It's the cap. That's how it works. It keeps teams from just buying up all the top talent. Why do you think in MLB every single year they pick the Yankees and Dodgers to be in the World Series, and why the Yankees and Dodgers are perennially in the playoffs? The MLB can is not a hard cap like the NFL, they can spend as much as they want, just have to pay a "luxury tax:" on what they overspend on players. The NFL's hard cap gives every team the same amount of money to spend on players so big market teams can't out-spend the small market teams like Jacksonville, Green Bay, etc.
Tired of trying to explain it, it's something you can look up online.