Easier cutting Wilson after NFL’S salary cap boom?
Inflation stings unless you’re an NFL team looking at the new 2024 salary cap.
The league announced Friday the cap for the coming league year is skyrocketing to $255.4 million, a $30.9 million increase from last year that caught teams around the league off guard and supplied them with extra space to operate in roster-building.
Many teams and outlets like Over the Cap had been using numbers in the neighborhood of $242 million as estimates before the NFL’S announcement. Even if some projected higher than that, $255.4 million is still a big number.
“The unprecedented $30 million increase per club in this year’s Salary Cap is the result of the full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season,” the league said in announcing the number.
It has immediate practical implications across every team. For example, OTC had estimated the Broncos at about $24 million over the cap ahead of the start of the new league year and now has the club at $10.7 million over the cap.
The major increase also makes the idea of cutting quarterback Russell Wilson and swallowing $85 million in dead salary cap charges slightly more palatable.
If Denver makes that move, which would more than double the NFL record for dead cap charged to a single player, it has essentially three options:
• Take the entire $85 million on its 2024 books (33.3% of the new cap before any modest amount of rollover Denver has available)
• Take $53 million in 2024 and $32 million in 2025
• Take $35.4 million in 2024 and $49.6 million in 2025
Those numbers still aren’t pretty, but they’re a smaller portion of the cap now than they were yesterday. If Denver is going to cut Wilson, it will do so before his $37 million in 2025 salary becomes guaranteed on March 17.
The cap increase could also mean the Broncos can get compliant ahead of the March 13 deadline without too much work beyond restructuring a couple of contracts.
Denver was in decent position anyway, despite showing about $24 million over, but the extra breathing room certainly won’t hurt. It may not radically change the Broncos’ approach to free agency. General manager George Paton said previously that they didn’t plan to be heavily involved in the first wave, though Paton and head coach Sean Payton could shed more light on that Tuesday when they speak at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
Last year the NFL’S salary cap increased about 8%. This year it jumped 13.6%.
Setting the salary cap also makes the numbers for franchise tags and fifth-year options official. The Broncos are unlikely to use the franchise tag. The fifth-year option number for cornerback Pat Surtain II in 2025 is $19.802 million. Denver has to make a decision on exercising that option in the coming months, but it’s a foregone conclusion the club will do so for the All-pro corner unless it agrees to a long-term extension with him first.