The NFL is behind the times in these 4 areas that need changed
By Brian Miller
The salary cap in the NFL is not really a set in stone structure. Do away with it or make it more realistic.
We have all heard it said that the salary cap “isn’t real” and several teams over the last few years have proven that to be fact. How can a team that has no salary cap room sign big named players to big contracts and still manage to fit it all under the cap?
Sorry, but releasing players and restructuring contracts don’t get it done. Not in the real world. It’s all funny money and teams borrow from the future on the fact that the cap will increase from year to year.
If the NFL wants competitive balance, then this isn’t it. Teams that overreached on contracts in an effort to “win now” have a clear edge over teams that play within the structure of the rules.
One way to change this is to eliminate the cap. Sure, teams like the Cowboys will spend freely and could literally buy a winning team while teams like the Packers may not be able to offer the same kind of money. The NFL could mandate a ceiling that can not be crossed. Something they do not currently enforce with the current cap structure.
The league could cap positional spending instead and allow teams to “borrow” from positions as needed. For example, teams could be given an “X” amount of allocated money to spend on quarterbacks and that must be broken down between starters and backups.
The problem with this is there are still too many gray areas and the NFLPA would never allow that to be a part of the CBA.
The best way to approach it is to keep the cap in place and make it a hard cap with teams forfeiting future cap space for violating it.