Why a Soft Cap Is Not Really a Cap
Under a soft cap, exceeding the cap number is a normal condition rather than a violation. A team over the cap can still re-sign its own players, still has a mid-level exception to add someone from outside, and can still trade if the salaries involved fit defined rules. The consequence of being over is financial: a luxury tax bill that scales as payroll rises, so spending becomes progressively more expensive rather than prohibited.
The design intent was to let teams keep the players they developed while making sustained excess costly. In practice it meant the ceiling on team building was an owner's tolerance for a tax bill, which is not a level playing field. Franchises with larger revenue bases, or owners willing to run at a loss for a title window, could pay through the penalty while others could not. A soft cap prices behaviour; it does not forbid it, and pricing only constrains those for whom the price is real.
