As I peel back the onion while researching the "new" salary cap variables (CBA and other sites), it appears that the following variables need to be considered and addressed, with these discussions, in order to delineate cap availability for the near and long term:
- Salary Cap Carryover
- Amounts Borrowed from Future Caps
- Base Salary Escalators, such as Likely to be Earned Incentives (team and individual escalators) pages 102-104 of the CBA
- Incremental Cap due to TV rights
http://nfllabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/collective-bargaining-agreement-2011-2020.pdf
There is much uncertainty due to our actual cap number, just like other teams as they wrap up the current fiscal year. Moreover, dealing with our own free agents, and the hard decisions that are to pass, are not local to the Texans, other teams have difficult decisions as well. The aggregate of those decisions is the market, which is undetermined at this point.
Of course, we all have our favorites and the narratives that we conjure up can be biased in favor of the outcomes that we would like to see. This is natural as die hard fans. In the interim, as we and the collective front offices corral clarity in the coming weeks and months there will be plenty of hyperbole and innuendo which will fuel the debate.