise: $10.984         Transition: $8.994
DT: Franchise: $8.306           Transition: $6.919
K/P: Franchise: $2.926         Transition: $2.654
LB: Franchise: $9.455           Transition: $8.216
OL: Franchise: $9.660           Transition: $8.560
QB: Franchise: $14.642         Transition: $12.845
RB: Franchise: $8.079           Transition: $6.851
S: Franchise: $6.798             Transition: $5.899
TE: Franchise: $5.962            Transition: $5.105
WR: Franchise: $10.357        Transition: $8.716

In years past, the biggest enemy of fantasy football has been Coach Mike Shanahan, who has notoriously played games with the injury report and out-right lied about which of his players would see action in any given week. This year Chan Gailey has replaced Shanahan as Public Enemy No 1. At least Shanahan did what he did to try to get a competitive advantage. We have NO IDEA why Gailey does what he does — namely, limit the amount of touches that his explosive young RB, C.J. Spiller, gets. It reminds me of how the Bills used O.J. Simpson as a “decoy” early on in his career. Or, how George Allen insisted on using John Riggins as a lead blocking fullback.

Take last week.

The Bills pretty much led most of the game. The offensive line was banged up and struggled in pass protection, allowing 5 sacks. The weather conditions were less than ideal. Fred Jackson was averaging just a little over 1 yard per carry, whereas Spiller was averaging over 5 yards per carry in the game. (By the way, Spiller also happens to lead the league in yards per carry this year!) Jackson, who Gailey seems to trust much more than Spiller when the team gets into the redzone, was responsible for a very costly fumble. It was not the first time that Jackson has coughed it up in the redzone this year. Yet, unbelievably, Spiller saw just 7 carries on the day — and just one in the 4th quarter when the offense SHOULD have been trying to run out the clock. There is simply no excuse for this. And Chan Gailey SHOULD be fired for his ineptitude. Chan Gailey, you are a Jabroni!

Now, Jackson did go down late in the game last week with a sprained knee that will cost him the rest of the season. So Gailey is going to be FORCED to use Spiller more. By Gailey’s own admission, the only real alternative, Tashard Choice, is “not a great running back”. But guess what? Gailey will still probably yank Spiller out of key redzone situations and plug Choice in instead against Seattle’s #5 ranked defense (in terms of points allowed to fantasy RBs). Like I said, Chan Gailey, you are a Jabroni!

Even though Gailey has no choice but to give the rock to Spiller, this was the same situation we saw back in Weeks 2 and 3 when Jackson was out with a broken leg. Even in those games, also games in which the Bills led the whole game, Spiller got no more than 15 carries. (In Gailey’s defense, Spiller did injure his shoulder in the 2nd of those 2 games.) Still, Spiller has acquired 15 or more carries in exactly 2 games this season. And guess what? The Bills are 2-0 in those games. (They are otherwise 3-8.)

Chan, are you listening?

It is weeks like this one that try my sanity — and even cause me to question my acumen as supposed fantasy expert.

In one of my leagues I was done-in this past week by a guy who was forced to start Matt Schaub at QB because his usual starter, Eli Manning, was on a bye. Now, I suppose with the way that Eli had been under-performing the last few weeks, my opponent may very well have started Schaub against the lousy Jacksonville defense anyway. True enough. But what hurts is that this guy had very little else in his fantasy lineup this week — yet was able to beat my team thanks almost exclusively to Schaub’s contributions. Schaub passed for 527 yards and 5 TDs, which was good enough for 35 points in this league.

For my part, I whiffed on a couple of my own players in this same league.

It seems that I had the good sense to pick up Marcel Reece off the waiver wire. However, I did not have the cajones to start him over resident stud LeSean McCoy. What am I always preaching? Start your studs every week, right? Of course, Reece racked up almost 200 yards in total offense, and McCoy looks to be out of the lineup for the foreseeable future after sustaining a concussion in a situation in which he probably should not have even been on the field, given that the Eagles were long out of the contest against Washington.

It gets better.

I was so convinced that Denarius Moore was going to have a great week against the Saints’ lousy pass defense (last in the league in most fantasy circles), that I started him over Andre Johnson. This was actually a close call, but I trusted my player rankings. I had Moore ranked 10th and Johnson 15th at the WR position.Moore rewarded my confidence with one measly catch for 9 yards. Considering that Moore also had one rushing attempt for negative 5 yards, he netted me a single catch for 4 yards. Ugh! After the game, reporters asked Palmer why he didn’t get Moore more involved. Well, he tried — 7 targets, which is reasonable — but Palmer said that he and Moore had some communication issues during the game. They promise to work on that together this week. Thanks, fellas.

I did not hate Johnson, I just figured that Arian Foster and the running game would have so much success that neither Schaub nor Johnson would be a huge factor. And who could have guessed that Chad Henne — who did not even start the game, mind you — and Justin Blackmon would FORCE Schaub and AJ to do what they did by rolling up their own collection of insane stats against the Texans’ vaunted defense?

Bet many of you are regretting starting Houston’s defense too, huh?

Like I said, it was just one of those weeks.