Greg Auman
NFC South Reporter
The rich have gotten decidedly richer.
Heck, just about every invested party has. The NFL announced Friday that its 2024 salary cap will be $255.4 million, an unprecedented $30 million bump from last season. That’s higher than expected, reflecting the windfall from new TV broadcast deals and the league’s overall health, set to have more than $8 billion in payroll this coming season.
The cap had been set last year at $224.8 million, and there was already an expectation of a healthy increase to around $242 million, with growing buzz last week that it could be closer to $250 million. So to come in at $255.4 million is something like the Oprah meme — you get a raise! You get a raise! Everybody gets a raise!
What does it mean for NFL free agency, set to begin March 13? However ambitiously high teams were anticipating the cap to come in at, they now have more to spend ahead of free agency — more money to keep their best free agents from hitting the market, more money for franchise tags and even extensions for players who aren’t free agents for another year.
Perhaps the only downside is that the influx of cap space ahead of free agency means that fewer marquee names will likely be changing teams — teams can’t make offers to outside free agents until March 11 and can’t sign them until March 13, so the initial beneficiary of the new money will be coveted free agents who could re-sign with their current teams.
The added cap flexibility is welcome news for teams on both ends of the spectrum — top contenders at risk of losing some of their best can now keep more guys in-house, and financially strapped teams who were way over the salary cap now have less digging and restructuring to do in order to get their books right.
Take a step back, and the extra $13 million only works out to about 5 percent of the cap. That won’t trickle down immediately to players already under contract. The ones…
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Publish date : 2024-02-23 20:52:20
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