Totally. The salary cap is a joke, its basically the QB salary, and everyone else....
I also dont know how much money Brady gave up. There's all sorts of stories about them paying him on a side deal for the merch sold at the stadium
They basically gave him the space to set up the TB12 facility and were reimbursing them for treating players...essentially outsourcing a fair bit of the team's rehab which wasn't cheap, bet on that.
Should have been totally against the rules, but w/e.
I suggested that they should have done the same with Suh who wants to be a magnate after football. Have him start a construction company that ONLY does Habitat for Humanity homes. Doesn't even have to do more than a few homes a year. A year or two after Suh retires, Kroenke's real estate business in a private purchase buys the construction company as a means of "focusing more on giving back to the community", they expand it a bit and pay exorbitantly for the company... essentially funneling tens of millions to Suh in a deferred manner.
Not supposed to be legal, but apparently, it's okay.
As for QBs salary, I think they oughta do a hybrid CAP with a single NBA element. Rather than have to fuss with rookie contracts and "the window" which is an unnecessary meta game, they could remove the QB's salary from the cap and then institute a Max Salary for QBs external to the cap. This makes any QB salary negotiations purely about salary with no cap impact. A highly effective veteran QB doesn't decimate a team and it doesn't really change the dynamic of the cap as the QB cap could be set at like $35M with Mahomes and Watson grandfathered in. The precedent was set in the new CBA when they severely cut the contracts for 1st round picks, especially rookie QBs.
The net effect may be for a few middling QBs to get a bit extra and it might affect a few vets like Suh who've done the merc deal playing for temporary high deals, but overall, the league wide stability would be worth it. Teams could still use the cap like Snead or pay as they go, but the cap wouldn't be held hostage by the QB's salary and conversely, the QBs aren't in a position to put their individual interests and the team's interests at odds.
