well, there is an argument to be made for a 9-7 team to be better. it all depends on the opponents you played, unless every team played every other team and then determine who is better that way...also, Giants had a lot of injuries that year, once they got healthy, they were a much better team. injuries impact how good a team is or is not (see 2020 when Dak went down or When Brady broke his leg, they had a winning record, but were third in their division and missed playoffs).
unfortunately in the NFL, the bench mark is often measured against the last contract for that position signed, vs. what the team thinks you rank compared to the person that got the contract. its not a value of the service necessarily. so T. Hill contract demand went up after Adams got his contract. so if Adams would have recieved similar contract to Hill, he may have still been with the Chiefs. however, teams have a line they are not willing to cross and Chiefs weren't willing to cross that line with HIll. its not a league standard, each team is different.
I think the revenue sharing actually has helped the NFL. otherwise a few big market teams dominate, the rich get richer and stronger and smaller market teams don't. however, the owners were smart, they knew that by making the league stronger they stand to make more money, the league becoming more popular and as a result the TV contracts get larger. by setting the cap and revenue sharing, it allowed each team the opportunity to compete, thus popularity soared. because more fans of each team were more interested more often and each small market team was also able to tap into the fringe fans when they were doing good, generating more interest.
that revenue sharing model, along with the cap helped make NFL the most popular sport in america.
with that said, there was always the contention of how much money should players make. the players wanted a piece of the pie, helping to grow the league. so the agreement is on a percentage of revenue. which kind of makes sense. it forces the players to go out and put out a good product. there is motivation in that. if there was no revenue sharing and no cap, then a few teams would dominate, pay really high salaries to a few players. a lot of good players wouldn't be able to play in those teams, because there is only so many positions and the players would be forced to play for less in smaller cities. where is the motivation in that?
I am not necessarily a union guy, but I think this model has worked really well for the NFL. the results are obvious. now, idiot GMs like ours aren't able to put out a quality product is another issue. has nothing to do with the model. it has to do with the FO idiocy. no amount of money could fix that.
