I don't want to be in cap hell like some of these franchises are. But come on, it's a pretty hard sell to your fanbase overall, and esspecially your season ticket holders whom you just jacked up prices on, to be like:
"Yeah well, we couldn't make a move at the trade deadline and make an upgrade at a given position because we need to roll over $21 million in cap space for next year."
Trying to sell the fans and paying customers on the fact that you believe cap flexibility over the long term is more important than making a push to upgrade your talent when possible and win a Super Bowl this year is a hard sell. Every fan who watched that Minnesota game knows our offensive line is depleted with Christian Mahogany out and Decker banged up. They know that it didn't look that great before those injuries happened. I think most fans want an upgrade somewhere on this team, but in particular, on the offensive line after watching the game on Sunday and the resulting injuries and poor play by the offensive line. If Holmes does nothing and just sells the fan base cap flexibility, you're going to (rightly) have a lot of frustrated fans and paying customers.
Trusting the process is one thing, I think most fans do trust Brad's process on the whole, myself included. But when all your competition around you is actively making some kind of move to get better and you're not, that's a tough one to watch and then be sold on.