When Metro traded Amado Guevara for a second Designated Player slot, it was hard to ignore the swirling dollar signs in one's mind. RBNY was just given carte blanche by MLS, we thought. We can sign two great players, and with our Austrian overlords rolling in dough, we will soon see some of the world's best players running around in yellow-circle adorned shirts.

And then, when Claudio Reyna became the team's first Designated Player, the expectations were somewhat curbed. Sure, Reyna is a solid player and brings many positives to the table, but his name was definitely not the one many expected to fill the extravagant slot. But still, there was the second DP. The second slot. Surely, that can be used to sign someone of world magnitude? Red Bull has all the money in the world, right?

Well, it still might happen; the season is still a couple of months away, and then there is that August transfer window that could see some action. But the reality of that DP slot has hit, and it has nothing to do with big names, and everything to do with the salary cap. For as Jeff Agoos said on MLSnet, "right now, we're just not in a position to use our second designated player option." In other words, Metro is capped out.

We will save you from the algebra, but according to our calculations, Metro is less than 150K under the 2.1M salary cap for 2007 with the current roster; this does not include the allocation, supposedly valued at 125K, that they are holding. An allocation can be used to relieve salary cap money, although doing so might put you in salary cap hell down the road; still, if the allocation is fully applied to the optimistic 150K that Metro is under, that gives us a total of 275K; or 50K short of the 325K that second second Designated Player would count for in cap money. And that 50K looks to be best-case estimate, and would prevent RBNY from using the allocation on another player, who in theory could be used to compliment the DP signing.

In fact, if a team is used used both DP slots, the 725K total would take up 34.5% of the 2.1M cap, meaning you only have 1.375M to spend on your other fully rostered players. That essentially handcuffs the team in having better, and therefore relatively expensive players in non-DP positions... The salary cap trap.

So what are the options? Without naming names, there are definitely some players who are supposed to earn more than their worth, and could be given their walking papers. But with team depth one of the biggest problems last year, can Metro really afford to go thin once again?

Trading for allocation money could be an option as well, but to get something, you need to give up something; and giving up any players of value will definitely leave a hole on the roster. And if you're thinking that there are some creative ways to bend the cap, like Red Bull singing a player for a small cap amount but giving him a huge sponsorship deal, it looks like that option is out as well. "Every creative way we've tried to work it has been shot down by the league," Agoos told MLSnet.

Hell, at least we got Claudio Reyna.