The front-loading gimmick is more or less irrelevant at this point. We're eating into money we'd otherwise roll-over anyway. So if you sign a new guy and front load him money, that just means you have that much less money to front load other contracts down the road. Because of rollover, the money is all truly coming from the same pot.
Between trading for highly-paid players and signing free agents, Dorsey actually went on a rather massive spending spree this offseason. Arguably, we've already got too much money tied up in players other than primary edge rusher, left tackle, No. 1 corner, and QB, and the only reason we could afford that is because we have those critical positions for cheap. But the day is going to come when we have to pony up for those guys, andany money we can roll over into those future seasons is going to be badly needed.
I don't blame Dorsey for what he did -- I think he made the right call in spending bucks now. But we really need to start spending smart from now on.