Teams that are currently in the red for 2024

[MightyGiants]

Free agency is approaching.   When you look at potential free agents, if they come from a team currently in the red, they are far more likely to actually make it to free agency (ie their current team doesn't re-sign them or tag them).   So here are the teams in the red (effective negative cap space)

Saints (-88 million)
Dolphins (-55 million)
Chargers (-55 million)
Bills (-54 million)
Broncos (-28 million)
Steelers (-20 million)
49ers (-12 million)
Seahawks (-9 million)
Packers (-7 million)

Note the Jets have just 366 thousand in cap space

[bighitterdalama]

Thanks Rich. Do you have a link, or is this your own research?

[MightyGiants]

Thanks Rich. Do you have a link, or is this your own research?

I use Over the Cap, and I look at the effective cap space numbers rather than the current cap space.  Effective cap space includes a full 53-man roster while cap space can look bigger for teams with less than 53


https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space

[uconnjack8]

This article on overthecap.com is relevant to the discussion.  I do wonder if using void years will come back to bite any of our rivals in the @ss.

https://overthecap.com/creating-cap-space-by-extending-players-with-void-years

[MightyGiants]

This article on overthecap.com is relevant to the discussion.  I do wonder if using void years will come back to bite any of our rivals in the @ss.

https://overthecap.com/creating-cap-space-by-extending-players-with-void-years

Void years are but one of many tools available to borrow cap space from future years.  Many of the people covering the salary cap often get hung up on issues that, from the pure salary cap, are meaningless.  Many obsess over which player is used to borrow money, but in reality, the ONLY thing that matters is how much money is borrowed, not the player used to borrow the money.  Same with what tool is used to do the borrowing.

The only things that matter when it comes to salary cap:

Players salary for a given season (can be asked to take a cut if high enough)
Contracts signed and, more importantly, guarantees
Pay cuts players accept
How much future money is borrowed
To a lesser degree, dead cap space (it's sort of factored in but teams struggle more if this number is consistently high)

[Painter]

I use Over the Cap, and I look at the effective cap space numbers rather than the current cap space.  Effective cap space includes a full 53-man roster while cap space can look bigger for teams with less than 53


https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space

I thought that Effective cap is based on the cost of the top 51 players plus the estimated cost of signing the team's Draftees. At this point, there is a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the comparisons, especially when creative cap management accounting starts to occur- for better or worse- but it is a good place to start indeed the only place until the League Year begins in the middle of March.

Cheers!