A Closer Look At Contracts For Josh Wilson, Dwight Lowery

The Falcons plunged their arms into the free agent bargain bin earlier this week and came up with Josh Wilson, Dwight Lowery and a used copy of Total Recall. All three were quite cheap.

Per the excellent Vaughn McClure, the Falcons got each for the veteran minimum possible for their respective years played. In terms of raw salary and cap hits, that breaks down like this:

Josh Wilson, $855,000 base salary, $635,000
Dwight Lowery, $730,000 base salary, $600,000

@TheFalcoholic Still not cheaper than just not getting them

— Justin Proctor (@JustinProc) April 10, 2014

The Falcons could have simply turned to the draft, but these are a couple of low-risk, potentially mildly rewarding signings. I hope Lowery doesn't need to sniff the starting job at free safety, but it's possible he could be a fine one-year stopgap as a third safety, if Mike Nolan chooses to roll out packages where a third safety is featured.

Wilson, on the other hand, is likely competition for fourth cornerback with Javier Arenas. The Falcons could still draft a rookie, but the Falcons have more or less guaranteed themselves one (hopefully decent) veteran behind Desmond Trufant, Robert Alford and Robert McClain.

For a combined cost of $1.235 million, then, the Falcons have some options they can still afford to cut ties with if things don't work out.

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