Earlier in the day, we pointed out a statement from Todd Archer’s article regarding the negotiations between the Cowboys and cornerback Terence Newman.

“If NFL owners opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement at their spring meeting today in Atlanta, contracts done afterward would have to follow more stringent salary-cap rules set up for 2010 and beyond,” Archer writes.

The truth, however, is that there’s no magic to the timing of the opt out.  Now that the owners have pulled the plug two years early on the CBA, 2009 will be the last year with a salary cap, and 2010 will have no salary cap, but likewise will have certain specific restrictions applicable to free agency.

And so now all contracts — those negotiated yesterday, today, and tomorrow — will become part of the overall picture that each front office much consider when attempting to comply with the applicable salary cap rules.  This includes contracts signed even before the 2006 CBA extension, when no one knew that 2006 might be the last capped year, or that 2009 might be the last capped year, too.

Moving forward, NFL front offices will have to come up with contracts that comply with the 2008 cap rules, the rules of the last capped year in 2009, and the realities of the uncapped year.  They’ll also have to account for the presently unknown terms of an extension, if an extension is eventually reached.

In other words, it’s got the potential to be a huge mess for every NFL, and it likely makes the league more willing to head to the uncapped year in 2010 after they wade through the bigger mess, which will be the last capped year.

And it all begins in less than ten months.

Tick.  Tock.