By Greg Fuchs
The NFL free agency season is upon us. It’s an exciting time of year for fans and teams alike. Teams can start negotiating with players as of noon on Monday March 15, although the contracts aren’t official until the start of the formal NFL year on March 17.
Rumors and signings will be aplenty with Lion’s wide receiver Kenny Golladay being one the big names available along with Tampa Bay Bucs pass rusher Shaq Barrett. And there are plenty of other wide receivers besides Golladay to choose from with JuJu Smith-Schuster, Will Fuller, Corey Davis and Curtis Samuel just a few of the elite wideouts that are available.
Some potential free agents have already been hit with the franchise tag, but there is still a bevy of players at all positions available. In fact, a perusal of the Top 100 free agents includes many a familiar name that most teams would love to have, assuming they could fit them under the salary cap.
Ahh, the salary cap. The dreaded NFL salary cap. In 2020 it was $190 million and a year ago pre-Covid it was expected to be around $200 million for the 2021 season. But due to reduced league revenues because of Covid during the 2020 season, the salary cap for each team is only $182.5 million this season. Hence teams have about $18 million less than they expected.
As a result, many teams find themselves in a challenging position, as all teams must be at or below the $182.5 million cap figure by Wednesday. Therefore, many a team over the next several days will be freeing up cap space by releasing or trading players or restructuring contracts.
One team that finds itself in a precarious position is one of the teams that was in the NFC Championship game this past season – the Green Bay Packers. They are currently $1 million under the cap, but they just re-signed running back Aaron Jones to a $48 million 4-year deal so they will need to restructure some contracts in the next few days in order to fit that contract under the cap. How much cap money, if any, they will have available to sign free agents, whether it be their own free agents or players from other teams remains to be seen.
And the Packers’ Corey Linsley, who is arguably the best center in the league, is also a free agent and will command an average salary of $12-$15 million a year.
To make matters worse for the Packers, they also have to keep in mind that they will need to allocate about $9 million for their 2021 draft class. Although it’s not an issue they will need to address by Wednesday they will need to eventually address it which really means that instead of being $1 million under the cap, they are in effect $8 million over the cap prior to signing Jones.
So how did the Packers get in such a salary cap quandary? Well, let’s look at their top 3 players. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has 2021 cap hit of $37.5M. Defensive end Za’Darius Smith counts $21.5M against the cap while wide receiver Devante Adams has a $16.8M cap figure. That is $75.8M in total for 3 players. So, 3 players on their 51-man roster are accounting for 42% of their 2021 cap space! How can a team remain competitive when 6% of the roster is absorbing 42% of the cap space? It’s crazy!
The Packers will assuredly be looking for ways to increase their cap space in the next few days, but it is likely Linsley has played his last game as a Green Bay Packer.
For another example, look no further than the team that has played in the Super Bowl the past 2 seasons. The Kansas City Chiefs lost the Super Bowl back in February because they couldn’t protect QB Patrick Mahomes, primarily because their 2 starting offensive tackles were injured and didn’t play in the game.
So, what did the Chiefs do this past week? They released both of those players to save $18M in cap space. I’m not sure how the Chiefs plan to protect Mahomes in 2021, but I do know that their top 5 players comprise 53% of their cap space! Once again, how do you remain competitive when so few players are taking up such an extraordinary amount of your cap space?
That’s a question Dallas Cowboys fans should be concerned with in light of the recent signing of QB Dak Prescott to a 4 year $160M deal. Due to the structuring of the contract, his cap hit will only be 14% of their cap space in 2021, but it quickly escalates to 23% of their cap space for the 2023 season. Cowboys’ fan should be prepared to wave goodbye to Ezekiel Elliott and Amari Cooper in the near future.
For the Dolfans out there, Miami is in fairly good shape with about $33M in cap space available and I assume they will do some things over the next 48 hours to increase that number to help them fill the multiple holes on their roster.
So how did many/most NFL teams get into this salary cap mess? They only have themselves to blame, as the contracts they have been giving out to elite QBs, pass rushers, WRs, cornerbacks and offensive linemen has escalated considerably over the past several years. Heck, Patrick Mahomes has a contract that averages $50M a year!!!
So how much is too much, and will anything change? Yes and no. The elite players will likely still get their money as the owners, General Managers and fans love the big-name star players. As for the remaining 45+ players on the roster – they will be left to fight over the remaining salary cap crumbs. And teams will continue to release players and restructure contracts in the ever-evolving salary cap shell game.
That said, as an NFL fan, I am still looking forward to the free agent frenzy, the draft in late April and the 2021 season! After all, it’s not my money they are spending.
