The Seahawks apparently didn't have anyone worth spending money on last season, carried over $13m, and signed arguably the two best DE's in free agency. That's not a one time thing. Teams can carry over unused cap space next season, and the next, etc...
So, if we have 3M, 5M, or 20M it really doesn't matter at this point.
Sure it does. If we had been magically given an extra ~$20m in cap space, Graham would probably be discussing a new frontloaded deal and we could have probably matched Cleveland's offer to Kruger had we wanted to.
If the team wants to go over a big name guy and spend a ton of money, they can and will regardless of the cap situation. We will make cap room as needed
"Making" cap room now will necessarily sacrifice cap space in the future. Yes, we could sign a guy like Dumervil to a long term deal and fit him under the cap this season, but at the cost of escalating base salaries. That will hurt us in the future. Drew's base salary jumps up significantly in 2015 (which they will be forced to convert to a signing bonus, pushing some hefty dead money into seasons that Drew won't be playing). Graham is going to need a $7m+/yr deal.
but it is essentially worthless to create a ton of cap space if it will go unused.
OK? I don't recall anyone accusing teams of fighting to create cap space that they have no intention of using/carrying over, so I'm not sure why you're harping on that.