The draft is the single most effective and cost-efficient way for franchises to replenish their roster. While the 1st round gets most of the headlines, the subsequent rounds are where teams can pick up young contributors at minimal cost. Leading up to draft day, this makes discussions about depth charts and draft needs important, but there is one aspect that is often overlooked.
You can guarantee that when GMs and their staffs write names on those cards, they have looked at more than just the shape of their depth chart. They must consider their upcoming free agents (both next offseason and the offseason after that), their possible and likely cuts in coming seasons, and not just how their roster looks currently, but how it is likely to look in 6 months, a year, or even 3 years.
This aspect is even more crucial for the best teams in the league. Those teams often have more highly-paid talent on their roster, and thus less cap space. This makes re-signing valuable veteran contributors more difficult. They also usually have fewer immediate holes in their rosters, meaning they can afford to look at near-future roster problems, and use the draft to try and extend their Super Bowl window. Once they have a core of great talent, teams are not merely content with one year of success, they want to build around that core and maintain the balance of their roster. Keeping an eye on contract and cap situations is an important part of that.
In this article, I will go through some of those contending teams (if your team is not on here, it does not mean I rule them out as a contender!) and see where their contract & cap situation may indicate potential moves on draft day.
Minnesota Vikings
Guard
New Orleans Saints
After exercising Andrus Peat’s 5th year option, the Saints will have some of the lowest cap space in the league for 2019, but their 2019 class of free agents will not feature many cap-munching extensions. Mark Ingram will be playing to push into that 2nd tier of RB contracts (he should thank Jerick McKinnon) but that’s about it.
Tight End
Linebacker
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams lack a top-86 pick in this draft so they’ll just be in a position to maximise their return from those later picks. So take any “needs”, and how they might address them, with a grain of salt. However, it’s still interesting to look at their cap situation for the near future.
They currently have a lot of cap space set aside for 2019, but they will need every penny of that as an immense amount of talent becomes due for extensions (or 5th-year options). Todd Gurley, Aaron Donald, Ndamukong Suh, Lamarcus Joyner, Rodger Saffold, Marcus Peters, Brandin Cooks – there’s a lot of production in that list. With $99 million in cap room for 2019, they should be able to fit most of those in, if not all, but it may take some clever structuring. Their situation shows the extreme benefit of having a solid starting quarterback at such a cheap price.
New England Patriots
Wide Receiver
Tight End
Jacksonville Jaguars
This salary cap aspect of draft discussions might just be the most applicable to the Jaguars, as they are currently $16 million OVER the cap for 2019, and will have some hard decisions to make on free agents down the road.
Wide Receiver
Running Back
Pittsburgh Steelers
Edge Rusher
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles have a lot of money committed over the next few seasons relative to the league average, however they also have just one top-100 pick in the draft. Due to that, I doubt they will be picky on needs, they will probably prefer to just take the best players they can get, as almost all of their picks are in the 4th-7th rounds.
Edge Rusher
Linebacker
Will Eddowes is a 21 year old college student from New Zealand. Will is in his fourth year of study at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, pursuing degrees in law and economics. Despite living so far away from football, Will has developed a strong passion for the game, particularly the front office aspects of salary cap analysis and team building/scouting. Follow Will on Twitter @WillEddowesNFL
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