Well, the issue with rising and good teams is knowing who to keep and who is good but easily replaceable. To me, players like Lee Evans and Jason Peters are indispensable. They deserve the big bucks. You pay your stars, and you're going to have to let some players walk. That is players like Greer and Crowell. They are both nice players and add to the team, but are easily replaced via FA or the draft, so you don't break the bank for them. I'd like to keep Greer, but with youboty coming on and mckelvin waiting in the wings, theres no reason to pay the Greer 5-6 mil per year he'll get on the open market.
Look how the colts do it. They pay their superstars big bucks to stay around, but this means you have to let decent players walk for more money elsewhere. They're constantly losing players, but they lose them at easily replaceable positions like LB.