At the end of the day it's still a hard cap even though there's many ways to manipulate it as the Saints are proving. The trick seems to me is to obviously find your franchise quarterback and instill a solid culture and environment where players want to be there. Then you can sign your own free agents at discounts, ask veterans to pay cuts/contract restructures, attract free agents that may value winning if it means taking a tad less money, and in your case (and hopefully ours) sign a QB that still gets his but is willing to take a little less to keep as much of the team together in order to continue to compete for a Super Bowl every year. The Seahawks, Packers, and Steelers haven't made a Super Bowl since their QB's got paid handsomely despite remaining elite at that position. Even in those circumstances you still have to draft well and develop. The Patriots stopped doing that a couple years before Brady left them because he didn't have any weapons even though they were paying Brady illegally under the table in order for him to take a lower salary.
You also have to maximize the parts of the organization that isn't restricted by cap space. Everything from paying premium coaches, GM's, coordinators, and assistant coaches decent salaries to building and maintaining state of the art facilities.