[AnotherUnixGeek]

Or if the Niners had handled the cap intelligently. Defered salary sure seemed like a good idea early in the cap era, but it came back and bit every team that used it, and is still biting the Niners because they used it again while they were climbing out of the cap hell they got in the first time.

The 49ers salary cap problems are years in the past - they've been well under the cap for several years now. Their problem now is bad drafts, no free-agent signings of note, and most importantly, incompetent ownership.

[discostu]

Cap hell puts you through a ringer for a while, I know they extended their cap hell situation with more defered salary for another run (that didn't work) in the late 90s. But the additional snowball comes in because of those bad drafts and no free-agent signings of note, that kind of stuff often gets forced because you can't afford better drafts and good free-agents, so then even once the cap debt is paid off you're stuck with a team that stinks and there's generally not enough rounds of the draft or quality free-agents floating around for you to go from a team that well and truly stinks to good.