What happens if teams are not in compliance by March 2 with the salary cap?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by hooskins

has anything like this happened in the past before?

Not in the first case, but Denver's two super bowls came in years where they were (pretty significantly) over the cap. They didn't get penalized for about 8 years, and then Tags finally decided to take away a pair of mid round draft picks from them--and then give them back the only compensatory 3rd rounder that year.

Pretty good price to pay to gain a competitive advantage for a Super Bowl victory.

I should be clear here--being over the cap is NOT cheating. It's not against the rules. There are just loosely defined consequences for doing so. It was the NFL that dropped the ball (or arguably, turned a blind eye) by NOT putting pressure on the Broncos to comply with cap rules back in 1996.