NOF: Saints in position to get under the cap with ease and create another $30+ million in cap space to add new players

St. Widge said
That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that those owners want to keep their player costs as low as possible so they can make as much money as possible. I think all owners would rather win than not (in part because winning teams make more money), but some look at owning a NFL team as an investment and opportunity to make money where as others care more about winning. A lot of the teams with all that flexibility have owners that care more about the money and others only care to win enough to maximize profits while keeping the player cost as low as possible. The salary cap allows owners to guarantee certain amounts of profit as long as you don't do things to actually spend more than the cap allows. And they can make even more by staying far under the cap.

The CBA has a cap floor that requires all teams to spend 89% of the cap over a 4 years period. Can a cheap team save a little more money spending less? Sure. In reality the 11% they'd gain in salaries over that 4 years period is less than they'd gain if they spent 95-100% and their teams were good. If the Saints were good, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. Our problem is that our roster is the most expensive in the league AND not even good enough to get to the playoffs in the weakest division in the league and with the one of the easiest schedules on record.