They were the first team to really understand the cap, and that's always going to be a part of the legacy..
This was the best part of your post and the most accurate
If you think on it, you'll remember that I'm one of the people who's been more attentive to the cap than most around here..... .[/QUOTE] Now there's a shock, DI taking another opportunity to pat himself on the back, while at the same time attempt to diminish what Miguel does for us by trying to force the rest of us to view HIS view of the cap thru his own lens.. :rolleyes
The reality of the cap is that, now that teams understand how it works, as long as it's increasing yearly, accounting maneuvers can be done in ways that make the threat of cap jail a very unlikely one. We've been seeing this since the last CBA. It doesn't make paying attention to the cap a bad idea or waste of time (far from it), and the new CBA addition of actual cash spending will likely make paying attention to the cap even more interesting as we move forward.
Here's where I think you get off the track. The "threat of cap jail" is not "unlikely" it's INEVITABLE if you follow the misnomer of the "cap is crap" any of its incarnations and half truths.
The first truism I learned from Miguel back in his KFFL days, before Ian stole him with a promise of a dedicated cap page was "for every dollar you give to one player, you have one less dollar for everyone else." Now BB is right in that there is SOME maneuverability that teams can choose to use....wisely. So I've come to understand the first rule of capology should be restated to this:
For every dollar you give to one player, you have one dollar less for everyone else.....EVENTUALLY. Because just like the mortgage, eventually the hank has to get paid.
But HERE is where its easy for DI and others to get fooled by the cap, and think it isn't as severe as it could be. They think that as long as the cap number keeps going up, teams can escape "cap jail". But that's only half the truth. They forget that, for example, Team A might find itself needing a $15MM cap increase to stay out of cap jail, and they get it. , NOW, even though they find themselves "out of jail", they are also now $15MM BEHIND most of their competitors to compete to get FA's and keep their own. That debt didn't just "disappear" because the cap # went up. There are consequences, and ones that will hurt
I think we forget that there isn't any right or wrong with the cap. there are just CONSEQUENCES, and pretending they don't exist or are not important is just plain dumb. For example carrying over that $5MM to 2015 on Revis' contract might have cost us Vince and/or Browner, but OTOH, without that $5MM being available there wouldn't have been no Cassillas, Branch, etc.
The Pats do a LOT of incentive based contracts, so when you win a superbowl, or players stay healthy and productive, its going to cost you the next year, and it did. I don't know the exact number, but it was big, millions, and of course affected this off season. But it was a good problem for obvious reasons, but a problem, nonetheless.
So at the end of this overly long rant, what do we actually know about the cap.? 3 things
1.
The cap is most certainly NOT crap.
2. Every cap decision has a consequence that eventually comes due We don't know whether it will be a positive or negative one. Only that there WILL be one. Only after some perfect 20-20 hindsight can we figure out the pluses and minuses.
3.
Every dollar you give one player, there is one less dollar for everyone else....eventually. And if you forget the "eventually" part, you can't ever effectively manage the cap.
