With multiple teams planning to impose their own salary caps once the league-wide salary cap goes away in 12 days, Browns G.M. Tom Heckert says that his new team won’t apply an artificial spending limit, according to Tony Grossi of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
But it may simply be a matter of semantics aimed at avoiding allegations of collusion; Heckert says that the Browns will “spend what we think we need to spend and be smart about it.”
The danger of spending too much comes from the possibility that salary cap will be back as soon as 2011.
“You just have to be smart,” Heckert said, “how you allocate money and be prepared for what’s going to happen in the future . . . which is unknown.”
The uncertainty works to the advantage of ownership, since it provides a legitimate reason for not spending too much in the uncapped year. A new CBA could contain terms that will make it more difficult to proceed with contracts negotiated in 2010, making it more reasonable and prudent to find a way to commit to less spending once the free-agency period opens.
