May I suggest researching the last part of your statement as it relates to cash received in 2007 as compared to cash received in 2006??
May I suggest researching how much the Colts have spent in cash over the years in comparison to the league rather than focus on one year??
All I can add is that there were so many teams that did not spend that the 2007/2008/2009/2010/2011 caps were adjusted up by $134,000.
FYI - I typically do not comment on deals right after they are announced because of the fluff/agent factor.
I have not studied this at all, but here is my impression.
The Colts are putting some very large contracts out there. NFL contracts are typically heavily backloaded, and the Colts are no exception.
The danger in this is (IMO):
-If a player is no longer worth the big contract in the later years you would take a dead money hit to cut them
-If the player is still good, but the contract is excessive (I would imagine the reported Freeny deal grows to 15mill or so cap hits in the later years) you may not be able to afford him any longer. You could restructure, but create a bigger issue under #1.
-If you have too many highly paid guys, you must skimp on the rest of your roster. Typically, a few stars and a bunch of jags has not been a winning formula.
Those issues have led other teams into cap hell. My impression is that most cap hells came from overpaying old players on long term deals that they were no where near worth after a year or to.
Cap hell takes a long time to pull out of
My impression of the colts approach is that they are fine with a top eavy roster, with a multitude of cheap young players, late picks, UDFAs etc. I suppose they could go on doing this as long as the win the gamble that their stars will carry them.
Their biggest gamble, IMO, is when you have players with huge cap numbers, they better live up to contract, or you have very little room to manuever your roster and upgrade it.
I think time will tell. I don't think its a forgone conclusion that there is a cap implosion waiting to happen, but I think its a distinct possiblity.