During the NFL offseason, teams make a multitude of player personnel decisions. Several factors matter in the decision to retain, restructure, or cut a player, but perhaps none have as large an impact as a player’s impact on the salary cap.
I realized, as much as I hear about the NFL salary cap, I really didn’t understand why it was necessary and how it came to be. Salary caps are used mainly for two reasons: maintaining league parity among teams and controlling operating costs for league franchises.
Back in the days of the All-American Football Conference of the 1940s, the Cleveland Browns, yes the Cleveland Browns, were so dominant that no other teams could compete with their level of spending and ability to hoard the league’s best talent.