Bob Cook

The supporters of the NFL players’ salary cap have seen the bogeyman, and his name is Baseball. To hear the cap advocates talk, that bogeyman is putting his icy grip on the NFL now that it appears the era of the salary cap may be over. Now it’s fiscal insanity, doom and gloom, just like baseball!

Just like baseball, eh?

You mean the baseball that’s had six different champions the last six years? The baseball that had one division last season with only nine games separating first from last place? The baseball that’s drawing more fans to ballparks than it ever has? The baseball in which some low-wage teams find ways to compete, while some high-wage teams sink like stones? You mean that baseball?

The end of the salary cap, which may drop off in 2007 thanks to passing of a deadline to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with the players, is not going to be the NFL’s armageddon. In fact, it could be a boost to a game that isn't in danger of losing its status as the most popular in America, but is in danger of becoming as aesthetically dull as, if you believe its detractors, the NBA.

The myth of salary-capped football is that every team enters the season with the realistic hope it can win, while few teams in the uncapped world of baseball can say the same thing. That’s not really true. In either league, good organizations who know how to find and develop talent win, while those who cannot, lose. The Arizona Cardinals aren’t going to win no matter if there’s a cap or not. Same with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

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Just because Daniel Snyder decides to buy every player in sight does not make Washington the NFL’s version of the Yankees. If he doesn’t spend his money the right way, if his players don’t mesh, his team becomes the 2003 Texas Rangers, who had three players among the 10 highest-paid in the American League yet finished last in the Western Division.

And just because a so-called “small market” team such as Indianapolis or Cincinnati doesn’t have the population base and corporate cushion of a larger city’s team doesn’t mean it will reside permanently in last place. If it spends its money the right way, if its players mesh, that team becomes the NFL’s version of Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s.

Granted, in an uncapped league, a team might have trouble re-signing players because they leave for more money elsewhere. But already in the NFL, a team often can’t re-sign players, whether it wants to or not.