The official negotiation window begins on March 14th, and from March 16th the free agents can actually sign with new teams. Then amounts in the millions are diligently communicated via consultants and insiders – but what should fans pay particular attention to? And how does cap management actually work in the NFL?
When looking at the cap in public, one often encounters extremes in the first place.
There is actually something between “The cap is just fake anyway”, when the Saints once again not only save 70 million dollars, but can also pay their own free agents dearly, and “Team X has no cap space, so they can don’t act aggressively either”, lots of nuances.
Admittedly, these are often ignored by the official side – for example when looking at contracts. The first number that the consultants pass on to the insiders is usually the absolute best case for their own client. Of course, the consultants want to present their negotiation skills in the best possible way and “five years, 90 million dollars” sounds better than “30 million guaranteed over the first three years, and then we’ll see”.
In both cases, the key to analyzing free agency lies in the detail. This applies to contracts – more on that later – but also to the cap.
The salary cap is not “just fake”. At the same time, in most cases there are actually opportunities for teams to create short-term leeway.
But there are limitations here too, and while New Orleans was able to create some space last year to at least keep its own free agents – buying external improvements was hardly possible in this construct – you will be much more limited here in the Big Easy this year be.
But how exactly can teams actually create cap space? What is important to look out for in contracts? And how does the cap work in the NFL anyway? A pre-launch overview of Free Agency.
How does the salary cap work in the NFL?
The very simple answer here is: The salary cap describes the upper salary limit. The salary cap for a year thus determines how much money can be put into the salaries of the squad that year – from a cap perspective.
This first distinction is important because what the player gets transferred to their account is often drastically different than the number they charge their team’s cap for in the same year.
The CBA – i.e. the agreement between player representation and the league – determines the framework for calculating the cap. The total income generated by the league is divided between the team owners and the players; The cap is distributed from the “player pot”, which is almost 50 percent.
To put it simply: Almost 50 percent of the league’s total income divided by 32 – the number of teams – results in the salary cap for each team.
But that is only the starting point for further calculations for all teams in individual cases. Some teams took cap space with them from the previous year, others have to “pay off” a lot of dead cap – i.e. still open cap hits from players who are no longer under contract.
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