I don't necessarily agree with that. There are still owners flush with cash regardless of what happens this year. Jerry Jones has more money than he knows what to do with and is still packing in 20000 people a game just to make more. A lot of these owners have other businesses that are still highly profitable in the current times. Hell, I can say for a fact that 3 of Bisciotti's businesses have made more money this year than ever before. They have a portfolio of different stakes in different companies. They're going to be just fine.
Spending as a whole is going to be down but you're absolutely still going to see some big deals being signed. It just might not be as competitive with some of the "smaller market" teams.
I think the "big deals" are going to be in the form of retaining your own players. I don't think because the Jets have $80M in cap space that they're going to go spend $100M+ in cash or more on FA players. I think if they still have $40,50,60M in cap space left as they go into the season, then so be it.
To put in perspective... Dallas, Washington, New England, and the Jets. All four HUGE market teams, lucrative franchises, essentially print money. They, collectively, left over $100M on the table this year. They had the ability to spend that money on salary cap in 2020, and they simply declined to do so. Wasn't an affordability issue. Wasn't a cap space issue. Just simply said "no thank you".
There were 10 NFL franchises in 2020 who spent under the salary cap in CASH spend. Like literally didn't even doll out payroll that matched the salary cap. Among those are, again, a "who's who" of NFL franchises... Washington, New England, both NY franchises, Pittsburgh, KC, Denver and Atlanta, among others.
I made an argument to a friend about how its possible the Eagles cut Carson Wentz even with large amounts of dead money, and even with negative cap savings. Why? Because the owner will save Cash, and thus, profits. The dead cap money has already been spent. Ownership may decide that "hey, I owe him over $47M in cash over the next two years. Maybe I just don't want to pay it". And that's not entirely unreasonable. It'll have roster ramifications elsewhere and obviously will impact how good the team is, but ultimately, its still a business. And $47M is a lot of money to even Billionaires.
Furthermore, put it in business context. These owners are all Billionaires, and many of them were before they got the franchise. Do you think they got that way by pissing away money? You think they got there by spending tens of millions of dollars on employees who aren't providing a positive ROI? No. Despite what the public thinks, these aren't just uber wealthy entitled brats who fell ass backwards into an NFL franchise. Many were titans of industry before, and they'll be titans of industry after.