The Patriots are in VERY strong cap shape going forward. Next year we will have sufficient money to sign and re-sign free agents, and to extend veterans.
Going into this off-season the Patriots were in danger of having so much extra cap space that they would be unable to use it effectively. We have been very fortunate.
With the conclusion of the (extremely flexible) Stallworth signing, I think that they are just about at the sweet spot.
Even if we make a big mistake (AD goes bust for example) we still have the cap space flexibility to compensate for this.
I think that the 2007-2009 Patriots are likely to compare favorably top the 2003-2004 Patriots in terms of the talent that we put on the field. And we still haven't done anything to compromise our competitiveness beyond that (although we'll have to resign some interesting veterans).