We're in agreement on the Brady situation - I didn't elaborate the difference between the Montana and the Manning situations, which you did. The beauty of the cap is that it forces teams like the Patriots to over-invest in one or a few guys. See: Colts c. 2011 and Saints c. 2012.
Not even sure what you're talking about here. The cap has little to do with over investment except in cases like the JETS where desperate teams create and then feel pressured to diffuse cap constrictions. And the driving force behind QB negotiations for top tier teams remains if you have an elite one you are loathe to part with him because they remain few and far between and teams absent them have little more than a punchers chance in hell of achieving the ultimate goal nowadays.
The Pats won't do that. They are built for sustained excellence in 2013 -2014 right now. Brady can choose to be part of that or not. An extension with declining guaranteed money is the only way that works barring a sizable jump in the cap to soften the landing, which could be the case. Otherwise this year may be it.
The Patriots already did that. Brady's 4 year extension in 2010 reset the bar on new money AAV ($18M) and guarantees. The fact that it was done with a year remaining allowed it to merely equal ($15.6M the prior bar in total contract AAV. You have to be kidding about the implied threat...
A cap number like Brady's ($8.2M in '12 escalating to $21.8M in '13 and '14) squeezes the payroll in the last two years. Unless the cap jumps significantly, something will have to give. 2013 looks like a major problem - 2014 may not.
Those cap numbers were just re-engineered by the team via restructure.
Revenue from TV goes up dramatically in 2014, according to the projections used in the CBA negotiations, but the owners said the cap will not. Go figure. Expect the NFLPA to file a grievance with NLRB and seek mediation on revenue sharing or threaten a strike to re-open the books.
Revenue isn't going up dramatically any time soon. That was the reality of the deal the NFLPA signed off on. TV deals are always phased in, despite insane projections that mediots spout in the excitement of the moment. That's why the owners had to have a reset - the cap was outstripping revenue growth under the old deal's formula. There is nothing the NFLPA can do about it. The cap is actually set via calculation they agreed upon in the new CBA and the numbers are crunched by an independent auditing firm -not arbitrarily set by the league. They can't threaten to strike, it's prohibited under the CBA. Money was advanced to support the cap in the first couple of calculations (in a tradeoff of sorts where the union agreed to sign off on the cap penalties to Dallas and Washington) because otherwise the cap would have decreased and the NFLPA leadership would have likely been out of jobs. That money will be gradually recouped before the cap increases substantially. That is why Kraft is predicting fairly flat caps through 2014 and only steady but not exponential increases thereafter. But he knew that before he extended Brady this last time because he is one of the members of the executive and compensation committees and that was their goal in achieving a new CBA that worked for the league long term.
My guess is that the NFL is up for a salary cap fight with the NFLPA. When they won the arbitration to keep the Cowboys and Redskins in line, the NFL was awarded the security of knowing they could set the cap wherever they wanted. Prying more out of the owners will require a union that can demand and win transparency.
If they couldn't do that in a lockout they engineered by decertifying so they could get into court, they aren't going to pry anything more out of the league until 2021...they actually traded away something (lots of cap space on two teams who spend like drunkin sailors in FA) to secure just a minimal face saving cap increase in 2012.
On Welker, I hope you are wrong. Prior to the 2011 season, lots of us felt they should have re-worked his deal for four years in the the $7-8M average range. This year, three years at an average $8M made sense, the Pats offered two years at an average of $8M - he rejected that and ended up signing the franchise tag at $9.5.
I hope I'm wrong about Welker, too. Actually I hope I'm wrong about what the FO is thinking.
The Pats pretty much have to offer 3 years (2012 plus a two year extension) - I don't see them going more than that - or live with the year-to-year issue which usually is too expensive and causes rancor. Eight days to go - we'll see.