[LS]

The problem with your solution is that the NFLPA would complain that again this limits movement, since no team will take that kind of hit.

I agree, the league must find some solution, though, because it's an insult to have teams (year after year) that are 9-7 or 4-12 one year go to the Super Bowl the next. It was a shame that the Ravens had to blow up one of the best NFL defenses ever due to free agency---and I'm no Ravens fan.

[Alberta's Child]

The NFLPA doesn't care about "movement" -- it only cares about movement if it is accompanied by higher salaries. Under today's rules, I can only offer my running back $2.5 million to keep him on my team, which means that any other team would have to offer him $2.5+ million to sign him away (if he is interested in leaving just to play somewhere else, he can simply sign with them for $1.5 million even though I'm offering more). Under my proposed system, I would be able to offer him twice as much money as the current rules allow -- I don't see how the NFLPA could possibly complain about this.

Something else to keep in mind is that "player movement" is exactly what has caused the quality of play in the NFL to decline so much over the years -- there's simply no chemistry on any team these days.

My guess is that the NFLPA would love to consider changes in the terms of the salary cap -- because it turns out that it wasn't all that it was supposed to be. A team that signs a couple of high-priced free agents is often forced to scale back on their offers to other players, and the end result is that salaries for key players have gone up while salaries for most of the NFLPA members are actually quite low -- especially when you consider that they don't have guaranteed contracts. The NFL is the only major professional league that allows teams to "re-negotiate" the terms of a player's contract without any input from the player himself. That's pretty ridiculous, I'd say.

[Alberta's Child]

I hate the Dallas Cowboys, but even I could see that it was a disgrace for that team of the early 1990s to get broken up like that just because of stupid salary cap rules.