Rather than putting a number of posts about restructures, I thought it would be good to just take a quick look at where teams stand with the salary cap as of Monday morning. Team’s have until Thursday to be under the salary cap for the year though almost everyone is now under the cap.
Last week we had about 7 teams that were over the salary cap and most made moves yesterday to get under. Field Yates of ESPN reported that, as expected, Dak Prescott, Julio Jones, Jimmy Graham and Carl Nassib have all restructured their contracts to create cap room for their respective teams. The first three were logical moves and the Nassib one just simply the Raiders needing to find money wherever they could.
Prescott’s restructure creates $5 million in cap room for the Cowboys which should move them to about $4M under when the season begins. There were other candidates but Prescott is clearly going to be in Dallas for a long time while there are probably more questions on Amari Cooper and Demarcus Lawrence.
Jones’ restructure opens up $11.2 million in cap room for the Titans who are now about $5.5 million under. Jones had almost no dead money in his contract after this season so this was an easy decision and easy contract to work with compared to other deals.
Graham’s contract restructure created $4.7 million in cap room for Chicago to get them to $3.7 million under. His contract expires after this season so basically they just borrowed from 2022 when their cap situation is a bit better to move under the cap.
Nassib’s contract was restructured for the second time this year. The Raiders in the last few days have restructured the contracts of Nassib, Yannick Ngakoue, and Nick Kwiatkoski to get under the cap. Currently we have them $750,000 under, but more likely they are $2.25 million under. They had recently signed KJ Wright to a contract with $1.75 million in likely incentives but I would guess they have a condition attached so they do not count on the cap.
The team that has the most work to do is the Giants who are around $6 million over the cap. They will likely need to look at some combination of restructuring the contracts of Jabrill Peppers, Adoree Jackson, Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram, and James Bradberry to get under.
The Rams are listed as $1 million over but they redid Johnny Hekker’s contract already which should move them under. The Falcons probably still need to make a move as they are right around the salary cap limit. The other teams to keep an eye on are the Bills, Bucs, Dolphins and Colts.
Here is a snapshot of the cap space in the NFL right now. Remember that these are fluid and will quickly change as the season approaches.
Team | Cap Space |
Jaguars | $30,473,427 |
Panthers | $21,951,546 |
Broncos | $18,436,886 |
Washington | $14,484,226 |
Chargers | $12,887,377 |
Bengals | $12,069,162 |
Browns | $10,917,556 |
Steelers | $10,035,579 |
Eagles | $9,145,216 |
Jets | $8,513,237 |
Texans | $7,728,924 |
Seahawks | $7,609,898 |
Lions | $7,378,481 |
Packers | $6,625,588 |
Vikings | $5,982,997 |
Titans | $5,612,039 |
Patriots | $5,040,857 |
Cowboys | $4,212,508 |
Cardinals | $4,025,333 |
Bears | $3,648,417 |
Chiefs | $3,288,364 |
49ers | $2,166,910 |
Saints | $2,102,748 |
Colts | $1,787,667 |
Ravens | $1,401,271 |
Dolphins | $1,338,849 |
Buccaneers | $1,185,183 |
Raiders | $726,379 |
Bills | $521,058 |
Falcons | ($61,761) |
Rams | ($955,578) |
Giants | ($6,210,185) |