As stated previously I believe the cap should be the same as last year. Why? Because no owner nor player could have anticipated the pandemic, thus they could not game out the future of the team. The players could not do anything to mitigate their 2021 situation say back in 2019 if they knew this was coming. Since they obviously couldn't have this is just not fair.
OWNERS - Sure owners like less payroll, but truthfully what is 20m less to them. It don't want to make light of saving money, but owners are billionaires and they want to win and would pay extra for the chance if allowed - so this lower cap # hurts the team. If the team can't put as good of a product on the field the owners will not save all 20m (assuming 180m) because their game, parking, concession revenues will be lower.
PLAYERS - this lowered cap # really affects the players who are going to be FAs. Just like the owners, players couldn't foresee Covid so more will not be resigned by cash strapped teams. Even worse teams trying to sign these FAs will not be able to offer as much which really sucks for the mid level FAs.
FANS - they too are screwed because strong teams that have a lot of players that need to be resigned NO, SF etc really take it in the shorts. So the product is watered down. Good teams get hurt because of the pandemic which is not fair.
Teams that have multiple expensive stars, dead cap $ like the Rams are really hindered by this tight cap. Just imagine if the cap was 198m we start at almost zero with restructures we have enough to sign jj or Floyd or go out and add one or two key pieces.
I still don't understand why the cap should go down. I understand the math part by the NFL but Covid should make it a mulligan year for the team owners and players. Everyone wins especially the fans.