So everyone is worried about the effect of the uncapped year on the NFL. I am going to make a wild and crazy prediction now: No one will notice. Now that I have made my prophecy, I will just sit back, wait for those with deep pockets to notice my brilliance and cash out when the time is right... It may be a while though, so in the meantime let me explain.
Due to the uncapped year players now have to accrue 6 years of service to the franchise that drafted them instead of 4, before they become unrestricted free agents. Since most rookie contracts run 3-5 years this means that lots and lots of guys who would have been unrestricted free agents are now able to be tagged at a pretty affordable price. Thus, all the good young talent in the NFL is going to be locked down by their respective franchises for at least one more season. Not to say that there will not be a few key players available, Peppers (we already talked about this), Karlos Dansby, some other key players could move by trade, but even with an uncapped year no team will be able to just spend away and get tons of good talent because there is not tons of good talent available, there are a few guys available and lots of lower tier role players.
About now you are asking, well what if Jerry Jones with his deep pockets decided to go after ALL the big names? Well here is a little secret, the teams that finished in the top 8 in the league (participated in divisional round playoffs) can only take in an equal number of and contract values worth of free agents as they brought in. So essentially any team that won a playoff game can make lateral moves at best. Not conducive to getting over the hump. However if Daniel Snyder in Washington decided to go get all the free agents out their then...well he might actually have a playoff team.
Matthew S. Walden
