The power that the clowns ...

Savvy, but you have to have an owner willing to really back you, not every front office has that. The Raiders, Steelers, Bengals and others can’t operate that way.

In fairness to the eagles they draft well and put the money in the right places usually, and aren’t afraid to move on when they make a mistake, eg Wentz

it does mean you’ll have the odd bad year / reset year or whatever, but so be it

 

My co-worker has a hot blond cousin who married the long snapper for the Eagles.

A very charmed life he lives. Makes great money, great insurance, barely breaks a sweat, not allowed to get hit during his action, travels the country for free, lots of catered meals, pretty women trying to step into your gaze and he runs a camp to teach other kids the fine art of long snapping in the off-season for extra bread.

Not tooooo bad. But there are only 32 of those jobs in the world. Gotta have some pressure to always deliver or there is some whippersnapper there to step in if they are more cool under pressure. I bet once you are out that it’s very tough to get back in. There are no backups in that position.

 

That's not really it, though. Teams cannot kick the can down the road in perpetuity. The layering some are doing with option bonuses now relies on the cap to continue increasing at the aggressive rates it has been since Covid. It's yet to be proven a bad gamble, especially if used with younger players. Sooner or later, though, it will slow down.

As Vox pointed out, the advantage lies with owners that are more independently wealthy (and/or are less restricted by adhering to business practices of old) and can more easily afford the money up front that signing and option bonuses guarantee once signed/triggered.

 

I would take P. A good one can make some coin.

Think practice time too. I think even a 3rd string QB got to practice allot.

 

There is no league mandated cap neutral date so in theory the cap isn't a limitation. I agree that cap inflation will slow but it might not happen for a decade or more. That's a long time to build a roster with upfront cash. There are murmurs that some owners want annual cash spend to have a required cap. I suppose even if they do this some savvy GM will figure a way around it.



The bar chart above shows a visual of the league’s cash spending compared to the salary cap, where you can see the clear spike beginning in 2020. While it looks like cash spending relative to the cap is actually coming down, remember that the 2025 number only counts players under contract on June 5th, with free agents like Von Miller and Aaron Rodgers still looking for a home and pleanty of contract extensions (i.e.: signing bonuses) to be inked between now and the end of the league year.

 

Great post and I was talking about that several week ago in the nfl section in the thread about,the salary cap is fake?