NFL analyst: Bears' cap not an indication of big spending originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
One of, if not the biggest, talking points of the Chicago Bears' offseason is their cap space.
The Bears have the most cap space and financial flexibility heading into the season of spending. According to Over the Cap, they have ~$92 million in cap space to work with. The team with the second-most money on hand is the Atlanta Falcons with ~$56 million.
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So, clearly, the Bears have a lot of room to spend money, in contrast with other teams.
RELATED: How Bears projected cap space went from $118M to $93M
But, what does this mean for the Bears? What does cap space do?
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"Every year, as someone who's done this, people don't understand this stuff and they think, you know, I would tell agents and I would tell people asking – don't worry about the cap." Andrew Brandt said to Mully & Haugh on 670 The Score. "Let me worry about that. The cap is not money. People have to understand cap does not equal money. Cap equals accounting. That's all it is. It's accounting."
"The key is what's the cash? If you're an agent, if you're a team, what's the cash? Forget about the cap. What's the money going to the player in year one? Year two? Year three? What's the guarantee? What's the structure? How much is it going to get over three years? Which is the realistic timeframe for these contracts? Cap is just pushing around money."
To Brandt's point, the name of the game for the Bears this offseason is budgeting.
Plenty of times in history, teams flex cap money to the backend of NFL contracts, causing them a whirlwind of hell in the future. This is the travesty Ryan Poles and the front office needs to avoid – placing the organization in a future financial fiasco.
Just because the Bears have a big allowance, doesn't mean they should blow it all this summer.
"Cap does not prevent teams from spending, and teams with a lot of cap does not make them spend. It's all budgeting. That's all it is." Brandt said.
"If you have it like the Bears to push around, you can keep it, you can load it, you can pay as you go. If you're a team like the Rams or the Bucs or the Saints, you're in this vicious cycle of pushing out."
