It looks like there is something to be said for living on a credit card if you make more money next month than you do right now, and paying it off when you have more money. I like the idea of having millions and millions of dollars each year available from next year's increase.

Yup. That's the whole principle behind Loomis' and Hartley's system. In economics and accounting studies we would have related it to present versus future values.

Let's increase the spending limit on our credit cards. We're going shopping!

It looks like there is something to be said for living on a credit card if you make more money next month than you do right now, and paying it off when you have more money. I like the idea of having millions and millions of dollars each year available from next year's increase.

If your goal is to win the most games on average over a long period by assuming the salary cap will continue to rise this could be valid but has some caveats. For instance, spending too much future money can reduce the flexibility to cut bad contracts like Andrus Peat or Michael Thomas because guaranteed money is backloaded and the cap hit is always bigger to cut them than to give them another year, but then over the long term the same keeps being true the next year, and suddenly you have paid a washed up player for many years. But alas, there is another reason it may be a bad idea. Some teams have a goal of championships, not decadal average wins. If your goal is a championship it can be valuable to win a whole lot of games in peak years even if you have some down years in rebuilding. Most consecutive seasons with at least 7 wins is not worth as much bragging rights as an extra ring or two. Because the cap almost always goes up, it seems smart to spend 2024’s money in 2023 and gives you more theoretical resources than a team spending 2023’s money in 2023. But the trouble is you may face a team that did not spend 2023’s money in 2022, but had a solid season anyway, and chooses to spend both 2023’s money and 2024’s money in 2023. We can’t do that because we already spend 2023’s money in 2022, so we either have to spend 2024’s money in 2023 or accept a likely somewhat down year, but either way we are outgunned by a team that is putting more on the line all at once.

What seems smart to me is to focus on freeing up cap when you are not close enough to a ring to be a favorite if you max out the cap, and to max out the cap if you are close enough and it does make you one of the favorites or your window is closing with an aging franchise qb. If you have a young elite franchise qb who will keep you a favorite for years, it can be smart to strike a balance, and wait until the window is closing to max out. Its all about timing. You have to know when to accelerate into the straightaways and put on the brakes a little on the curves.