During the last labor deal -- the one the owners hated -- teams rarely had trouble complying with the salary cap. Now that the owners have struck a more favorable formula for paying players, the fact that more and more teams are pressed up against the cap tells us that it’s a very good deal for the league.
But that’s bad for teams that need to stay on the right side of the spending limit.
Case in point: As Tom Curran of CSN New England points out, only three players consume a whopping 35 percent of the Patriots’ 2013 cap.
The culprits are Tom Brady ($21.8 million), Vince Wilfork ($10.6 million), and Logan Mankins ($10 million).
Restructurings aimed at shrinking one or more of those numbers are possible. Still, until the cap spikes following the impact of the new TV deals, teams will be scrambling to fit all players under a fairly low ceiling, which has barely gone up at all since 2011.