Of the six players on the current Buffalo Bills roster with 2002 salary cap values of more than $2 million, only one of them, sixth-year veteran tackle Pat Williams, lines up on the defensive side of the ball.

That factoid doesn't completely explain why the Bills rank No. 4 in the NFL in total offense, and just 22nd on defense, but it's a good place to start when trying to determine how a franchise could be so explosive in one area and so implosive in another. In the era of the salary cap, it is too difficult to stretch the dollars to every facet of the game, to share the wealth everywhere.

The result: Lopsided teams that are brilliant in one aspect and are butchers in most other phases of the game.

"The game comes down to tradeoffs anymore, financial and otherwise, but, sure, mostly more about finances than about anything else," acknowledged Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay last week. "Sometimes you just have to make a choice. It's hard to be good at everything these days. So if you can have one side of the ball that dominates, sometimes you go for it."

While the Colts aren't as dominant offensively in 2002 as they have been in recent seasons -- their much-maligned defense actually ranks higher (No. 8) statistically than the offense (No. 14) at the midway point of the season -- the club still offers a good example of a lopsided payroll.

	“	Sometimes you just have to make a choice. It's hard to be good at everything these days. So if you can have one side of the ball that dominates, sometimes you go for it. ”
		— Jim Irsay, Colts owner

The club's "Big Three" -- quarterback Peyton Manning, tailback Edgerrin James and wide receiver Marvin Harrison -- have aggregate salary cap values that account for 25 percent of the Colts' expenditures. The six highest-paid players on offense total $26.2 million in cap room, representing nearly 40 percent of the NFL spending limit. There is only one defensive player, end Chad Bratzke, with a cap value higher than $2 million.

If the Colts are a good example of loading up on one side of the ball and just trying to get by on the other, they are hardly the only franchise that has taken such a tack, officials from other teams agree. The cap and free agency have made it flawed, but also fashionable, to seek out one area of dominance and try to capitalize on it. Rare is the roster anymore, it seems, that can be termed "complete." Well-rounded rosters have all but become obsolete and the concept of being solid throughout all aspects of the game is arcane.

At the two-day league meetings in New York last week, representatives of several teams allowed that having to financially compensate three or four high-profile players means cutting corners in other areas. It is the modern-day sports equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul, they agreed, and it often means one side of the ball will suffer.

The other contributor is free agency, which has slowed in recent springs, but still creates enough relocation to obliterate continuity. Teams often cannot afford to replace a departed veteran with a player of similar quality, and are forced to cut and paste, a process that destroys cohesiveness. "A lot of times, you just try to keep one side of the ball together, because it's about all you can do," said Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver.

Then again, the emphasis on one area is hardly new to the game, although the disparities and the inconsistencies of this bizarre 2002 campaign have magnified the problem. There have, however, been some similar instances in recent years.

When the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl title two years ago, they featured a record-setting defense that dominated not only on the field, but at the pay window as well. The combined salary cap values for the Ravens' 11 defensive starters doubled those of the offensive starters. As recently as '98, the Minnesota Vikings had three offensive backups with larger cap values than eight of their defensive starters.

Only two teams in 2001, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, ranked in the top 10 on both offense and defense. Over the past five years, fewer than three teams annually had two top 10 rankings in the same season. Since the start of the free agency system in 1993, there has never been a season when more than four franchises had top 10 finishes on both sides of the ball, and the average is a shade under three.

Some team executives have argued that such disparities are more foresight than short-sightedness, that they identified early on the flaw in a system that precludes completeness in roster composition, and simply attempted to jump ahead of the learning curve. Given the paucity of teams able to maintain a sense of equilibrium throughout the roster, they might have a point, although most clubs would prefer balance.

"But these days (balance) is that rarest commodity," said one AFC assistant general manager. "Everyone talks about it, but it's out of reach, in a sense. Really, how many teams are there right now who are good on both sides of the ball, huh?"

Answer: At the midway point of the season, using just raw statistics as a measuring stick, only three. The Denver Broncos, Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots are the only teams in the league to rank statistically among the top 10 in both offense and defense. On the flip side, there is an abundance of clubs at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

The Kansas City Chiefs, third overall on offense, are statistically the worst defensive unit in the league. Carolina is No. 4 defensively but third from the bottom on offense. The Dallas Cowboys stand at No. 7 on defense but their anemic offense is 27th overall. The Vikings are No. 2 offensively and No. 30 on defense.

That the polarization has garnered so much attention in 2002, it seems, is at least partly attributable to the wild performance swings obvious over the first half of the campaign. In a season when power rankings are revisited every week anymore, it is only reasonable to try to identify the genesis of all the inconsistency, and the imbalanced roster is suddenly a spotlight item.

A few personnel chiefs emphasized, however, that the salary cap and free agency aren't the only culprits responsible for such lack of balance. There are some teams where the imbalance can be attributed to coaches, those who insist on stacking one side of the ball, other clubs where franchises simply are performing better than anticipated in one area.

What is undeniable, though, is that the league features precious few teams of balance in 2002.

Said one NFC head coach: "It's like trying to win with one arm. But that's just what the league is right now."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.