The other day I looked at the teams with the worst salary cap situations which of course brought up a lot of comments on how certain teams can create a ton of cap space through cuts. While projecting cuts to that level is close to impossible we can certainly see what the maximum cap space every team can create via cutting players. So let’s look at the teams with the most and least cap flexibility in 2018.
To estimate the cap space that can be created for each team what we need to do is determine the effective cap space created by a release. Since every player released will be replaced by a player earning at least $480,000 a team is only gaining cap room if a player will save more than $480,000 on the cap, so if the effective cap space created is less than $480,000 we are considering that player “un-cuttable”. These numbers will change in February when certain players have injury only guarantees become fully guaranteed, but for the time being we will consider all players at their current figures. I also want to note that there are some guarantees that have likely voided because of suspensions (Lawrence Timmons, Ezekiel Elliot, etc…) but until I confirm those Ill just keep them as is.
To really better understand the cap health of a team I looked at few categories. The first is the percent of roster that can be cut, which tells us where teams are in regards to being really leveraged by bad contracts and just how far a team would have to gut their roster to reach the numbers here. The average is 74.2%. The next categories tell us the amount of cap room created, the dead money needed to create that space, and a dead to saved to better see how leveraged the team would be with dead money. The NFL averages are $56.7M, $34.6M, and 0.66. The final category was cap space created without releasing any QBs on the roster. The reason I did that separate is because most teams don’t release QBs. There will be exceptions (Bills, Bears, and potentially Chiefs and Dolphins) but as a rule that is money that likely wont exist.
Remember that all these numbers represent the max creation of cap room. If you want a better and more realistic idea of how much cap room you can create use the OTC calculators to cut players on your favorite team that you think are viable cuts. If you would like I can also do another post where we eliminate cuts based on playtime.
One final thing when I have the entire table at the bottom- the cap created is not a teams ultimate cap room it is just how much more they can create. If you want to estimate the max cap room go to our salary cap page for 2018 and add the cap created to the effective cap space number.
Team | Players Cut | Created Cap Space | Created Dead Money | DTS Ratio | Created Cap Space (no QB Cut) |
Raiders | 76.2% | $91,041,021 | $12,760,303 | 0.14 | $91,041,021 |
Bengals | 82.4% | $88,894,200 | $29,690,869 | 0.33 | $75,324,200 |
Chiefs | 77.8% | $82,330,851 | $50,886,265 | 0.62 | $65,810,851 |
Buccaneers | 81.0% | $77,746,024 | $12,115,467 | 0.16 | $77,126,024 |
Titans | 76.1% | $76,004,642 | $18,701,003 | 0.25 | $73,909,642 |
Cardinals | 78.9% | $73,913,620 | $40,356,791 | 0.55 | $60,393,620 |
Packers | 75.0% | $73,194,374 | $28,819,862 | 0.39 | $52,549,374 |
Seahawks | 73.0% | $71,123,844 | $46,538,806 | 0.65 | $64,390,512 |
Steelers | 82.5% | $70,344,061 | $85,269,333 | 1.21 | $58,604,061 |
Bears | 78.0% | $65,918,629 | $20,940,182 | 0.32 | $54,898,629 |
Falcons | 68.3% | $65,642,579 | $29,295,120 | 0.45 | $43,102,579 |
Jaguars | 76.5% | $62,864,639 | $25,557,277 | 0.41 | $44,291,639 |
Patriots | 75.0% | $60,643,398 | $35,189,200 | 0.58 | $53,123,398 |
Rams | 77.5% | $60,153,655 | $26,292,513 | 0.44 | $59,605,877 |
Texans | 74.5% | $58,447,199 | $26,917,018 | 0.46 | $58,212,199 |
Eagles | 72.0% | $57,213,514 | $48,441,513 | 0.85 | $55,343,514 |
Broncos | 75.0% | $56,852,256 | $39,533,881 | 0.70 | $56,584,398 |
Dolphins | 64.3% | $52,120,698 | $38,518,575 | 0.74 | $37,400,698 |
Chargers | 71.4% | $51,626,362 | $34,883,355 | 0.68 | $43,956,362 |
Giants | 74.5% | $49,692,014 | $46,542,603 | 0.94 | $40,372,014 |
Vikings | 70.0% | $48,754,419 | $27,621,106 | 0.57 | $48,679,419 |
Bills | 72.2% | $46,096,498 | $45,598,365 | 0.99 | $37,136,498 |
Panthers | 70.5% | $45,722,356 | $47,112,096 | 1.03 | $39,627,356 |
Colts | 81.6% | $44,562,516 | $33,393,396 | 0.75 | $42,562,440 |
Jets | 65.9% | $43,918,436 | $26,430,742 | 0.60 | $43,693,436 |
Cowboys | 68.2% | $43,658,885 | $45,613,946 | 1.04 | $43,531,401 |
Ravens | 74.0% | $41,645,619 | $45,984,669 | 1.10 | $41,645,619 |
Redskins | 80.0% | $33,755,875 | $49,736,903 | 1.47 | $31,235,875 |
Saints | 69.4% | $33,706,930 | $35,352,611 | 1.05 | $33,631,930 |
Browns | 74.1% | $29,624,788 | $15,900,989 | 0.54 | $29,512,887 |
Lions | 66.7% | $28,985,808 | $20,173,049 | 0.70 | $28,985,808 |
49ers | 70.6% | $28,431,385 | $16,776,330 | 0.59 | $28,356,385 |
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