Osprey wrote:There is a hard cap, but it's a rolling one so some teams have more money in a given year due to savings in a previous one.
Right, there are short-term things you can do to go all in, such as our contract restructures last year and trading future picks for help now. Nobody does the long-term thing. The Browns tried last year and have a ton of picks this year as a result, but Sashi was fired over it and it's a new group reaping the benefits of his austerity. If the Hawks have money to burn then using it on extensions is a great way to go.
The point is that sort of thing is not sustainable and over the long-term the only way to have more talent than your rival is to have players at a better value and that means more rookie contracts and QB contracts and less UFA contracts. That's why I thought the Rams were more talented than we were last year but it's a short term thing and they are already paying for it this off-season as their value contracts start to hit free agency (losing Watkins and Johnson so far this week).