Every year it seems that the most frequently asked questions about football relate to matters of the salary cap. Yesterday we had an excellent post written up by AB83Rules, who runs ninercaphell detailing how much money the 49ers had available to them to address extensions this year and the signing of any possible free agents. 

Of course the big issue with the CBA was how the two sides were going to split the cash. One of the big criticisms of the past CBAs was that teams could theoretically hit the salary cap floor, while still spending way under it. This was frustrating to players who didn't get the contracts they wanted, and I'm sure it was frustrating to the other owners who actually spent money on contracts. With this new CBA the two sides have tried to fix that with new rules for salary cap spending. 

The first thing to understand when looking at salary cap rules with the new agreement is that there are actually three different sets of rules, depending on which year we're looking at. 

2011

Salary cap number is $142.4 million, with $120.375 million being salary and bonuses and the rest benefits  

• Spending in the NFL needs to be at 99% of that number this season. 
  
• This spending is league wide, not on an individual team basis
• One-time bonuses paid this year count towards that league wide 99%, even though those bonuses can be spread out over the course of the player's contract for salary cap purposes.