Everything in finance is about picking a side in a "money now for the chance of more money later" proposition. Accounting (particularly accrual accounting) helps you keep score, but you don't get something for nothing.I agree, and that's part of the point I was trying to make above. Even cash-rich owners can't operate as if the cap doesn't matter, eventually it catches up with them. The cap is accounting, but in the real world bad accounting can get you thrown into jail, and in the NFL it can get you into the position the Bucs and the Rams now find themselves in.
The point some in the media are trying to make is there is always some team that can sign Player X if they want to, the cap is not the reason why that binkie is not being signed. That's true, but also teams are not signing Player X because they don't think Player X is worth the money he is asking for, and the reason why the can't just pay him what he wants eventually boils down to the cap. Some in the media portray this as an excuse, and perhaps it is. It's easier to tell your fans that you aren't signing the binkie because of the cap, instead of telling that player, his agent, and the world that they think that player isn't worth the money he's asking for. Yet there is some truth behind the excuse, cap does eventually matter, just ask the Bucs and the Rams.
That said, I do sometimes wonder whether some teams' cap accounting uses a too-conservative present value for the deferred amounts given the history of continual growth in the cap. Miguel: if you're reading this, how accurate have past projections of future cap limits been given the seemingly perpetual growth in cap limits? Have the Pats proven to be conservative, realistic or aggressive in their history of cap limit projections?












